so, after almost 2 months in Sumatra and only 300kms on the Trans-Sumatra some alterna routes to the Highway.

Gayo Highlands - Sidikalang to Bireuen in Aceh is packed with amazing scenery and a great 3 day drive if taken easy. Acehnese people are incredibly friendly as tourism is minimal cause of the civil war shadow hanging here. Best of all it's empty, I think in 4 days I counted only about 8 cars outside town during driving

http://ridingtherussian.files.wordpr...1041.jpg?w=800
Tangkenon in the Highlands


Road in the Highlands
http://ridingtherussian.files.wordpr...2221.jpg?w=900

Though the Road is not always as goo as here, more honestly it's often real crappy, even for sumatran standarts

The Road alsong the east coast in first perfect and Aussi-build, then gravel for 20km and finally Sumatra Standart again, though you got to do 2 River Crossings as not all the Tsunami damage has been rebuild

http://ridingtherussian.files.wordpr...1781.jpg?w=800



The Road into Samosir from Tele is extremely stunning though in poor condition.

The 44 bends down to Maninjau

http://ridingtherussian.files.wordpr...5771.jpg?w=800

and the viewpoint where extremely beautiful

http://ridingtherussian.files.wordpr...ma-6.jpg?w=900


The Road through the Kerinci Valley was a great and stunning drive with surprisingly good road conditions and amazing landscape, though I saw a lot of it on the back of a pick up as my piston blew, still awesome, though few pics.

FinallyThe Road on the West Coast south of Bengkulu especially after Bituhan is littered with perfect and completely empty beaches

http://ridingtherussian.files.wordpr...a-21.jpg?w=900



People are great, though sometimes act in extremely retarded ways. Mainly when it comes to parked bikes Sumatrans simply assume they're there to be rolled around on, or trying untill the chein in the Wheel stopps them, playing with Switches and other things. Luckily no one dropped it before I could chase them of. Also I was pushed of the road and into the other lane at 60km\h by 2 crazy freaks just cause they wanted to take a photo. Not cool

And finally, Bintang is a pretty decent beer

Enjoy it, great place.