Title says it all, not much motorcycling this week as it has been pretty much pouring 24/7 here. With nothing much to do, I can’t help but feel a bit lonely every now and then. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t mind that feeling. It makes me feel alive and I do believe that’s what makes us all humans: the ability to feel. Well with the rain pouring down over the weekend it seems like I’ll be spending it alone again…. but I kinda dig it.
Month: Sep 2020
End of the Road: Kuala Balai
This is an interesting one. Not more than two weeks riding my Yamaha I decided to venture into an abandoned village: Kuala Balai. It’s pretty much a straight forward path, you just get off the highway and just head south and go straight. In theory it shouldn’t be hard but apparently I found out that’s not the case.
I’ve heard of this place from a research project from one of the Environmental Studies kids back in university. I’m not sure why the anthropology/sociology kids did not do this research but that’s a thought for another post. From what I learnt (roughly) is that Kuala Balai is just recently abandoned, well within memory that it was a once populated village. People moved out because it was too far (maybe this is an over simplification). I’m sure you can still find people who used to live there.
It takes about an hour to drive to Kuala Balai from the highway entrance. It’s a good stretch of 25km paved + damaged + unpaved road. It’s an easy drive if you have a 4×4, a slower drive with a car and a significantly longer time with a bike. A friend of mine lives 1km into the road and past that all the houses looks significantly aged. There’s no car going my way or even passing by me once I passed the 1km mark. There’s a few plot of land that was fenced off with warning signs and a few vehicle scrapyard or even fabrication yard that belongs to the oil and gas service companies. Had to take my earpiece out as the wind noise is significantly less because I’m traveling much slower than usual. It was very quiet. Maybe my mind is too imaginative and I kept imagining what if I stumbled upon those villages like in Resident Evil 4…. but no way man… I hope.
Up until this point the road was nice and smooth but just after the 3km mark, things were not smooth. The rain that came pouring the night before left puddles on the road. Not very nice puddles as it was muddy and I cannot gauge how deep is the puddle. I would go confidently over them if I have a dual sport bike but that’s not the case. My bike is basically a redesigned Yamaha MT15, a naked sports bike with a stiff suspension so no way I’m cruising past those puddles. I would say you would need a significant amount of throttle control skills to get past thru this area. I kept shifting from first to third gear but never passing fourth gear. There were a few sections where my tires lost traction due to the gravel but it’s a good thing I have a dual purpose tyre.
Nature always finds a way
Anonymous
Pretty generic quote but riding deeper into the road here, I think a lot about that quote. I’m sure that quote was coined after the industrial revolution where humans have significant power over nature. Along the Kuala Balai road, it seems that the reverse quote can be applied. Remnant of houses of where humans are trying to find a way to survive in nature can be observed sparsely on the road. At this point I have to admit it’s pretty creepy. Not to mention it’s the hungry ghost festival so that’s not helping at all! I don’t really believe in ghosts but hey, just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it ain’t there. Stopped by to check my phone and lo and behold, no signal at all. I would be in very deep trouble if my bike suffers damage and immobilizes me, but I pushed on.
7km in, huge puddle in the middle of the road. I don’t know how deep it is and I don’t think I want to try my luck! I just decided to call it a day and turn back. Strange enough there was a huge structure not far from there. It was all concrete with tiny holes at the top of the structure (atleast 10m tall) big enough only for birds to fly in. Wonder what’s that for. The journey back was the same, throttle control here and there and back to paved road. I did met an Indonesian contractor who I stopped and talked with. Based on what he said apparently a few people like to come to that empty road for various reason; some goes all the way to Kuala Balai to fish as the village is built along river, some photographs the wildlife and some set up traps to catch birds. The last statement was quite sad and the usual “humans are the real scary monsters” scenario but then again I thought about it. The ones who does this are usually not well off and they’re just trying to live. If we really want to stop this wildlife trade then we have to do better to make sure that people are employed and does not have to resort to wildlife trade to support themselves. One of the few things that kept me going is that the work that I am doing as an exploration geologist is that it is directly linked to the economy of this country and this is what keeps people employed. So maybe I am not doing enough to keep my fellow countrymen & women employed but all I know is we all have to do better.
Sorry to end on a low note. But maybe one day when it stops raining and when I have a riding partner, maybe then I’ll get to Kuala Balai!
Until then,
Reducing, reducing…… Burrows!
Part of my job is to understand the depositional environment of the potential prospect. This involves me to go into a core section taken from a close by well which sands I can correlate to the sands of the potential prospect (that’s as rough as I can explain it without going into too technical).
Okay so observation first, it looks like the section is all coarse grained materials with very nice laminaton. Two obvious things that I can observe is the red sands (ignore the core plug) and the nice burrow that little a little critter has made. Red sands indicate an oxidizing environment and if you notice, the little burrow was initially in the oxidized red sand package but surrounding the burrow the sands changes colour. Basically this is due to the nature of the organic material that the little critter leaves and instead of oxidising, it’s reducing hence the change in color.
Taking all of this into account (which is incomplete, I need to observe the lamination but I’m a damn petrologist not a sedimentologist so I’m still learning). I would interpret this as a shoreface environment, maybe upper shoreface. That’s just what I think atleast. This whole thought process is very nice and it was introduced to me from a german sedimentologist who was arguing with an australian sedimentologist on how to coach this fresh graduate.
Until then,
What exactly is Exploration Cycles?
New blog. Got tired of Instagram and the sort. Here’s to a new chapter of writing. I used to write a lot but then it stopped for no apparent reason. Honestly, I used to love Instagram back when there was no influencer. Back to when it was about sharing photos with your friends. Nowadays it’s all about the aesthetics (or assthetics…) and it’s just not good for my head. Maybe I’m just too old for those things but then again these social media platforms are specifically aimed at my demographic.
So why the name Exploration Cycles? It’s just my job role and my hobby – Motorcycling. I just got my motorcycle this week and so far I am loving the feeling every time I get on my bike (and yes, that’s me on the bike!). I’ll spare the details about my bike but I do have to state that motorcycling is not solely my hobby; photography and lifting are also on the list (I feel like I can go on forever). Do expect better pictures coming out but I have not bought my next camera; Fujifilm x100V.
Exploration Cycles will be an anonymous blog with fake made-up names of real people in my life. In a way, we’re respecting everyone’s privacy here, and let’s just enjoy the ride.
Exploration Cycles 