Bikers in Solo and Jogya. cool!

Pouwel was a very active adventure rider in Indonesia. Somehow he found my blog and facebook and we added each other as friend. I promised to visit him when we reached Indonesia. About 1 week before meeting him, he had sent out numerous posts about our arrival to all the enthusiastic bikers in Indonesia Java.

One of the enthusiastic bikers group was Solo Black Bikers Community (SOBBISCO) and their lead was Angga. We had some mobile contact with Angga before reaching Tawangmangu. We were supposed to call them when we reached the main market of Tawangmangu but were spotted by them along the road as they were patrolling up and down for our arrival.

With Angga were Rudy, Alwi, Okky, Ilham and Aznan. The 6 of them accompanied us thro out the 3 days 2 nights Tawangmangu tour. They took us to beautiful waterfall and ancient erotic temples. They paid for all of our food and site fees. The group of them was mostly students but they were extra ordinary host. In the morning, they would ride half hour from their village to meet us and in the night, they would only want to go home when we say we wanted to sleep. They shared everything they have with us and gave us their t-shirt. Thou they were young but their heart were very matured and generous.



They brought us to the famous erotic hindu temple.

Our plan was to go to Jogya from Tawangmangu. The group of them escorted us for 4 hours and they had already linked up with the Jogya bikers to escort us in. Yes, when we say escort riding in Indonesia it means they really did it the traffic police way.


Meeting place for Jogya and Solo Bikers was about 10 km away from Jogya. From there, we were being baton onto the Honda Tiger Mailing List (HTML) group of Jogya, Dworo being the representative to fetch us. When we leave with Dworo, we waved back to the friends that had hosted us for the past 3 days. No one knew that we were holding back our tears because their sincerity had touched our heart.
The bike group of Indonesia have uniform and they are proud of their country.
Bakso time again...

Dworo brought us to their ‘base camp’ at Galaxy Brothers workshop. From there, we could meet most of the bikers. At last, we got the chance to shake Pouwel’s hand as he had just knocked off from work. We were arranged to stay in Mr Rimbo’s house.

Mr Rimbo and his wife.

When the 5 bikers said they will bring us to Mr Rimbo house, we were still wondering where the house was after they had stopped. To us, it was a castle! Mr Rimbo was only 1 year of my senior and he and his big family lived in a castle! His command of English was always a laugh to the group when he spoke to me but he was a very genuine person, to us and to his friends. He showed us his wedding photos and he was very wholehearted, trying his best to explain about every pictures. His castle was another base camp for the HTML bikers to hang out.

Night out with HTML.

They brought us to local nursery and we found this adenium bonsai, which cost more than s$500.

Pouwel and I.

After the presentation, I shared with them my map.

The plan for the day was to do a presentation which Pouwel had arranged for the local bikers. We rode to Agung’s house, which was another castle and prepared the projector and slide. Pouwel did a very good translation for me when I spoke in English. I believed that this session did inspired most of the bikers that had attended our presentation. Hope Too did a good job in the pictures and videos.

Day 2 in Jogya, they drove us to some famous places around to do the tourist visit. We were in Agung’s vehicle to escape from the heat and congestion. Then ‘Mr Homo’ came with his bike just to accompany us while we were comfortably in the car. Very sporting! (Singlish).

In the night, they brought us to the central garden to do a famous test. There were 2 big ficus trees on this football field sized land. If we were able to walk blindfolded across the 2 trees, our wish would come true. So we got blindfolded, stood 50 meters away the trees, made a wish and follow our sense to walk. After trying for 4-5 times, we ended up somewhere else instead of going straight. Strange….

On Sunday, I noticed that Hope Too’s front bearing was not working well and I brought it to Galaxy Brother Workshop to have a check up. (Another escort too, we never ride alone here). Jonky, the owner, did not want me to pay for anything on the repair he did. I told him if he does not want to take my money, I would delete his facebook. So, he charged me us$1.00 for the job. Thanks Jonky! It would cost 90 times more if I did it in some other country.

The friends we met in Jogya were really great. They took us to many places around and we had a few rides visiting the nature together. They brought us to the best place to have our stomach filled. All of them would escort us back to Mr Rimbo house after a casual gathering with at least 10 bikes.

One of the Sultan (king) of Jogya has 78 children. AD1839-AD1929.

It was hard to say goodbye to new friends but we believed that we would come back easily on a flight. We left Jogya on Monday towards Dieng. It was a working day but Mr Rimbo threw away his business schedule to ride with us. Yan and Andang rode with us on this 4 hours road to Dieng.

We met up with Pouwel again and the 4 of them took us around and took good care of us. During dinner, Pouwel suddenly passed me a key saying that it would be the key to our hotel room. After the dinner, all of us got ready onto our bikes, started our engine and Pouwel would be the one leading us to the hotel. When we were in formation ready to ride off, Pouwel took on his first gear, wheeled the bike for 5 meters and stop. Everyone laughed because the hotel was just 5 meters away from our dinner point!

We took the last photo together and again, I couldn’t hold my tears in front of them. It was a very emotional moment of my life.

I confessed to them, when they brought us to walk the 2 big trees, I wished for peace and prosperity for Indonesia.

Blind folded, trying to walk in between the 2 trees.

It was about 10pm when they left. They had to ride 4 hours in the dark to reach home.

This is what they meant by ‘riding for brotherhood’.
What about it happening in Singapore?

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