We started the day by breaking our word to our warung host from the night before. We had promised to eat at her place, but our restaurant wooed us with toast and coffee. Toast and coffee will always sound better to me than nasi goreng, especially for breakfast.

The road to Tuk Tuk wasn't so bad. Tarutung was probably about 500 or 600 meters high, and we knew Tuk Tuk, on Lake Toba, was at 800. So we weren't anticipating too much hard work.

The hardest part was the 24k climb from Tarutung to Siborongborong. After that it leveled out and then climbed gradually. The scenery was gorgeous. We climbed through a lot of rice padis, and then, we found that we were climbing above the lake. I think we ended up climbing to 1100 meters before we descended to Tuk Tuk.

The biggest thing I noticed about northern Sumatra was a blatant hostility to tourists, and the expectation that we would hand out money simply for the asking. We passed one school where the kids, all dressed in neatly pressed white button-down shirts and red shorts, ran out to the road and stuck their hands out, palm up, yelling "Money! Money!" I stuck my hand out in similar fashion and yelled back, "Uang, Uang!" which means money. They started yelling "Uang! Uang!" It made me sad.

Around the same time, Eric hit a big bump and somehow got part of his pannier strap wrapped up in his chain. Since we were on a blind curve, we pulled into the front yard of a little house to fix it. A woman with a baby came out, smiling. Eric asked, "Apa kabar?" (how's it going?). "I like money," she said. "You understand?" We were floored. We repeated "Apa kabar?" and we rode off. Sometime when we get home we'll try to assuage our guilt by giving to some trustworthy charity out here.

[ERIC: twice along the ride that day we passed parades. The people (Christians) were dressed in their best church going clothes - suits and ties with a sash over one shoulder for the men and exceptionally nice dresses for the women. The woman in front wore white dresses with lace veils almost like a bride but I don't think it was a wedding. They just marched down the road and a small four-piece brass band accompanied them. It sounded like the Preservation Hall Jazz Band playing hymns. I think it is the first time I saw fellow brass players in all of Indonesia. We are not sure what the event was. It was Thursday, March 12.]

It was getting to be late afternoon by the time we finished 100k and had just 10k left to Tuk Tuk. I thought I could make it no problem, as long as it was all downhill. The lake was way below us. And whaddya know? It was all downhill. That never happens.

We were looking forward to Tuk Tuk as a rest stop. We had read about it and heard about it. It was supposed to be the Garden of Eden. I was thinking if it was really great we might stay a long time.

Well it was great in some ways, but it's not exactly paradise. The fun started at the ferry dock, as Eric and I looked for passage across the lake to the island where Tuk Tuk is. We didn't have to look hard. Some guys grabbed us and started loading all our stuff onto a very small ferry. There was no ramp--just a crumbling concrete jetty. That you had to sort of jump off of to get to the deck of the boat.

On board, several thuggish looking touts vied for our attention. Where were we going? they wanted to know. I didn't know, but to get them off our backs, I said Carolina's, which turns out to be a very expensive place. That only egged them on. Their places were cheaper, they said. One guy told me not to trust any of the other guys, because he would Help us. That got me worried. He gave us a handout describing a hotel he worked for.

Another guy gave us another handout, and Eric and I decided to go there: Tabo Cottages, with a vegetarian restaurant and bakery. My Friend, the guy who said not to trust anyone else, was disappointed. But the guy who gave us the Tabo handout looked like he had just won the lottery. He must get a commission.

The ferry pulled up to a place with two jetties. One, nice and low, and a perfect place to unload the bikes from a boat with no ramp. The second was several feet higher than the boat and crowded with women washing dishes. I was hoping for the nice jetty, but of course we pulled up to the other one. It was a real chore getting the bikes and gear off the boat, up some crumbling stairs, and down the jetty, without knocking any of the women into the water. After that we had to climb another set of steep concrete steps. What a landing. Our tout helped us a lot, but pissed me off by riding off on my bike without my permission. He could have stolen it, but it turns out he just wanted to ride it.

Tabo Cottages were great in many ways. We got a great little bungalow for only 15,000 Rp. a night. And the restaurant food was excellent. The only trouble was, from the moment we arrived, the staff made us feel like guests who had overstayed their welcome. They were polite but clearly put out if we needed anything. Once we tried to order lunch and they told us we should wait for an indefinite period until the cook finished her lunch. Luckily, six other tourists walked in shortly after; the critical mass got the kitchen staff going.

We soon learned that the best way to get fast service at Tabo is to stay somewhere else! and walk in for meals, which are quite good. If you stay at Tabo, you have to write your order in a book, which you leave on a counter, and someone might or might not look at it in the next hour. It generally took about 45 minutes to get food and 30 minutes to get drinks.

Other gripes: when we asked them to do our laundry, they asked us to itemize how many socks, pants, etc. This is not unusual. But as we filled out the form, the Tabo worker kept disagreeing with us about what was what. For instance my knee-length pants are pants, not shorts. Etc. I figured, if she knew it all, why did we have to fill out the form?

We stayed for one whole day and read and walked around, which was fairly relaxing. That night we watched The Blues Brothers on video at a bar, a great coincidence since one of our recurring fantasies is to lie on our backs in our own home and watch videos while eating piping hot pizza that's just been delivered.

At the bar, we talked with a guy named Jens from Germany, who said he was drinking his first beer in six months because he couldn't stand to watch the Blues Brothers without beer. Jens had been traveling for six months in SE Asia, and highly recommended Laos and Thailand.

Jens also had a suggestion for answers to constant nosy questions about where you're from and where you're going to. He says he sometimes identifies himself as Ivan from Russia or Franco from France.

As we walked home in the dark, some thuggy looking guys materialized out of nowhere and approached us. I tried to walk by, but they grabbed Eric by pretending to shake hands with him and not letting his hand go.

They asked, "Do you Remember Me?" This is the standard scam line at Lake Toba. Eric thought he did, from our boat ride to Tuk Tuk, when several touts had swarmed over us. But he was mistaken. He didn't. It turns out our new friend wanted to sell us marijuana. For many reasons, including the fact that Indonesians believe in the death penalty for certain drug crimes, we said No Thank You.

A few minutes later, another guy materialized out of the dark, and tried to fall in step with us. Eric and I slowed down to let him get ahead. He stopped. We stopped. He waited. We finally started walking again. We had to get home. As soon as we reached him he walked, too. That was too much. I stopped and waited for him to scram. He eventually did.

None of this should matter much, but for some reason it did. I think it's because Eric and I really needed a break from people screaming at us as we rode our bikes, and especially from people trying to sell us stuff. We didn't get it at Tabo. We checked out after two nights, to the astonishment of the catatonic staff.

But at least we did get one thing: we got to not sit on bike seats for 24 hours. That felt great.

Next: Black hole of Medan

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