A Roadie in Motion - Act II - SE Asia

Stunning photography. Nice report. Thanks....carry on.

OK, where was I?

Lombok, Indonesia on a scooter heading south at a face warping, blistering speed of 40km/h, navigating the narrow roads filled with different smells, sights and appearances compared to Bali. The local riders were a bit more mellow than Bali, where the speeds are higher with lots of young dudes hauling ass and weaving around.

This Island, like the vast majority of Indonesia was nearly all Muslim, a place that has been slowly getting more travelers but hardly the numbers Bali sees each year. I hear there are tourist resort areas and there’s certainly backpacker hostels and partying in Kuta, but that’s not where I was going.
I had been looking for a remote home stay, on a beach, on google maps. Most of my planning was being done on google based on location and proximity to small villages, towns, etc... lonely planet was also very good, but mostly to find where to avoid when they write as “must see” destination. I hadn’t booked any accommodations in advance, I always try to just show up and pay the hosts directly to help them save the 20% or more fees they pay to booking.com or airbnb or pagoda. Sometimes it can backfire when there’s no vacancy, but that’s part of the fun, especially at this point in my adventure when I’m really just on vacation and not “ADV” riding and camping in sublime remote places.

I’m usually not keen on photos of food, but for context purposes this is a typical meal found here in Lombok, costing about $1.50. Chicken, rice and some fixings.
At this particular meal it started to pour rain so I took my time until finally I needed to get moving as I had hours of riding to get to the more remote area I was shooting for. I was traveling with a Patagonia lightweight rain jacket, shorts, open face helmet and “safety sandals”, it was warm so getting a little wet was juts fine. There was no MC gear on this trip besides helmet and gloves, I had bought a Ducati branded Arai open face helmet for super cheap on eBay, taking the Ducati logos off and covering some with LOST and FREEDOM decals. The rental bikes here are great, the local helmets, not so much. Bring your own and I opted for for open face, like the locals, and to let people see you smile as you ride by.

Eventually an hour later the skies cleared as I rode south in Lombok, in search of a nice beach.
Lots of smiles and curious looks from locals at this place. Good times.

By far, the most prevalent and in your face thing to notice in Lombok was the sounds. I mean, this was, by western standards a poor area, also greatly impacted by a major earthquake not too long ago. It wasn't a picturesque landscape riding through Mataram.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/M...0b122bdd101dc5!8m2!3d-8.5970808!4d116.1004894

As anyone who's traveled or lives on the American South - home of red dirt, greasy and delicious "southern" food, endless tree filled landscapes dotted more often than not with pretty white churches - imagine if each and every one of those little churches has big horn type speakers on top and the praying was being done on the loudspeaker. Except it's in a language you don't understand and starts at 4:30am everyday.

This is riding in Lombok.

Women are covered.

Like the American South, there is a Mosque located at what seems like every couple of hundred meters. Some big, some small, but each and every one of them had speakers and were most certainly praying to Allah. (Is he like Jesus?, I don't really know, or care, it's all the same to me)
The sounds, combined with thousands of little motors, chickens, playing children, dogs, trucks, bartering in the road side markets and so on seem to permeate me to the bone.
This was very foreign to me, on two wheels. Granted, this Honda Vario 150 scooter seems to have been modified, it was significantly quicker than the ADV 150, but a hell of a lot more twitchy. Questionable brakes, suspension was much worse than the ADV and if you let go or held loosely on the grips the head shaked almost uncontrollably. But the motor was a little screaming Demon. It was a rough little bike with balls and a lot of personality. I liked it.

I had visited several Muslim nations this year along with many others that were not "western" places (Uganda is a trip!), but none of them hit like this me while being whisked around in a van or bus or private chopper from gig to gig to airport gig to airport to hotel to gig to airport to gig to hotel to airport and so on.
As someone who could be considered a business traveler in a carney kind of sense, there's nothing like being on two wheels, alone in a truly foreign land.
As many have done before me on two wheels I was feeling a bit Lost. On a little bitch of a scooter!

I loved it.

After a sweet ride along the coast far south of the major city on what ended up being a fairly long travel day from door to door while on my vacation beach quest, I arrived at a homestay in a pretty remote area in the south.













Greeted with smiles, home made wine.... and a couple families with small children.... wait, WTF, little white kids running around?

I didn't sign up for this as a bad ass worldwide adventure rider, I had conquered the seas, the traffic, the rain, shady online bike rentals, the praying I was forced to listen to, skinny meatless chickens to eat and now I get to here and there's a bunch of kids on vacation.

Some badass ADV rider to remote places of the world I must be.
Shit.
HAHA.


Here's a timelapse of the view from Lombok Paradise... On my trips I have shot a few time lapses, and a bit of drone footage, but am not willing to put in the time needed to edit better video... and have no interest in being a Youtube vlogger like a some of the new asshats around here starting ride reports just to point you to their youtube channel to subscribe. We're already on the premier Adventure riding site...

So all you get is a few unedited clips here and there for contextual purposes.
At least you can see me going for a swim, getting in the frame and basically ruining the shot.

Though, admittedly you might want those 54 seconds back cause it's not that epic.





Sleep came easy after a day of drinking beer, riding, drinking Hooch wine....

The next morning was greeted by blue waters and warm wind. Locals scouring the low tides for some sort of amazing unique delicacy I can't begin to describe in an impactful way that just sounds astonishing.

I don't know what the fuck he was looking for, but it sounds cool to speculate.


In the background you can see the beautiful boats the island hopper cruisers have.
Sailing around, investing in a boat has always intrigued me as a great alternative to buying a house, for a lifestyle of being in motion.

While its hardly a wide sample, the blokes from one of these beautiful boats was at the restaurant the night before... acting like the worst ambassador for America (maybe just great english for another western country) and basically degrading the hard working servers. It was very tempting to go hit this guy up side the head with a bottle for speaking to the hard working and very kind locals because his burger wasn't just right or the fries weren't crispy enough, or the cocktail wasn't strong enough. This guy just bitched about everything, which had me a little surprised considering where we were at.

You don't just end up here quickly, you have to want to be here and through travels earn it, not like Baja where any douchebag with a boat can cruise on down in a few days and be a dickhead to locals for things not being as perfect as they expect.

Anyways, moving on...












I ended up meeting a mate from the UK (duh) and we agreed to share a boat to take us out for some snorkeling and shenanigans.
He was a pretty mellow dude, unremarkable enough that I don't remember his name now. Nice enough fellow though with a very nice camera.

Seems like Lost=Free!

I've observed the western traveler denigrate the locals in another part of the world, and it's ugly. Why bother traveling? Just stay home.

Loving all of this. Great pics, write up, attitude, chance to see a part of the world I've never peered into....

Dicks with boats: seems like gratitude is often lost on those most likely to afford privilege.

Heading back into shore after a decent squall blew through (is that what you call it?) I was ready for a night of wild partying, shenanigans and so on in the remote beach home stay of south western Lombok. With the "multiple families" and mellow dude from the UK.





Turned out to be quite a feast and a good ole' bitch schooling for me.

The families with all the young, loud, stinky, obnoxious ruckus turned out to be not quite that.


Micheal, and his wife were from Austria and were taking a year off from work to travel with their two young boys. He worked in production, similar to me.
The more I talked to them the more I liked them, sure during the day when it was play time with some other children around kids were kids, but these kids weren't out of control brats with impartial parents. We found all kinds of common ground to talk about throughout the night while being fed a grand feast and lots of flowing rice wine friends were made. If I were to even be lucky enough to find a partner to have kids with I would only hope I'm this cool of a parent, teaching them things schools can't by traveling... Great people and I was glad to have met them all, feeling slightly bad for having such negative thought about them before talking with them. I learned me something here tonight. haha

Happy to see you back and enjoying life Finn!

Dont get too lost out there, we need the pics or we'll freeze to death up here....

Red Pill?




or





Blue Pill?




That's how I feel.





Journey into the unknown with risk, knowledge and hopefully enlightenment


or


Keep things the way they are without questioning reality or purpose.







I have been faced with some profound decisions lately, after seriously questioning my reality while on the come-down depression common for me after a trip, especially this trip.
Some thoughts weighing heavy on my mind have been work related, others about direction of my life and what path I want to point it in to see where I end up.
Less stuff.
More free time.
No Debt.
Follow my heart.






Red Pill?






Blue Pill?









What is important?



Actually, what is most important to me is the real question at hand.





I arrived home a couple weeks ago to a shitty work situation which didn't help the come-down at all. I also looked hard around my house, at my life here in California. Too much shit. Too many bills.
So after a blur of a wedding party in Vegas I went to and a few days out camping in Death Valley I came home, sold one of my bikes and donated 2 truckloads of various stuff to a couple local charities.
The thinning has started with the goal of being truly free.



Wonderhussy in Vegas



























I'm taking the Red Pill and will be on the trusty Roadie the Roadster heading to the airport soon, heading back to Vietnam. I really want to get the Vietnam section of this story, I have many photos uploaded to share along with some good stories.... but first I need to get Indonesia over with.

HAHA isn't that some pathetic shit to be saying? Some for real 1st world problems I have.




We will get here eventually though.

We're going to play a little game together so I can move forward in the tales and finish packing.
I'm going to post some photos of some random adventure in Lombok, involving a treehouse tent, shady alleys to score rice wine, magic mushrooms and wildly different interesting people.
You make up the story, be creative!
Anything can and did happen. Just remembering when making up the story, you can't escape the constant praying on loudspeakers from the Mosques!
I will continue with some storytelling soon, maybe on the plane if the wifi is good, and then we can get to some good fun including an epic ride with @KTMInduro and then some single track scooter fun!



-Finn

Existential identity is a pandemic issue. You and I are just fortunate enough to do more about it.

Everything I own fits into my 8x5 cargo trailer (except the pickup to pull that) including my two motos. I sometimes feel that’s too much. Carry on brother!

This.


Carry on as well my wise brother.

Okay, you’re never going to believe this. Or, well I can’t anyway - I guess I should speak for myself.

Those people in the pics you posted of wonderhussy... they’re all my camp family from Sunset Lounge at Burning Man. Do you know them? I see Schy, Emil, Joey. Crazy!

I was catching up on your rr and had to do a double take. Please explain how you happened upon this - you must know the crew.

Small world, again!

Your crew is my OG crew from Chicago, friends of 25+ years.
Crazy crazy old friends.

We’re all connected.






This journey I have a gnome and an engine from my Husaberg joining me.

Yeah, life is fresh.

Hanoi via Tokyo here we go!

He's back! In the words of Jim Belushi I feel like we're getting the band back together. (Fin being Elwood, the R1200 being Jake, the readers being the weird guy who plays the Sax).

Seriously though I was pumped to see a new Roadie in Motion thread. I've lost track how many times I've re-read the original. I'm excited to see what new adventures await, and judging by the husaberg engine propped onto the Roadies luggage rack I think were in store for some good ones.

Dunno... he hasn't posted for a month now... maybe due to the virus. ?????

Heh, just noticed the "placebo" on the mask. :)

Mo' pics, dude.

All I have to say is, way back, years ago, I started reading and following this guy on his journey. I was on my own journey, including divorce and all the lovely family issues that come with it. I escaped into his adventure and for brief moments when I was in his world, mine seemed less troublesome. I appreciated his photography, and his wandering way and in my own small way did the same thing. Photography and travel by motorcycle became a passion for me.
Lost Roadie, glad to see you back in whatever capacity.

Finn! Come back!!!