We stayed a couple more days in Surabaya, going on some "photo safaris" and eating as much as possible. My current weight is 134 pounds. That's a little too little but it's hard to be a glutton in Indonesia. We now often order two main dishes each. Candy bars and Doritos are harder to come by. Ice cream isn't as creamy. The food is good but the gluttonous foods, like Aussie hamburgers, steak, etc. are not very good and cost a lot so we avoid them. Mostly we eat rice dishes with chicken and vegetables. That's the best food here, and cheapest.

I had a slight cold so we stayed an extra day and did as little as possible. Our next destination, Malang, sits in the mountains 100km from Surabaya. I was worried the ride would be difficult. And there's no point in rushing in Indonesia.

Though we took the reverse route out of Surabaya that we took in, it seemed a lot easier going out. We were growing accustomed to the traffic. We retraced our steps for the first 35 or 40km. Then we started to climb.

We always see a lot of bicycles but never had we seen someone riding for the sport of cycling. It seems like everyone is bicycle commuting - to rice fields, to schools, to shops, etc. Or they are bike "truckers" hauling cargos. (many becaks are setup only to carry cargo instead of passengers. Others have a removable seat so they can carry either. I saw one becak carrying six large sacks of something, each sack marked "50 kilos." That's over 650lbs.)

Around Pandaan we met an amateur cycle racer named Vidayat. He's from Sidoarjo, speaks a little English, rides an Italian racing bike, and wears all the mandatory lycra racing clothes. He was quite excited to meet us. He knew all about bike racing. Of course he knew Greg Lemond but he also knew the Tour Dupont and that it was in Pennsylvania (at least once) and he knew the 1992 winner. We exchanged addresses and I promised to send him some pictures from bicycle racing. He was out training for an upcoming race.

We were lucky with the road. It climbed gradually between two very tall volcanoes and it was four-lane the whole way. The vehicles gave us most of the left lane so we didn't suffer any of the stress that tends to surround frequent near-death experiences.

We stopped at some road side stands and had friendly but limited conversations with people. If we stayed long enough, eventually some well-dressed young man who had studied some English would appear. They usually had something like high school English and had a hard time understanding us. It's the same problem we have with Indonesian. Even when we know the word someone says, we often don't recognize it when we hear it because we only know the word from books.

Somewhere on Bali we had decided to drink beverages with ice in them. Most roadside food stalls don't have refrigerators so the Coke, Sprite, and fruit drinks, are served at room temperature (95 degrees) or higher if they have been in the sun. Joan couldn't take this so she asked for ice. I warned her but she went ahead anyway. When she didn't seem to suffer, I started getting ice too. Although we have suffered some upset stomachs, neither of us has been sick for more the 24 hours and never that bad (except my one fight with food poisoning in Bali which was before I started to use ice).

There are very very few pleasures in life better than an ice cold drink on a 95-degree, 95% humidity day. The freedom to use ice really enhanced our enjoyment.

The heat also makes eating less enjoyable. We stopped in Lawang and I just had white rice. Spices and sauces just did not appeal. I'm not sure any tourist has ever stopped at the place we ate at in Lawang. They successfully served us while putting on an act of nonchalance but the three or four children staring at us from the other room gave them away. Before we left, we gave the children a little wind-up car.

We continued climbing, mostly at a very gradual rate. Joan saw a "Hill Climb" sign and prepared for a New Zealand style vertical ascent around the corner. But the road just went a little bit more steeply for about 100 meters. It was almost nothing.

The ride was not easy, but is wasn't nearly as hard as we feared. We rode 87km and Malang is 1500 feet above sea level. About 10km out of Malang we reached the top of the saddle and descended quickly into town.

We got a simple but great room at the hotel Helios. The hotel has a lot of birds in cages and a TV in something like a dog house on a 3 foot post in the court yard.

We found the best internet connection in Indonesia around the corner from the hotel. It was cheap and very fast. This is where we first saw Katy's 1998 Lyness family calendar. (She edits famous photos to include family faces).

After dinner at a quaint Dutch colonial throwback called Toko Oen, Joan and I each called our moms from the public phone office, which also had internet terminals for rent.

Our Lonely Planet guide book called Malang a quiet hill town. We like Malang, but it seemed more like a modestly noisy hill city. We noticed right away that Malang appears more affluent than any of the cities we passed in eastern Java: Situbondo, Probolingo, etc. The homes and businesses looked neater and newer and there seemed a much wider range of products available in the stores.

On the walk from our hotel to the central city we passed a series of sidewalk stalls that sell old books and magazines. You could buy 10-year-old issues of Indonesian magazines and a few English magazines like Time. There are literally 15 of these stalls right against each other. All the books were in Indonesian which was too bad since we needed some new reading material.

I planned not to read any books that did not have something to do with our trip. When you read a novel you completely escape from where you are. Why go around the world only to escape in a book? After a month here, I figured out why. You get so tired of the heat, the dirt, and the hawkers trying to sell you stuff every few steps, that now and then it is rejuvenating to escape.

We walked around Malang quite a bit and hung out at Toko Oen, eating delicious sesame rolls filled with a sweet bean curd filling.

We spent five hours on a computer retyping six Bali chapters (since we couldn't send them directly from our Newton) and emailing them to Katy.

One night we found a great restaurant at a hotel called The Tuju with $150/nite rooms. The restaurant cost about twice most restaurants ($3 to $4 for dinner for two, instead of $1.50 to $2) but was worth far more. We consider it the best restaurant we have been to in Indonesia. Also the restaurant actually has a great atmosphere. It was in a huge indoor courtyard with lots of plants, and only minimal screaming from kids using a nearby pool. One night they had a pianist and a violinist (although I could have done better than the violin player).

Next: Ride to Solo

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