After shivering in Japan, adventure awaited me around every turn in balmy Indonesia. I loaded up my Transpack with stickers and balloons, my toothbrush and a tank-top or two, plenty of water, and off I was on a skating trip of epic proportions with only serendipity as my guide. Here are some excerpts from my daily travel logs, starting on Lombok and moving to Sumbawa, two islands east of Bali.

11/22/96
When I got off the boat it was pitch black. I was surrounded by a horde of taxi-drivers and bus drivers all wanting to take me God knows where. Wanting none of that, I buckled on my Roces LAX's and rolled out into the darkness. 2K down the road I found a losmen, or hotel. There I plopped down in my own thatched hut and slumbered peacefully. I awoke to the sound of two monkeys playing on my front porch.

I decided to head for a remote beach on the southern coast for a day or two of R&R, but the way the roads are set up I first had to head north-east for 30K, east for 20K, then south another 15K.

The roads on Lombok are of excellent quality: wide and baby-bottom smooth. A dream; traffic is very light. No huge trucks, just scooters and mini-buses and bicycles, all few and far between.

I could tell I was welcome in this verdant country of palm trees, banana trees, and terraced rice fields worked by water buffaloes under the yoke. Whole schoolyards of kids went wild as I glided by, the most enthused coming running after me as fast as their little legs could carry them.

This was the general pattern of the day. I'd get a thumbs up from all the passing cars and trucks, and waves from the people along the road, who beckoned to those still in the houses to come quickly and see "sepatu roda" (wheel shoes). Turning back to look I'd see people lining the road on both sides, old people and young, kids carrying infants and toddlers, most wearing nothing more than a threadbare tank top, craning to get a good look at me fading into the distance.

Later I would meet up with an cycling couple from Atlanta who marveled at the peoples' reactions to me as I skated by. They were accustomed to being the strangest thing going, but they say I blew their world apart when they saw whole villages emptying out into the street to watch me go by, screaming after me the only English they knew, usually "I love you" or "Give me a kiss!"

As friendly and magnetized as the people were to me, I inspired the exact opposite reaction in animals as I went by. Except for the water buffalo tilling the fields, who plodded along regardless, all the other animals either cowered behind the nearest rock or log, or bolted in fright. I startled one cow so severely that he snapped the rope that attached him to a roadside tree, and took off stampeding through the rice fields. Nonetheless, the witnesses to this escaped beast roared their approval.

As I rolled through a Muslim village, a teacher from a school flagged me down and asked me to give an impromptu English lesson. I had a classroom packed with boys 11-14 on one side, and white veiled girls of the same age on the other. They all learned how to say "I love in-line skating" and "the roads on Lombok are smooth." I wish my sponsors could have seen this potential for mass-brainwashing taking place, because but I just as easily could have taught them to say "I love my skates," or "my bearings are the best."

For lunch I stopped at a little food tent in Praya, and sat with some military men and two school teachers who spoke minimal English. While we all ate a deliciously spicy noodle-fishball-vegetable soup sprinkled with peanuts, sticky rice wrapped in banana
leaves, and a boiled egg, we pored over my little "Lonely Planet Indonesian Phrasebook". Soon we were all in tears, not just from laughing, but also from all the spicy sauces we had sprinkled and poured onto our soups.

11/24/96
My room is in the middle of rice and pineapple fields at the foot of a huge volcano. As I zig-zag along narrow levees to get there, frogs jump out of my way and land with resounding plops in the flooded paddies. In spite of the raucous nightlife -- chirping crickets and croaking frogs -- these are very peaceful surroundings. I feel a million miles away at the moment. This is exactly what every skater needs to recharge for a new season.

The road from Masbigih, where I spent the night at the foot of Mt. Rinjani, to Labuhan Lombok, where I hopped the ferry to the big island of Sumbawa, couldn't have been better. Smooth and wide and plenty to see along the way. I saw the usual pony cart taxis, corn being shucked and set out to dry, a mill spewing corn meal into huge orange piles, rice fields being planted, fields of chili peppers in various shades of yellow and red, and a man hanging onion bulbs on a long bamboo rack.

By the time I had descended from the skirt of Mt. Rinjani, the land had turned bone dry. Scrub bush grabbed at the parched earth and black volcanic rocks were strewn across the landscape.

As I pulled into the port city, I was cheered on by military men and had a cavalcade of scooters escorting me right to the ramp of the ferry. The visual display on the cruise over to Sumbawa was spectacular. Mt. Rinjani and its southern slope were clothed by ominous dark clouds with sun streaks radiating above to the heavens. The western coast of Sumbawa was pocked by mountain peaks along its entire length, lush beyond belief, where light and dark played in an equally stunning way. Conical forms in the foreground were splashed with light while mountains behind were covered by a thick mantle of cumulonimbus clouds. Sunset was dramatic -- a requiem for a dying day.

My mission during the next few days is to go see turtles on the south coast. I read in a guidebook one sentence about there being a turtle beach in Lunyuk, and acting on a hunch, I picked that as my destination, not even certain that it was the right time of year. We'll see. What I do know is that the description in the guidebook says that the road to Lunyuk is broken in many places, with patches of asphalt barely clinging to the ground. Could be tough skating.

Sumbawa Besar is a bustling town with a good feel. No one here hassled me like on Lombok because they rarely see tourists here. When I got in I chatted with a crowd of kids. One small child came up to me and made me smell an unbelievably fragrant flower.

11/25/96
My first sight of the day on skates was of buffaloes wallowing in the mud. In the fields the houses are built on stilts, as are the ones along the road, some painted red or blue. The towns and houses are few and far between, though, and the hand of man is rarely visible. This I like. Rather than one huge volcano dominating the skyline here, there are multiple peaks in all directions, each one demanding attention in greater amounts than I have to give.

The people here are much more timid than on Lombok, less prone to gathering around in great numbers but still curious nonetheless. Kids follow me on their bikes but at greater distance.

Sumbawa's roads are fine if you're on a major artery but they deteriorate rapidly once you start heading for the boondocks. As soon as I turned off the main road and started heading south towards Lunyuk, a distance of 92 km, the road surface turned rather coarse. So basically it was a question of shopping for spots, and the smoothest portion was frequently in the center of the road or in the oncoming lane, which presented no problem because of the incredibly sparse traffic situation.

I managed to pick my way across 45 rough kilometers. It took time, not just because of the surface but also because of the frequent elevation gain and loss associated with crossing rivers and climbing ridges. In an hour and a bit more I had put 20K behind me and used 3 liters of water. I stopped for an early lunch (9:15am) and ate two portions before of coconut mutton with rice before pressing on.

I had made it another 25 kilometers before the road started pitching up sharply. That's when a lone pickup truck, the first vehicle to pass me in nearly an hour, pulled off the road towards the top of the 20% grade. Two people jumped out and sat on their haunches, staring at me struggling up the hill. Happy to have some company around whom I could catch my breath, I stopped to say hello. They asked in very broken English where I was going. I replied "Lunyuk, to see turtles," and I imitated the flipper action of a turtle.

Well, coincidence of coincidences, this Muslim couple was also headed to Lunyuk. Serendipity was stalking me. They offered me a ride. I had nothing to prove by skating the unskateable, and everything to gain by seizing the opportunity to interact with the people of Indonesia. I graciously accepted.