So we found a way out of Indonesia without the famed Mr Lim’s Onion Boat, using the soon to be famous Mr Ade’s high speed ferry!

I’m still not sure what Ade really does, but I think he’s at least a part time fixer, that is someone who matches needs and solutions for a fee.
In this case the fee was aud$300 for us and the bike plus aud$50 (he wanted $100!) for loading and unloading services.
He’s one of these shifty guys who carries a bum bag everywhere, he knows everyone, and works out of nowhere and everywhere.

We’re not in Malaysia yet so there may still be more costs, I’m expecting an argument when we arrive for extra money to unload the bike… We’ll see.

The ferry we’re on is quite small, 25 rows of 6 people, and by Indo standards quite luxurious. It’s non smoking and came with meals and water, and the toilet doesn’t make me want to vomit when I go in there.  From the inside it looks a bit like an aeroplane, reclining seats, domed roof and narrow centre aisle.

Betsy wouldn’t fit inside so they put her on the front, where she’s currently being jet blasted with salt water.  Hopefully not much goes in the exhaust pipe or we’ll have a long afternoon getting going again!

To get her into the bow of the boat, they used a rickety old ramp, half of which was on the Jetty, and the other half in the boat (with a gap between rhe boat and jetty just wide enougb to swalliw a bike).

Betsy was wheeled onto the first half while being held onto by about 8 guys, then the ramp was tilted like a seasaw with Betsy in the middle, skidding along the oily railing of the boat, and she was then wheeled down into the boat, lifted up and the seasaw was extracted.  The reverse should be interesting (scary).

Last night we stayed in a very small room above the office of the ferry company, just big enough for a bed with no windows or bathroom (public mandi downstairs), but for $3/night we couldn’t complain… not much anyway.

For all the time we’ve been here I still expect things to happen just because someone told me they would, like a man coming this morning at 7am to drain my full fuel tank.  I waited until almost 8 before the guys in the ferry office eventually helped me.  The tank is supposed to be completely empty before liading on a boat (“safety first”) – I’d forgotten this rule yesterday and filled up with cheap Indo fuel (73c/lt), so was a bit miffed about having to empty it again, knowing we’d get nowhere near full price for it.

Anyway, the siphon hose they had was quite short so we only got about 8lt out (it takes 33) which they seemed happy with, leaving me with an almost still full tank 🙂 Fortunately no one checked at the harbour.
It’s such a huge relief to be on our way, if this hadn’t worked out we may have needed to ride back to Jakarta and crate the bike to send by container, with the obligatory days of waiting and total screw around that pervades trying to get something accomplished here.
So it’s good, now we have a couple of days to look around southern Malaysia before heading to Sepang for the Motogp.

Looking forward to seeing my bro there too !!

Tira Valentino!!