Biking and Camping with Luthfi Maizakusuma (@penggowes)

Luthfi Maizakusuma is my friend who technically just met last week, but I’ve known him since I-don’t-know-what-year-it-was. We started keeping in touch by a popular social media nowadays called Instagram. I chose to follow him because I love the way how he achieves his journey and his photography. I just knew that he is actually a Sambas Malayan from West Borneo because beforehand I thought he was a Javanese who living in Malang, East Java.

He has been riding his bike in his odyssey in stages since 2014. He began exploring from Malang to middle part of Indonesia such as Sulawesi and Nusa Tenggara. The following year, he continued wandering eastern Indonesia such as Molucca and Papua. Then, at the beginning of 2017, West Borneo, his hometown, was his first point for the next stage, cycling around Borneo, Java and went into porch of Sumatra, Lampung. As what he said in his short video on Instagram, after finish in exploring Sumatra, he will continue his journey to Asia. Leluangan! 😁

When he arrived in Bandar Lampung (16/9), he invited us to tent at the beach. Probably he knows that we sometime take a bike trip and stay the night far from our home. So he had chosen the place by showing us my picture I posted on Instagram, it was Queen Artha beach in Lempasing, Pesawaran. It took an hour from the downtown by bicycle. A close beach to enjoy sunrise.

After taking a rest at my friend’s boarding house, we took a ride around the city and accompanied him gaining money for his bike trip. He survive the trip by playing violin from a food place to another. He was good at playing that stuff and I just realized that it was rare to find a musician who plays violin in this city.

So we went to the beach at almost midnight. He built his tent and we hanged the hammocks. No story before sleeping, we immediately fell asleep, hoped the sun might rise brightly across the bay. 

Unfortunately, the sun rose but it didn’t show the light clearly like the picture I took several weeks ago. We couldn’t get what we expected. The dark cloud covered the entire sky. But we could still enjoy the view and the atmosphere because being at the beach in the morning was always such a pleasure. It was so quite. We spent the morning by talking the route that Luthfi will pass and reach. So after that, we got ready to go to Car Free Day in the downtown.

The same place in different time.

Now, when I post this article, he is reaching Bengkulu city.