Driving a Scooter in Indonesia

Arriving in Indonesia after Taiwan and Singapore needed a bit of time to adapt to the new situation. I was back in life-threatening traffic, an abundant amount of neon-lightened party-mini-busses and a lot of “miss! miss! how are you?”. Overall though, I quickly realised that tourists are still a welcome change to the day-to-day life in North Sulawesi.

Manado

I stayed in Manado for three days waiting for my friends to arrive as we were about to go scuba diving for a week. The city itself does not have that much to offer apart from an interesting mix of newly built malls making you feel like you are in the US and a very traditional lifestyle and transportation system. I did find my coffee supplier, which is always the most important thing, and decided that Manado is definitely worth a visit.

Renting a scooter in Manado

Given that Indonesia is more known for its landscape than it is for its cities, I wanted to explore the surrounding area at least a bit before heading to lazin’ around Bunaken island for a good ten days. Luckily, the guesthouse I stayed in rented scooters for 80.000 IDR (translating into roughly five Euros) for 12 hours. I got it with a full tank and returned it empty – sounded like a good deal to me. I can definitely recommend Istanaku Guesthouse to anyone who thinks about staying in Manado. The staff speaks English and is super friendly, I got vegetarian breakfast upon request, a cheap and very well maintained scooter with a helmet one can actually call a helmet, and could use the facilities the entire day before heading off to the Island on my last day.

I was a bit nervous about the traffic situation though, as the Internet is full of horror stories and crossing the street as a pedestrian was still a challenge. Indonesians driving on the left side of the road did not make it any better.

But as soon as I hopped on the scooter I felt myself floating right in the scene. Indonesia, it seems, is just not made for pedestrians. On the scooter you can easily navigate around the traffic and if you encounter any troublesome situation, just get some local help and follow the scooter just in front of you. The streets are surprisingly well maintained (or they are not maintained at all, often enough the one leads to the other in a dangerously short amount of time, but other than that driving on North Sulawesi roads is extremely smooth).

I also didn’t find the Indonesians going crazy on their honks or driving extremely careless. I identified three common signals of the honk:

1. Could you please get out of my way, you are too slow and I cannot overtake when you are slaloming in the middle of the road.
2. Careful, I’m overtaking/coming your way, do not do anything stupid.
3. (Maybe especially dedicated to foreigners on a scooter): Hey you, hello!!!

In the countryside, driving is even more relaxed. People take it as slow as the road dedicates them to and smoothly cruisin’ their way to wherever their destination is. That was extremely calming me down on the last hour of my trip, when I needed to drive the scooter back to Manado on a pitch black, narrow road with lots of turns and oncoming traffic.

It was the best day I had in a while. Scooting around the island to a nice waterfall, the best beach I have ever seen, and ending it with a sky that seemed lit up on fire during sunset, before having another delicious “Gado Gado” for dinner.

Tunan Waterfall

The Tunan Waterfall is a good 45 minutes drive from Manado. The road is mostly in good conditions, but I parked my scooter a little before the official parking lot after almost sliding down a hill with it at the end. But it should be totally doable for normal cars, and google maps leads you right to the correct spot to start the hike. Given that the entire path to the waterfall is a nicely done track it was more of a stroll in the nature and not a hike, but there were no other tourists around and I could enjoy the waterfall for a good 40 minutes all on my own. I’m usually not that amazed by waterfalls, but I quite enjoyed that one. I paid 20.000 IDR entrance fee.

Pal Beach

Pal Beach is the most amazing beach I’ve ever visited. I paid 5.000 IDR entrance fee and I think they clean it very frequently as there was almost no trash flying around. The sand was a light beige and super comfortable, the water was turquoise to dark blue, perfectly matching the blue from the sky in the horizon. Enough trees behind me gave me the shade I needed to just sit down and relax for the next lifetime maybe. The lifetime ended with sunset unfortunately, and given that it was a two-hour drive (for a 60km long way) I did not really want to do at night, I decided to call it a day and left for Manado.

Being a human windshield

The initial idea was to hike up Mount Tumpa for sunset, but I underestimated the travel time and didn’t know the sun set already at 6pm. Instead, I caught the sunset on the mountain-road on my way back to the city. It was one of the most beautiful ones I’ve seen so far. The clouds were on fire, surrounding a mountain in the horizon that just added perfectly to the picturesque scene.

The only problem left was that I still had about an hour to drive back on the darkest road possible through a very forestry area. I can confirm that Indonesia does not have an issue with a decline in insects as I quickly realised my arm was covered with dead ones. I was rewarded with a mesmerising night-sky though that made it difficult to keep the eyes on the road. Lucky enough, it seemed all the people on the road wanted to come home safe and alive and I didn’t notice anybody being on a kamikaze mission.

Being a vegetarian is not always easy when travelling, and that was one of the days where I did not find any food to eat on the way. At the end I was so hungry I did not even want to get changed before going to my newly discovered favourite street food place to get my well deserved “Gado Gado”. After a day of strolling through tropical forests, lying on beaches, and driving through mountain roads, I finally arrived there as dirty as a human windshield can be. The lady knew me already and as soon as she saw me she asked “Gado Gado?”. A few minutes later I happily ate the only vegetarian dish I found so far in Indonesia, before calling it a day and returning the scooter to my guesthouse.