Tomia Bike ride
CuriousOyster
Steve & Trish Brown
Sat 13 Aug 2011 23:25
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Our dive master Yurdi organised the hiring of some
small motorbikes for us to tour the island.
There is little here other than small villages with
people living from subsistance farming and fishing
so there is definately no car and bike hire shops.
The 7 bikes came from locals willing to lend them
to us in exchange for some much needed cash. The
equivalent of £7 for 5 hours, no forms, no questions asked.
 The highlight of the trip was the people.
Everywhere friendly, smiling and helpful. We stopped at a few of the
villages
and were always surrounded by happy smiling kids.
Every village we rode through people would shout hello and wave
despite the fact that it is Ramadan and they cannot
eat or drink from sunrise until sunset. I'd be a bit cranky!
 The kids all attended school and the older ones
could read and write and here Trish and Try are
going through some of our few words of Indonesian with the kids and being corrected on
their pronunciation.
Noi loves to mooch through the local shops and
found some of her favorite sticky rice, a northern Thai
speciality.  Under the pretext of supporting the local community
Trish bought a skirt from this delightful lady,
although she did use Alan's bargaining skills to
beat her down a little on price.
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