Photos of Stage 3
Tuk Tuk / Lake Toba to Tarutung – Sumatra
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A wet restart
Well, we got sunshine on our rest day now it is time for a wash! The rain turned in last night and never stopped. I bet Cristiano & Andreas wanted to check on our fancy rain gears … Hope it will stop during the day and we will not have to ride against a flood running down our rewarding climb.
How to become a Millionaire
I like travelling in countries where you instantly turn into a multi millionaire. You hand out just one 100 US$ bill to the money changer and find yourself loaded with a pile of notes in local currency. The flip side of the coin is, that in the beginning you will always end up in sweat when you receive the first multi digit bill for a simple lunch and then find out that you will lose your millionaire status far too soon again, if you don’t schedule a next appointment with another money changer.
A rewarding climb
The waypoints, directions and the profile of todays ride has been published at the rider’s meeting. We will add another 1600m to the total climbs. What will be the reward? We all hope there is more than a Coke-Stop reward at the end of the climb! 
First rest day Resume
My first rest day is almost over. Although I was rather busy with fighting the environments and getting everything setup to be able to stay connected with all of you, I did find some time to explore the neighborhood, as posted earlier.
Due to the late arrival of our vans yesterday, there was some left over work to be done today. It was basically I fight with the slow and instable internet connection to get my blog updates done. I decided to use my Samsung as a hotspot for my Thinkpad and speed and reliability is like hell. With just 4$ / 2 GB data volume this is well invested money and gives me a lot of extra spare time, when fellow riders are still waiting for a network response on their first click of the day. I also managed to get my Garmin GPS tracks linked to Google map, such that you can follow my tracks on the daily Stage Detail entries (stage 01, stage 02).
Now everything should be in shape to finish write ups, photos and maps much quicker. However do to the limited internet accessibility I do not permanently maintain the photo sections of the blog, but enrich the daily posts with more pictures as usual.
No I need to get some rest, to regain energy for the long 150+ km with a huge climb ,,,
An Indonesian ‘clored bull’ – Kratingdaeng – don’t know if they would give me wings, too?! I found the bottle in a ditch next to the road with so much more debris that is dumped into this beautiful countryside. Most part of Africa is in the meantime miles ahead in respect to environmental concerns and tidiness.
Tweet ##transoceaniaAll you need on a rest day
All you need in one place …
German bakery, Bicycle rental, more than enough Bintang beer (plus lemonade), fresh MMs (the only mushrooms I like 
), massages, my own Restaurant and happy faces wherever you pass by or stop. The people are so nice and friendly – A friendly ‘semalat pagi’ and ‘terima kasi / sama sama’ can open hearts and doors. 
Today I used the rest day in Tuk Tuk to do some extra cycling besides internet, laundry and bike service. The heavy downpour stopped during the night and in the morning we were greeted w
ith great sunshine – Cristiano obviously
talked again to the God’s! When most of the other riders decided to stay at the lodge and use internet or go the few steps into the village, I grabbed my bike and explored the nearby surroundings. Not a bad decision. At first up the hill west of town, to watch the paragliding training, then down to Tomok to see King’s Tomb. Thereafter up again to the 
waterfall and from there to Amberita, then to King Siallagan Stone Chairs site, and along the eastern coast of the peninsular back to Tuk Tuk through little settlements and alleys of tourist stores. Actually I didn’t ride all the way up the waterfall on a narrow single trail, simply to safe my energy for tomorrow and because I am confident to see many more waterfalls through out Indonesia which are far easier 
to reach. 
The kids are always excited to see me with my funny “zoo-helmet”. I met cute little 2 year old Jessie at Joe’s. She is the neighbor’s daughter, but wants to spend all day with ‘aunty’ in the restaurant – the owners brother is married to a 
German living in Düsseldorf. Yesterday I met Jonas with his brothers and father who are here to spent the vacation at their granny’s. They are from Schorndorf, a city very close to where I live and have relatives – what a small world.
Although it was raining hard and long last night the locals tell me that it was a far too dry season and a lot of the harvest did not mature.
Tweet ##transoceania2014-08-20 Photos
An almost perfect day
One could see smiles on almost every ones face on this 120 km ride from Berastagi to Lake Toba, our first rest 
day. Immediately after leaving the city Mt. Sibayak waved us a final farewell with a huge smoke cloud. Thereafter the road lead through never ending plantations with oranges and corn. Traffic was very low as we did not use the main road to the lake, so our senses were free to inhale beautiful scenery, the good air and the sounds of nature. We spent a long time riding 
parallel to the lake on the ridge of the caldera, without getting it in sight. However, a final turn opened the view on the largest crater lake of the earth, which is a result of a giant eruption some 74000 years ago, which resulted in ‘volcanic winter’ killing 90% of the earth population.
After a lot of rolling climbs the descent to the lake was a gift for legs and mind. A short and cheap ferry ride set us over to Tuk Tuk on the large Samosir Island. Rooms were quickly taken (although not according to TdA plans) but the vans with the bags were still to come. So a bunch of ‘smelling’ cyclists filled the restaurant (luckily a thatched open building) for the hours to come. Without toiletry, swimsuit and PCs there was not much to do other than to fill
the afternoon with beer, food and talks. It was not before 7:30pm when the vans arrived, not only carrying our bags but an awful load of rain, which is pouring down on us since then. Hope this will stop during the night and we are not trapped in our rooms in the fantastic setup of the Tabo Cottages!
Smoker
What a fantastic ride. The skies cleared over night and revealed a spectacular view of the active volcano Mt. Sinabung. Actually it was said that Cristiano and Yudo hiked up at 2 am, woke up the sleeping giant, moved the clouds and lit up some wood and garbage to give us this fabulous performance – please, give us more of that 
bypassing Mt. Sinabung
Mt. Sinabung (2460 m) @ Berastagi
Tweet ##transoceaniaStage 02: Sumatra
| Berastagi to Tuk Tuk | |||||
| Date: | 19-08-2014 | Time: | 05:35 h | Temp: | 15/31 °C |
| Distance: | 119 km | Σ km: | 174 km | To Go: | nnnnn km |
| Up: | 1232 m | Σ Up: | 2732 m | Calories: | 2661 kcal |
| Down: | 1718 m | Σ Down: | 1915 m | Σ kcal: | 5355 kcal |
| Conditions: | perfect cycling weather. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. Road perfect, traffic low. | ||||
It was a very scenic ride. First smoking Mt. Sinabung, then the ride through fertile fields and plantations and along the ridge of Lake Tabo caldera.
