Beez Neez now Chy Whella - Indo Kilo Zero

Indo Kilo Zero

Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Sun 17 Feb 2019 23:47

Indonesia Kilometre Zero Monument

After our date lunch we headed back the way we had come and saw no tuktuks at all. Bear went in to one of the little shops to see if there was any Coke Zero just as a chap eating at a fruit stand pointed to his trusty steed. I called Bear, can we go to Zero Monument. In we got, well in we wiggled really. Bear simply looked too big.

I got in the front, so you can take pictures, yeah right, as I took in the finer points of our mode of transport. Things dangled and whilst the crash helmet looked the part, it was split and the lower half had polystyrene showing. Nevertheless we settled and up the High Street we went.

Up the hill, as we went our driver kept snatching the wheel, mmmm anyhoo, we passed something being built and a nice local hotel. There we stopped, our driver chatted to his friend and he spoke quite good English with us, just as well or we would not have been heading for the Zero Monument at all. The price went up a bit but now we had a chariot, on we went.

Things got considerably steeper, better view but the wheel snatching gained in frequency, oooo I suddenly twigged, our driver needed to do this as the front, very bald tyre had no grip whatsoever, snatching it one way and then the other gave us a bit of traction.......

I took in the sunshade resplendent with tinsel but as we passed a Dive Resort..........Hamid was forced to take our back right wheel into the hedge. He looked a little shaken but my Danger-Radar was only slight tickled. When it happened again on a narrower bit of road and it was a very large car coming toward us, I have to admit to my D-R being a little more evident on its scale.

Hamid was so shaken up we had to stop at the petrol station for him to buy a single cigarette.......

Downhill for a while we passed the coast at sea level but I could see more uphill soon.

I was still trying to figure out what the freezer block was all about selotaped to our steed when.....oooo a very steep downhill bit alerted us to a very steep uphill bit on the way back. We went flying down like TT Racers.

Five minutes later, Hamid parked, sighed with relief and pointed ahead. Off we bimbled past many little stalls and there we were.

After that journey of course we posed in front of the forty-three point six metre Monument.

The English version a few feet away.

Across the road, I waited patiently for my model to stand at the northernmost and westernmost point of Indonesia.

I see no ships, back past the Monument.

We stopped at one of the little stalls along the way for Bear to buy me/us a fridge magnet.

Back to our steed and a closer look at the front tyre.

This time I put Bear in the front and Hamid asked us to shuffle nearer the middle and lean forward on the steep bit which was upon us all too soon.

OH MY WORD, we took it on the wrong side of the road, the blind corner had my Danger Radar fully aroused to the point I was deciding which way I would jump ship.......somehow we crested the hill and nothing was coming the other way.

I think we all breathed a collective and audible sigh of relief - in unison as the road flattened out, as we passed the petrol station we realised there was just one more really steep bit up and then down to our destination.