Indonesia is amazing… I experience this again and again. At this time my passion for bikepacking led me to Madura, just off to the northeastern shores of Java. I spent four days exploring this island, which is connected to Surabaya city by a bridge, yet it is an entirely different world.
Cycling to the graves of Muslim saints that can be found all around the Island was the objective of this trip. Madura is a stronghold of traditional Islam, in which more universal tenets and rulings of religion mix with local practices and beliefs. Believing that certain individuals, who conducted exemplary lives, and members of certain royal dynasties receive divine blessing after their death is widespread. These saints, after their passing gain supernatural power that can benefit the believers and harm those who have evil intentions. Of course, such beliefs are widespread all over Indonesia (and Southeast Asia … and throughout the Muslim world…). Yet, there are two main reasons why Madura is attractive to cyclists who can see beyond their Strava apps (small minority who still escape the contemporary dehumanizing digital idiotism – maybe at one point I’ll write about it from a cyclist’s perspective) and have an affinity to explore how the locals live and what they believe in, and in our case, are interested in learning more about Muslim saints. First, the island is compact enough to cover a lot of interesting things, yet large enough to cycle considerable distances (in my first day I cycled 185km). Second, the Madurese people are extremely friendly and open. They have absolutely no reservation to share what why and how do they worship, unlike in several other parts of the world.
I flew to Surabaya from Singapore on a Friday, checked in a hotel, and assembled my bike. Next day early morning I headed to the SuraMadu (Surabaya+Madura=SuraMadu) bridge and crossed to Madura. The scary aspect of the 5.5km long crossing was coping with the huge number of speeding motorbikes.
After arriving to the land of Madura, I cycled about 50 kilometers on an, in Indonesian standards acceptable quality road (asphalt, only a few potholes) till I reached Aermata. This small rural town is famous about the mausoleum complex of the Cakranigrat dynasty who ruled the western side of the island between the 17th and the 19th century.
The graves of the kings and their family members are on a hill where I had to climb by taking several stairs. Thankfully, some locals offered to look after my bike if I buy mango from them after coming back. Upon entering the complex, the beauty of the marble carvings of the headstones stroke me. They are indeed worthy to royals whom the locals consider as saints who after death can serve as intercessors between the Almighty and the believers. One of them Syarifah Ambani, aka Ratu Ibu is the most powerful among the saints. A few hundred meters away when I left my bicycle to see some moderately interesting limestone formations, people assured me that no one dares to touch the bike. Some time ago a motorbike got stolen from the same spot, but the thief made an accident immediately when he was trying to escape and died. Locals believe that Ratu Ibu killed him for what he did.
In the following 130 kilometers, I passed small towns with colorful markets, beaches, agricultural fields and waterfalls. My original plan was to stop at a homestay or hotel on the northern coast before it gets dark. Yet, I haven’t found any, therefore I decided to continue cycling after sunset and reach the island’s capital, Sumenep.
The roads even after dark seemed to be safe, with rather sparse traffic. Some of the locals accompanied me on their motorbike to make sure that I take the right path and wouldn’t get lost in the tangle of small rural lanes. The only challenge was navigating through the many potholes in a reasonable speed without cracking my rim.
Upon arrival to Sumenep, a provincial Indonesian town with dimly lit streets and plenty of Javanese and Madurese street ‘warungs (food stalls)’, I checked in a hotel, grabbed some ayam goring (fried chicken) and hit the bed. After all, riding 185 km on a loaded bike, in often bad road conditions deserves some sleep.
On the next day, I hopped on the bike early morning and headed towards the port where I could take a boat to Talango Island, at the eastern side of Madura. For this day, I had no clear plans. I knew that I want to visit Talango to visit Shaykh Yusuf’s grave, but for the rest of the day I thought I will take different smaller village roads randomly, and an hour before dark I would start thinking where to sleep.
After about a 14-15km ride I arrived at the small port where ferries and boats leave to the smaller islands off the shores of Madura. To reach Talanggo, I had to take a small wooden boat, that was large enough to carry my bike as well.
After passing through the extremely crowded port I ended up at the graveyard that hosts Shayk Yusuf’s tomb. Shaykh Yusuf was one of the religious scholars who spread Islam in Madura in the 18th century. According to a local legend, King Abdurrahman of Sumenep once headed to Bali where he would spread Islam. The night before he would head to the port to board a ship to Bali, he saw a ray coming down from the sky to Talango. In the next morning, he crossed to the island to find a grave at the spot where the night before the mysterious ray pointed. The king planted a tree and restored the grave. Since then it is a target of pilgrims from all over Indonesia. Interestingly, while Muslims come for intercession to the grave, Balinese Hindus visit and revere the tree what the king planted (why is this exactly I have yet to find out).
Around the grave, a whole cemetery developed, mostly for the nearby Kampung Arab (Arab village) that is inhabited by people who claim Middle Eastern ancestry.
I had some chat with the pilgrims at the grave then I headed out to discover the rest of the Island. I spend a few hours riding through small villages and many dirt roads, so I had the opportunity to thoroughly test my new Schwalbe Mondial tires.
After leaving Talango, I headed to Asta Tinggi, the architecturally impressive mausoleum complex of the Kings of Sumenep. The place was crowded with pilgrims asking for health and wealth from the deceased royals.
During the rest of the day, I took some small rural roads towards the northern coast and was cycling through little villages. At one of the kampungs (village in Malay/Indonesian) the locals invited me to join a wedding celebration. I spent about an hour with them eating excellent food and chatting.
In the late afternoon I arrived to a giant limestone mine – a place where perhaps two decades ago there used to be a hill, now completely removed due to mining the material, that serves as one the main sources of income for Madura.
At this point I decided to cycle back to Sumenep, as nowhere else could I find any hotel or homestay to spend the night. While it would be possible to stay in one of the villages, I rather opted for the comfort and privacy of a hotel to gain some energy for the next two days’ grave hunting. Hotels are cheap in Indonesia anyway. Something relatively comfortable usually costs between 200-250000 IDR (12-15 Euro/20-25 Singapore Dollars).
The next morning, I spent visiting the palace of the royals of Sumenep (Keraton Sumenep). The building complex is located in the center. Its structure is fairly similar to the royal palaces of Java, i.e. buildings surround a large, often divided courtyards with a covered space for celebrations, royal audiences, gamelan music and other events in the center.
The caretaker told me that the rooms of the royal family have been left untouched since the end of the Dutch colonial rule when they moved out of the keraton. According to him, the bedroom of the last king and her daughter are holy places. To illustrate the transcendent power of these premises, he shared a story: A few years ago the son of the district governor (bupati) brought a girl inside the palace and had sex with her in the room of the princess. After the intercourse that had been performed on the bed of the princess, the guy simply went crazy as a punishment for desecrating the place.
After the palace I made a brief visit at the magnificent Masjid Agung Sumenep (Sumenep Grand Mosque) that was built in a mixed Chinese and European style. Undoubtedly, the mosque is one of the architectural gems of Indonesia.
Relatively late, at 10AM I left Sumenep and cycled towards my next destination, Sampang. It was the shortest day of the tour, yet rather interesting. Near the southern coast, I diverted a bit to explore some small off-road trails that connected little villages in a sparse coastal forest. Accidentally, I bumped in a well-maintained grave of a saint, Shaykh Sultan Ahmad, who is venerated among the inhabitants of the nearby kampungs.
After getting back to the coastal highway and cycling around 25 kilometers, I stopped by to refill my water bottles and grab a coffee at an Indomaret (Indonesian convenience store chain, similar to 7 Eleven). In the store, I started chatting with Pak Harun, the director of a local elementary school and his wife. The couple asked me to follow them to their village and have lunch together.
I drafted their motorbike for about 10 kilometers till we arrived at their house in a small village. The wife served us some simple mee goreng (fried noodles) with egg and oranges (jeruk, well, almost like orange…). Pak Harun, a 57 years old short, dark-skinned man, who had been teaching maths all his adult life, was wondering how come that a researcher like me rides a bicycle and not a car. I started to explain things about freedom, health … well… The way bules (white people in Indonesian) think is impossible to understand I guess…
After leaving the house of Pak Harun I continued to Batu Ampar, to visit yet another popular grave site. Batu Ampar is the burial side of a number of well-respected religious scholars. There was a bit of climbing until I reached the mausoleum complex on the hilltop. After strolling around the graves in this very quiet, almost otherworldly location, I headed to the town of Sampang to check in a hotel and hit the pillows.
Sampang is a very quiet, small Madurese port town. I found a fantastic value for money hotel. For about 300000IDR I got a huge, and clean room with a super comfy bed. After strolling around the nearby streets a bit, fueling up with some beef soup, fried banana, and plenty local desserts, I returned to my room and had a straight, almost seven hours of sleep.
On the last day, I visited three more graves. The grave of “Potre Koneng” or the “Yellow Princess” is on the hilltop in a fairly remote location in the northwest side of Madura. I had to cycle a fair bit through the rather crowded southern highway till I could divert to the less populated interior of the island and could take the less trafficked (but also bad quality) countryside lanes.
Upon arrival to the grave, I had to dismount and leave the bike near a food stall and take a few hundred stairs up to the hilltop. The view and the atmosphere compensated me for the effort. The old caretaker of the grave told me that, according to the tradition, the sea in previous times used to reach until the foot of the hill. The princess, using her power granted by God moved the sea back dozens of miles, so the local people could have more land for agriculture.
From here I continued to some of the royal graves in Arosbaya (Makam Pangeran Tengah), a place very close to Aermata, so by this basically I completed a circle around the Island in four days. After resting a bit at the grave site and shooting some photos, I turned my bike southwards to reach my last destination, the grave of Sunan Cendana, another great and highly respected Muslim scholar who is considered to be among the first who spread Islam in Madura in the 15th century. Sunan Cendana is buried in a large cemetery behind a mosque that bears his name in the town of Kwanyar, southwest of the Island.
From Kwanyar a straight, 9 km windy road led me back to the SuraMadu bridge. I’d describe the crossing as dreadful. Just as the beginning of my trip, herds of speeding motorbike riders who seemingly don’t obey any basic traffic rules were passing by me. At the end of the bridge, one of them accidentally dropped a bag full of some metal stuff. I managed to avoid the bag at the last moment, unlike the motorbike behind me carrying a man, his wife, and two small kids. The family crashed. Miraculously, the kids and the wife got away without injuries, but I saw the man lying under the motorbike seemingly unconscious…
Getting back to the hotel in Surabaya marked the end of another amazing bikepacking trip on a truly off the beaten path. I am not sure when will return to Madura, but this unique microverse with thriving Muslim culture and extremely friendly people will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Some words on the equipment:
Bike: Genesis Croix de Fer 20
Tire: Schwalbe Marathon Mondial folding, 700x40c.
Bags: Full Apidura set – dry saddle and front packs, accessory bag top tube bag, dry compact frame pack
The full equipment weighted around 19kg
The Mondial tires exceeded my expectations. Before the trip, I was afraid that they will significantly slow me down. Yet, they performed superb both on the tarmac and offroad. In fact, on tarmac, I didn’t feel them slower on asphalt than the Specialized Trigger Pro 2Bliss that I previously used. When it came to gravel and dirt, the Mondials were way faster. Yet, while with the Trigger Pros I had plenty of punctures, I had zero with the Schwalbes despite often going through rocky terrain in high speed. For me, the 300g addition weight is a negligible sacrifice for these efficient and robust tires.
Bike choice: this trip convinced me again that a steel gravel bike is the way to. It’s faster than a conventional touring bike, yet can handle any kind of terrain, unlike a race bike. One might ask, why not go for a carbon adventure bike, like the Specialized Diverge? Well, for peace of mind I guess. Carbon is laterally stronger than steel, but less impact resistant. Considering that I fly a lot with my bike and frequently carry it on ferries and small boats often without any chance to pack it, steel seems as a better choice.
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