Some people are born on a motorbike, little baby fists firmly around the handlebar. For others, it’s a late calling. As for me, I’d sooner look for earplugs than for a helmet when I hear screeching tires. At least until recently. Since I climbed on a moped in Asia, I too feel motor oil pumping through my veins instead of blood.
“In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realise that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.”
(Robert M. Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values)
The sun breaks through the clouds as I climb on my Honda Vario, ready to leave the mountain village of Dieng behind me and to rush through the gorgeous landscapes of Central Java. I can use a touch of warmth. It’s cold at 2000 metres altitude, even wearing a raincoat. However, the view makes up for the suffering. It’s the kind of view that deserves a postcard. Volcanic colossi kiss the sky, while the ever impossibly green rice paddies gleam in the valley. I realise there’s no bigger freedom for me than driving in these hills around Yogyakarta, that these landscapes have become my home and that I’m about to leave that home behind. That feeling overwhelms me to the point that I want to cry on that motorbike.
But I don’t. Motorcyclists don’t cry. Instead, I yank the throttle confidently. I let the wind play with the wild hairs escaping from underneath my helmet and yelp like a wolf with excitement. I take my chances on a long, straight stretch., bracing myself and pulling the throttle until there’s nothing to pull anymore. The needle of the speedometer slowly shakes towards 75 kilometres an hour. Yi-haa! My top speed! You’re smiling, dear reader. Sure, you’re welcome to do so. You’re a speed demon that eats tarmac for breakfast. At that speed, you comb your hair in the rearview mirror. But just realise that 75 kilometres an hour is terrifyingly fast for someone who, until recently, exclusively associated ‘cc’ with ‘carbon copy’. Here’s how things changed.
Afraid on an e-bike
On my first day in Bangkok, I walked around the Chinatown area of the city, undoubtedly looking rather lost because a pony-tailed Thai in an orange fluorescent jacket halted next to me. He held up six fingers and pointed to the back of his motorcycle. Sixty bath for a ride back to Khao San Road. I hesitated for a moment. I’m not afraid to admit that I was scared to death.
At the same time I realised that, travelling alone, motorbike taxis would be the cheapest way to get around in the city. I felt my ragged feet scream with pain and, as darkness descended, I jumped on. No need for a helmet, welcome to Asia! Zigzagging through Bangkok’s madhouse traffic felt like the biggest kick I’d had in a while. And weren’t kicks the reason to come to Asia in the first place? Little did I know that soon I would be doing the driving.
A German backpacker convinced me a couple of days later to rent a moped and do the ‘loop’, a trip around Chiang Mai that would take me to paradise waterfalls. Once again, I was terrified about the idea. I knew my driving skills, or to be more precise: the lack thereof. The last time I had driven any kind of motorised vehicle – some sort of golf cart – had almost ended in bloodshed. No, as a bloke without a driver’s licence, I was even afraid to get on an e-bike. And that same guy would now drive his own moped, on the left side of the road, in traffic that could make the craziest Italian Vespa daredevil choke in his morning espresso? Get out!
It came as no surprise that I exited the city at a speed that would put a tortoise to shame. Other motorcyclists, tuk-tuks and cars constantly overtook me. Maybe it was my imagination when I thought I saw a toddler on a tricycle in the corner of my eye. That evening I returned to the same city as a different man. For starters, I was going mostly with the flow of traffic. I felt genuinely happy about having faced one of my fears and, more surprisingly, actually having found enjoyment in driving.
Thailand tattoo
The beginning of a beautiful love affair? Not yet. For the remainder of that 3-month trip, I didn’t drive anymore. And the longer I didn’t feel a motorcycle between my buttocks, the more scared I got again. I saw so many foreigners with nasty, infected wounds on elbows and knees. These so-called ‘Thailand tattoos’ were clearly the result of motor accidents. In Vietnam, somebody told me the story of a Dutch boy who broke his leg after crashing with a bike.
On Koh Chang, I heard a tourist brag about his driving experience, just to see him drive the machine from the hangar of the rental place straight into the shop on the other side of the road. The rental agent asked if he was okay and whether or not he was sure about renting a motorbike. Koh Chang was hilly and maybe not the best place for beginners. But the tourist confirmed that he was sure. A bystander who’d observed the incident calmly proclaimed: “He is going to die today.” Now, I have no idea what happened to that overconfident tourist, whether or not he flew back to his homeland in a body bag. But I do know that the incident killed the last desire in me to tame such a machine of death.
That feeling hadn’t waned when I moved to Indonesia for a year. The idea to drive a motorbike still gave me flashes of horror, but it didn’t stop me from climbing on the back of motorcycles of those friends with less fearful hearts. The most notable of those occasions was in Banda Aceh, the city in the most northern tail of Sumatra that was wiped off the map by a tsunami in 2004. After enjoying a midnight snack in Obelix Burger, three buddies and I were headed home on two mopeds when a bald man pulled up next to us. He was ugly as the night and, based on the look in his eyes, he obviously did not mind an amphetamine tablet every once in a while.
Grinning sardonically, he stood up on his motorcycle and showed us the gigantic knife behind his belt. It was like a scene from a bad horror film. My friends turned into a side street, the attacker followed. At high speeds and without helmets we dashed through the back alleys of Banda Aceh, some of which were barely wider than a hospital corridor. One steering error and I could’ve reserved that body bag. Three little prayers later, however, we found ourselves back at Obelix. Fortunately, the place hadn’t emptied yet. My driver braked abruptly, the villain roared past us. My comrades called all their friends and in convoy, like wimpy Hells Angels, we left the scene of trouble.
Little horse
The longer I was in Indonesia, the more I felt like a butterfly without wings. Only a Zen Buddhist on Valium would survive public transport in Asia. You have to be okay with half an hour detours with the sole purpose of dropping off a wrinkled grannie in front of her house or delivering a few bags of rice somewhere. As an oversized westerner, I had to make impossible body twists and turns just to crawl into minivans made for small Indonesians. Even with heaps of patience and a yoga course, I couldn’t get everywhere.
No, it started to dawn on me: if I didn’t get a motorbike, I wouldn’t count in Indonesia. Not only was it a status symbol, but you also simply needed it in this country, at least according to the local population. Put an Indonesian on a moped and no task is too difficult. Moving a large couch, carrying thick, four metre long bamboo stalks over a gravel path or making a trip with the whole family? No problem! It was not exceptional to see five people on one bike: father driving, a child standing on the footrest in front of him, mother behind father, breastfeeding a baby, and an extra child in between mom and dad. An Indonesian typically used his moped for any distance, so also to buy cigarettes at the corner shop.
My mobility problem solved itself when a woman appeared in my life. At that time, Anete already hired a motorcycle that she affectionately called Suksu, Estonian for ‘little horse’. Of course, I couldn’t bear the thought that my girlfriend had bigger balls than me and I decided to go for another ride. Suksu was, after all, no more than a kindergarten moped, an automatic Honda Vario that didn’t require shifting gears. Just accelerate, brake and keep your balance, how hard could that be? Soon, we formed a great team, Suksu and I, and I went nowhere without her. On that bike, nothing else mattered besides that intense burning sensation of being alive.
O sweet freedom
Only when I started to ride the motorcycle did Yogyakarta, where I lived, truly become mine. Anete and I usually had the weekends off, so we threw some clothes in a backpack, had a quick glance at the map and drove until the gas was gone. It was an immense feeling of freedom to go where we wanted. To the sea or to the mountain, what would it be this time?
I was no longer at the mercy of non-existing timetables and didn’t have to worry about places to sleep. Guesthouses with cheap beds were everywhere. Same for Pertamina gas stations, where government-sponsored litres of freedom changed owners for half a euro apiece. Wherever Pertamina’s tankers didn’t come, spry locals would sell ‘bensin’ for a small extra charge. Often I’d set out without a map, basing my navigation solely on instructions offered by the ever-helpful locals. Di sini kiri. Terus, terus. Ketiga lampu merah kanan. Ayo!** Life was simple and unadulterated happiness could be as simple as a full tank.
Anete and I explored Bali by motorcycle, one backpack between the legs of the driver, the other on the back of the passenger. The means of transportation made the trip. We saw a side of Bali that we would never have discovered if we had travelled differently. We wound up in small villages, far away from the revelry in Kuta, whizzed over winding farmer tracks through rice fields and got stuck behind Hindu ceremonies. Balinese back roads were possibly even more rugged and potholed than the ones in Java.
Those were exactly the kind of roads we used, wary of Balinese law enforcement and its reputation for fining bules (foreigners). For the record: the police did stop us, exactly one time. When the officer asked me for my driver’s license, I pretended not to understand him, instead offering him the licence and insurance papers of the moped over and over again. Defeated, he eventually told us off.
In national park Baluran – the Africa of Java – we shook and jerked for 40 kilometres over the worst imaginable mud trail, the kind of dirt road that would make the cobblestoned streets from Paris-Roubaix look like newly constructed highways. Roads in Indonesia were by definition somewhat resembling lunar landscapes, but this was the pinnacle of pothole paradise.
It was monsoon season, it had been pouring all day and puddles of unknown depth covered the width of the road. Far and wide, we hadn’t spotted a single living soul. Our rental motorbike was guzzling gasoline like an alcoholic cheap vodka. The tank was quickly running empty, darkness fell and we knew there were Javan leopards and venomous snakes out there. Anete misjudged one puddle and together we tumbled in the mud at five kilometres an hour. But somehow we managed to avoid freezing to death or ending up in the claws of wild animals.
Even simply thinking about those adventures makes my heart race with joy. It makes me want to sell or give away my worldly possessions, buy a motorcycle, even if it’s one from kindergarten, and hit the road again.
(*from the discount shop)
(**Here left. Straight ahead, straight ahead. At the third traffic light right. Go!)
Anete and Tom first met while living in Indonesia. This story first appeared in Dutch on Tom’s travel blog Jalan-Jalan.