Indonesia - Sumatra, Rice Fields, the Equator, and a Rapid Dismount

This leg was a very long one. Sumatra is an interesting island with lots of jungle and rice fields, thousands of switchbacks, very thin roads, no urban planning, and very little support for a weary traveler. All this makes for a fun yet grueling ride. 

The roads are two lanes (one in either direction), about three meters wide a piece (normal is 4 meters), no shoulders, and the developed areas are built right up to the road side.  Due to very little tourism or foreign activity at all. there are few hotels or restaurants.  For this reason, and since the riding in the jungle and rice fields was fantastic, I decided to push through Sumatra with long days of riding, very little rest and and not much more.  I rode from Lake Toba to south end of the island  (1,255 miles), in about five 10 to 12 hour days.  I had the opportunity to pass over the equator for the second time this trip, the first being in Ecuador back in 2016. The rain was strong on the last day of riding, which when in the the hotter areas of the world, is a welcome occurrence.  Near the end of the fourth day, on the south end of Sumatra, I took a downhill switchback a little bit to fast, when combined with the rain, and a large dose of human error, I ended up overshooting the turn and both Greta and I tumbled into the jungle.  The road was empty, but in short order a truck drier and crew came along, stopped, and helped extradite Greta from the jungle.  It took three of us, but we got her on her feet, and in one crank the engine roared back to life.  Both her and I were unhurt, but had mud and grass in our cracks that did not need to have mud or grass in them.  

Bizarre Observance:  In Sumatra these is an astonishing lack of traffic lights and not a single stop sign that I personally came across.  Traffic can get very bad and intersections can be a challenge.  To take up the slack, the locals have taken to directing the traffic for tips.  It seemed like a good idea at first, but once you realize that they are untrained, each have their own unique hand signals, and nobody really pays much attention to them, you are left with some short guy that can barely been seen, usually without a vest, flapping his arms around in a nonsensical manner.  Then the kids have started trying to get in on the act and they stand on the side of the roads waving their arms around, with even less clarity than the adults. I have to assume a large number of these people have been hit and severely injured or killed.    

Leg Distance:  1,244 mi (2,006 km)

Total Distance Traveled by Motorcycle: 40,598 mi (65,481 km)

Countries/Territories Visited: USA, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, San Marino, Slovenia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Transnistria, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, China (for 20 seconds), India, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia