When I finished the trip in India, it took me a while to get back on the road, India got to me, drained me of my energy, I still traveled around a little bit like here, but not a big trip, on a motorcycle.
After a few months in Vietnam and Thailand I decided to get back on the road, and with a pretty big plan, the plan was to ride as much as possible around Sumatra, for about 4 months, or 2 “Indonesians visa” long.
I will try to give some information on how to accomplish this because not that many people ride around Sumatra, but I think it’s something that should be done by more people who enjoy riding in South East Asia.
This was all done in July 2024, even though I didn’t hear of any changes at the moment of writing this, April 2025, be aware some things might have changed.
I landed in Medan, Sumatra. The largest city on the island, note that this island is bigger than many European and Asian countries. And there are many other islands (419 in total according to Google) in the province of Sumatra.
First step is to acquire a motorcycle, as of now, April 2025, buying a motorcycle in Indonesia is very straightforward. All you need is to bring money and get what you want, with the motorcycle you should also get the STNK and BPKD. With those 2 papers and the motorcycle, you are good to go. You don’t need to change the name on the documents, and you will be able to sell the motorcycle with those documents as is. Just make sure they match the motorcycle.
I decided to get the CRF 150L, I enjoy that kind of bike around Indonesia because the roads are not always the best, and it’s also great for exploring the many off-road locations you can find.
The biggest downside with this kind of motorcycle, is the tires, melting on good asphalt, but tires are pretty cheap and easy to find.
I got this 2021 CRF 150L with only 9000KM for 27 000 000 IDR (about 1400$EUR). The prices were a little higher here compared to some other places in Indonesia. I bought mine from this shop (Sumbayak Motor) . The staff was friendly, and the bike was in excellent condition.
Then what I did, is get my account setup on www.tokopedia.com (you’ll need a local phone number for that, go to Telkomsel official store and get your phone registered and get a sim card, you do not need to pay taxes on your phone (IMEI) at the airport for this, you can use your phone up to 6 months without paying taxes).
And from the website you can buy some goodies:
M15 (Indonesian brand) Rear side bag rack.
Rear rack original Honda but the M15 looks good too.
And some straps, I got bungee cords at this time but if you can get some Rok Straps, I’d recommend those.
Got it all installed at the Honda dealership.
With this setup, you are ready to go on a big adventure! This setup was super reliable for me, no issues with the bags, they fit tightly on top, but it works just fine. They were also very solid and didn’t have any issues with it for the 7000km/4 months ride. You can order more stuff on there for your trip, but this is the “needed basics” to have your CRF “adventure ready”. Note that I did a similar trip in Sulawesi with only a small bag strapped to the rear rack with a backpack strap to me. They both have their plus and minuses. I don’t travel super light because I have a bag just for my camera gear. Experiences may differ.
And off I go!
This is a one-person setup, I was able to ride with a passenger and extra luggage, but it wasn’t ideal, I wouldn’t recommend it for long distances.
Look up my IG stories for some videos and other content.
After I left Medan, my first stop was Berastagi, a town about 2 hours away from Medan. This area is in Karo Regency which is home to the Karo people.
Karo is an ethnic group that is predominantly Christian, Indonesia is mostly Muslim, but there are multiple non-Muslim areas. Karo are “mostly” famous in the rest of Indonesia for BKP – Babi panggang, a pork dish.
There are a few volcanoes in the area, I first visited Mount Sinabung, which is about 60 minutes from Berastagi, I recommended using the back road to get there, it is in very good condition and a beautiful place to ride.
This is the view with the drone from a few kilometers away.
As usual, the soil is very fertile around volcanoes.
But before getting closer to the volcano I visited a ghost village, after 400 years without eruptions, Mount Sinabung erupted in 2010, and in 2014,
Mount Sinabung erupted after a 400-year-long hiatus in August 2010, and has been continuously active since September 2013. Total erupted volume from 2010 to the end of 2015 was estimated at 0.16 km3 dense-rock equivalent.
On Friday 3 September 2010, two more eruptions were noted. The first one happened at 4:45 a.m., local time, forcing more villagers to leave their houses – some of them had just returned the day before. This eruption was the most intense so far, with ash spewed up into the atmosphere about 3.0 kilometres high. The sound was heard from 8 kilometres away. Some hours before the eruption a warning had been issued through the volcanology agency, and most villagers were prepared to leave quickly. A second eruption occurred the same evening, around 6 p.m. The eruption came with earthquakes which could be noticed out to a 25.0 kilometres distance around the volcano.
On Tuesday 7 September, Mount Sinabung erupted yet again, its most powerful eruption since. The force of the explosion could be felt 8 km away.
There are more details on the Wikipedia page.
One of the abandoned villages. There is now very few people living there in bad conditions, but most people just use the area for agriculture and might sleep around for a night or two, but usually live a little further away.
Got closer to the volcano for some photos.
Not a bad spot for a coffee.
There are many cafés around the volcano to chill and enjoy the views before heading back to your accommodation in Berastagi.
On another time I went to another area not too far from my guesthouse, not sure where I’d end up but it wasn’t that special.
Here you can see me in the middle of the jungle, that’s one of the reason I like to have a CRF when in this part of the world.
Cool area but the weather was making photography quite challenging, bur riding around there was quite fun.
The other popular adventure in this area is to go up the other volcano, Mount Sibayak.
You can go up the road, and then go for a walk from the entrance, with a motorbike you can go up to the “second” entrance but if you get there with a car you’ll have to park at the first entrance and walk an extra 20 minutes or so.
From the second entrance, it will take you about 45–60 minutes at a very “normal” pace to reach the lower part of the volcano rim, where you’ll have a food view.
And from there you can go up a bit more for about 20 minutes and get really an impressive view of the whole thing.
Met some kids from Medan on the trail, always friendly people.
The ridge.
The high point of this hill is an excellent view point.
There’s a lot of activity all over this volcanic area.
An incredible place to witness sunset that makes you feel small on this planet. Volcanoes are very impressive places to explore.
On my last day there, I visited another abandoned village with a local who showed me around.
The area is now used for farming.
The lava river got real close to the village.
Some people come here to enjoy the river.
Very interesting area to explore but it was time to get to the next destination. Heading towards Lake Toba.
The Toba Caldera in North Sumatra comprises four overlapping volcanic craters that adjoin the Sumatran “volcanic front”. At 100 by 30 kilometres (62 by 19 mi) it is the world’s largest Quaternary caldera, and the fourth and youngest caldera.
The first sight of the lake.
As quoted before, the lake is huge, 100km long and 30km is quite impressive.
There’s also an island in the middle of the lake, Samosir, which is about 45km long and 20km wide. A part of the island.
The rim of the lake is quite impressive with big steep wall like hills.
The Toba eruption (the Toba event) occurred at what is now Lake Toba about 73,700. It was the last in a series of at least four caldera-forming eruptions at this location, with the earlier known caldera having formed around 1.2 million years ago. This last eruption had an estimated VEI of 8, making it the largest-known explosive volcanic eruption in the Quaternary
What happened here affected the whole world for years. It’s a very interesting and another humbling place in Indonesia.
The biggest port coming from Medan is Parapat, but I decided to go to Tigaras Harbor,
The ferry can carry motorcycles but not cars at this harbor.
The ferry from Parapat will get you right next to the main touristic area of the Samosir island, that village is named Tuktuk, there you will find most of the hotels and homestays. The ferry I took gets you the north-east of Samosir island, Simanindo Port Crossing. Found a nice room with a view at Maruba inn tuk tuk.
Lake Toba is home to Batak people, another ethnic group of Sumatra that are also a mostly Christian group. A local style resting “house” for the Batak people.
And this is a traditonal home for Batak.
The center of the island.
The other side of the island you can see the hills that are part of the rim of the lake, you can also see how bad the visibly was at this time.
There were a lot of fires around, resulting in bad visibility. Waste management is not the best so many people burn their trash and there’s also lots of field burning, easier, faster ansd cheaper than plucking the last crop left.
This is the only bridge that connects Samosir to the mainland.
Kept going around the island to the side of Tuktuk.
A village with many traditional homes.
This is Batu Passa Liang sipogu, a cool tree on top of a bunch of rocks in the lake.
The morning view of the lake from my room. Not bad.
One day I decided to try to ride around the rim of the caldera. There’s a road for a big part of it, if you want to stay close to the water all the time the road is sometimes a mildly bad dirt road.
There’s many waterfalls around the lake.
And villages, lots of them using the lake for their livelyhood.
Unreal landscape around the caldera.
Isolated villages.
Unreal place, but I didn’t make it around the whole lake, I did maybe 30% of the lake in the north-east near the water, and then I went around on the main road and back into Samosir using the bridge, it’s a very big lake, and it would take 2–3 days of riding to explore the whole area.
After about a week in Tuktuk, I decided to head to the coast.
It was quite a “day”, left Samosir to Parapat by ferry, very easy, just show up and get on the next ferry, they have many departures daily.
From Parapat I rode around the lake and then headed to Sibolga, a city that has Roro Ferries to the island of Nias, my next destination.
When I got to Sibolga, I went to one of the ferry ports, and I was told to look online for tickets. Indonesia is a country where what you did a day before doesn’t always apply to today, I never was able to buy a ticket online for a ferry, or even ahead of time, now that was the only way to proceed. Funny place.
You can buy a ticket online, on this website, I was told the schedule for the week comes out every Saturday (which was true when I was there).
As a foreigner, if you don’t have a local bank account (with only specific banks allowed), you will have to go pay at the Indomaret or Alfamart. Which is ok when you are in a city like Sibolga but can be a bit of a pain in the ass when you are in a remote village on an island. You can always ask a local to pay for you and give them money or use Wise to transfer money to their account.
I arrived at around 3PM and found that they had a ferry going to Gunungsitoli in Nias that same night. It was good enough for me, my destination in Nias was closer to Teluk Dalam in the south of the island, about 3 hours from Gunungsitoli but the ferry for Teluk Dalam was only the next day.
Note that the ferry doesn’t operate everyday. But usually it’s the same schedule every week, so you can plan with that you see online.
And another thing, some ferries will allow you to book a bed/bedroom online. The standard bed is usually dormataries style and can be quite loud. If you really need to sleep, I’d recommend trying to book a private room. If there are no rooms avaulable online, you can ask the staff when you get on the boat, most of them don’t sleep during the journey or sleep in another place and will rent you their rooms for about 300K IDR. You can try to negociate.
The ferry was leaving at 9PM that night so I just hungout in a coffee shop/restaurant until the evening. I didn’t explore Sibolga.
This was the cleanest ferry I had ever been on in Indonesia. It was a chinese boat with many chinese warning signs. And very chinese flush equipped squat toilet.
Super clean all around.
And the room was very nice too.
Gets a bit pricey when you are solo to get the room but the sleep is priceless, for sure a better bargain when you are with friends.
Another impressive thing, the ferry left right on time. And we arrived 10 hours later in Gunungsitoli.
So after a 1 hour ferry, 3 hours ride, 10 hours ferry, 3 hours ride, I made it to my destination.
Sorake, a famous surf spot in Nias, Sumatra, Indonesia. Home of the WSL.
Nias is an island, off the coast of the island of Sumatra. Looks very small on a map but it’s about 120km long and the infrastructure is limited so corssing the island from one end to the other is quite long about 4-5 hours, which I didn’t do.
The island of Nias is home to another group of people, the Nias people. This is yet another ethnic group that mostly follows christianity, mixed with their traditional beliefs.
Sorake looks like this.
There’s no beach in the “center” of the village, but you can find a beach very close by and many more a bit further. But Sorake it self is packed with homestays, a big wave and surfers doing their thing. Very chill place with friendly people, even the surfers.
Most spots are humble homestays. I stayed in this newew style building.
Which was pretty comfortable, you can reach them by WhatsApp, Hello Sunshine is the name of the place.
Right next there, the new, at the time, coffee shop was real good to work from with great reliable internet. Casa Bebas Nias.
I stayed there for a week, it was a real chill place to be, I’d probably still be there if I was a surfer!
But I am not! So instead I explored the area, the west coast first.
Kilometers of empty beaches.
Prett nice coast line!
Back to the village. Tried taking some photos of the surfers, they are pretty close to the shore, I did cropped but I shot these with a prime 85mm.
Pretty cool to look at. I also made a short video with the drone.
The next day I visited the traditional village of Desa Hilisimaetano. Nias people have very interesting traditions and history. Sadly I wasn’t there in the right time to see the celebrations but visiting the village by itself was pretty nice in itself.
Nias villages are organized in straight lines, reflecting their belief system and social structure. The houses are aligned along a central axis, with one end leading to fields and gardens and the other to public areas like cemeteries, creating a distinct visual structure. This arrangement is also practical, as villages are often built on higher ground to avoid flooding.
Rarely you see this kind of “basement” in traditonal homes.
Kids in the village, they were waiting for a huge football game to begin.
This rock is famous in Nias, South Nias for “Stone Jumping”
The “Lompat Batu” or “Stone Jumping” is a unique cultural tradition of the Nias people, particularly in the South Nias region of Indonesia. Originally a virility ritual and warrior training exercise, young men would jump over a stone structure to demonstrate their courage and readiness to become warriors. The practice is still performed today, often as a tourist attraction and a demonstration of the unique Nias culture.
I wasn’t there at the right time for the festival, you can watch it here.
On the way back to Sorake.
After a week here it was time to head back to the main island of Sumatra. I booked the ferry using the same website and this time I booked a boat leaving from Teluk Dalam wich is 20 minutes from Sorake. Much easier to get to.
My plan after this was to head up to KM0, the beggining (or end) of the road in Indonesia, this is on the island of Weh, north of the city of Banda Aceh, which is also the name of the province, Aceh.
The ferry dropped me of in Sibolga in the morning and I rode a few hours up to Dolok Sanggul, a random town not too far from the west side of the Toba Lake, I wanted to explore some things around there but the weather wasn’t great for the 3 nights I was there.
One afternoon after work I managed to get to Bakkara Village.
After this I kept heading north, I stopped in Ketambe, this is in the province of Aceh, a very small village in the middle of the Sumatran forest.
This place is a much quieter place to see the Sumatran Orangutans.
It’s quite pricey to go in the forest with a guide tho, ~100$CAD per day per person. I didn’t do it because I saw Orangutans before in Kalimantan but mainly because the weather was really bad for 3 days in a row.
There were also issues with electricty, which was also preventing the cellular internet connection from working.
All of that made me leave on the third day because I had to work as I was traveling and with not internet and no electricty for 75% of the day, that wouldn’t be possible. But I really recommend this area if you want to avoid the busy Bukit Lawang area to see Orangutans.
I didn’t take photos with my gear, just a few cellphone pictures, gives you an idea.
After this I rode up to another lake, much smaller called Tawar Lake. The road to get there was quite nice and quiet.
Made it to the lake but the rain again was a problem, after working in the morning the rain would come every afternoon. Couldn’t really explore much.
Here’s a few photos that I was able to take.
After 4 days I decide to keep going.
If you ever in this area, I highly recommend riding this road, it was amazing. From Takengon to Meulaboh.
An epic strech of road.
4 hours of jungle.
I was later told it can be dangerous to ride a bike alone there, some say tigers can appear on the road. Take this with a grain of salt, a lot of stories in these parts of the world are something that happened once, 25 years ago and stayed in the local folklore. There’s risk with everything in life. But also this road was very quiet and remote so I kind of believe it can happen.
After 10 hours on the road that day, I made it to my destination. Lhoknga, a small village with nice beaches and waves for surfers.
I rode the last 2 hours in the rain, but saw a cool spot about one hour from Lhoknga. Lhoknga was again mostly rainy. That time of the year is not raining season but the world is different now.
When the rain stopped I headed to that spot I saw a few days before, it’s about one hour south of Lhoknga and it’s called Puncak Gunung Geurute.
It was still cloudy but it was quite a nice place to see.
On the way there.
This is the road I took and saw how wild this place looked, while riding in the ride, but I knew I had to come back to check it out.
The roadside is filled with little shops where you can get snacks and drinks.
With a view.
Headed back to Lhoknga and the next day the weather was good enough to show you what it looks like out there.
Not bad! I then kept the things going on the road.
I headed to the port of Bandah Aceh, from there I got on another ferry to Pulau Weh (Weh Island).
I arrived late at my accomadtion and this what I saw out of the balcony.
Wow and the next morning was also stunning. This is at Diara bungalow iboih sabang this side of the island, Iboih, is more quiet than Sabang, the main town on the island.
I was staying in one of those little buildings on the side of the sea.
The shades of blue here are unreal.
This is also near the KM0, the end or, beginning of the road, in Indonesia.
Maybe one day I’ll make it to the other side, in West Papua.
Island exploration.
Fun little waterfall exploration, Pria Laot Waterfall.
I then went to the Sabang side for a few days, but the weather turned pretty bad. But the color of the water was still beautiful.
A volcano on the mainland lurking in the background.
At this point it was time to head back to mainland, to spend a few days in Banda Aceh. Banda Aceh is the most conservative city in Indonesia. Aceh is the only province in Indonesia practicing Sharia law officially.
There’s a lot of stories online, well more like real life news reports, scaring people away, which I do understand, even for unmarried foreigners it can be complicated to book a room, but in general if you don’t do anything out of the ordinary, you won’t have any problems there. I met great, very friendly people in Aceh, everyone was curious and helpful.
Weh Island is also in Aceh province and but people are ok with foreigners swimming in bikini and you can also find beer in tourist areas. But don’t tell anyone.
After that I took the ferry back to Banda Aceh.
Aceh is also quite famous for another reason, a sad one, the area with the most causalites during the 2004 Tsunami. The estimated deaths in Indonesia, which is mostly in Aceh province and the city of Banda Aceh, are more then 165 000 people, that is so crazy to think about.
I visited the Aceh Tsunami Museum.
There’s many pictures of what happened there during the Tsunami and after, unreal destruction, it’s quite a special place.
And the day before visiting the museum I randomly met a man in the street, while waiting to get my motorcycle washed, and he told me a very sad story from that day. He saw his parents leaving with the water and many family members didn’t make it. He was visiting someone that day that lived in the area where he lived for his whole life before that day and where he saw all that. He told me the trauma was too much and he had to move from there to another area of the city.
After this I visited the country side about 1 hours out of the city. I got closer to this volcano, Gunung Seulawah Agam.
Beautiful area, after a coffee I headed back to the city. The next day, I went back to Lhoknga because the weather was good and I wanted to get some more photos.
At this point my my visa was coming to an end and it was time to ride back to Medan.
Banda Aceh to Medan is about 600km. In Sumatra it means about 12 hours of riding. This road is known for being dangerous, and I quickly understood why.
This reputation is not without reason, it is indeed a wild road to ride. And at first I was about to stop somewhere in the middle, but in the end I rode 12 hours straight to Medan. It was a wild ride, not the most pleasurable ride I had in Sumatra but a fun memory to think back.
I had to fly out of the country for a few days to get a new visa and also I wanted to have a little break.
I left my motorcycle at Pasola Guest House, where I also stayed a few night, and I recommend it if you are looking for an affordable place in Medan.
I flew to Kuala Lumpur, cheap, direct flights connect Medan and Kuala Lumpur. I stayed in Kuala Lumpur for 10 days. The more I visit Kuala Lumpur, the less I enjoy that city. I can’t really figure out why but it’s not it for me.
Thanks for reading if you made it to the end 😉
The rest of the Sumatra adventure coming soon.