A few photos - Cape York & on towards Asia

[PeterSibley]

A DR 250 or 350 with soft luggage and not too much of it . I like slow, I'm a lousy fast tourist .

I'd try for a few hundred words and phrases before I went, I've got Indonesia Bahasa speaking friends in Bris who might help me .

[The Bigfella]

You can get by with a lot less words and phrases.

I like the extra grunt of the 950 btw... it handles like a 250 but has some added stability... and believe me, that's important up there - the roads are sh!t.... the grunt is important to get you past things in a hurry. I really wouldn't enjoy it on a 250. There are sections of road that you want to get through in a hurry.

[The Bigfella]

Well, I found that whole earthquake experience horrible... knowing so many of the people there... and being here in Sydney, watching from afar.

I flew home from Medan to Sydney, via Kuala Lumpur on Sunday/Monday... and got straight into work after I got off the plane - for another 14 hours. Deadline met, I crashed into bed and its taken me till now to start to feel human again.

So, now I'm trying to think about what's needed to go back with me (chain, tyres, the fourth set of rear indicators and some more bolts... and more). I've been on the phone to the three-letter acronym agency that do bike registration here now and they were useless. It will be interesting trying to get the bike registered. I need an inspection certificate... but Indonesia don't do inspections. The Poms have a system where you don't need to keep paying the full fees if you are overseas. Our mob though want me to pay insurance in case I injure someone in Australia... while I'm out of the country. Pricks.

Anyhow... enough of that. Let's bring this trip report up to date.

Back to Lake Toba. Connie and I finally found good the 200-year-old stone sarcophagus of King Sidabutar. It was right under our noses, in the village of Tomok, a hop skip and jump from where we were staying, in Tuk Tuk. We must've put in 40km looking for something that was 3km from our hotel.... but it was good fun looking around anyhow.

Here he is. Apparently his sarcophagus is the shape of a ship.







Plenty of carved statues around there too

[The Bigfella]

....and there were even some cuties at the tourist shops



Right next door, life goes on... drying out the corn crop



... and ladies were trying to flog dried/smoked fish to the tourists

.

I did buy a few trinkets here.... a thin hand-made blanket/scarf thing and a bamboo noise-maker for the kids soccer games. I was surprised to get it through customs - but I declared it and did. I felt pretty sorry for the ladies flogging stuff - there were lots of them and not many tourists. Toba is an absolutely brilliant tourist spot... but there isn't an airport within cooee... so with the advent of cheap point to point airfares, tourism here has died.

A quick stop at a bike shop to get a screw.... for the headlight that was falling out.



The guy there had a daughter who was scared of the big bule monster and his camera... but I caught her eventually.

[The Bigfella]

We headed off in the other direction... looking for Ambarita, just north of Tuktuk - rated as one of the musts when visiting Samosir. Its a traditional village with King Siallagan's stone chairs. These traditional Batak houses are interesting. The lines on the front symbolise the continuous nature of the family.





We paid our 40c entry fee and got the current King as our guide. He explained that he - and all Bataks - know his grandfather's grandfather's brother's descendants. Did you follow that, or do I need to draw a diagram? We got the diagram.... a mud map. I suppose I should point out that it pissed down on us between Tomok and Ambarita... and we didn't have any wet weather gear with us. Such is Asia.

Here's the King, giving us the full rundown on the stone chairs... with me being allowed to sit in the King's chair.





These chairs are 400-500 years old. They were used in a tribal council arrangement to determine the fate of baddies. Generally a thief would get off by paying reparations, most of which went to the King. Real baddies (including those who got among the King's wives) would be sent off for execution. Being pretty fair chaps, they'd test the baddie to see if he was magical or not... they'd slice him all over with a sharp knife. If he didn't bleed he was magical. If he did... they rubbed lime juice and chillies in to the wounds... to soften him up a bit.

This is the execution site.



Some Aussie bloke volunteered for a demo to the assembled crowd. Um... that'd be Connie... we didn't see any others there.... Note my appropriate riding gear, swimmers and shoes

[The Bigfella]

Afterwards, they carved the beheaded crims up and ate them.. the King getting first pick. Maybe the lime and chillies were really a marinade?

Wandering through the tourist traps... there must've been about 40 stalls all trying to attract Connie and I... the only tourists there... I spotted a "nice" bronze walking stick. The stallholder wanted 600,000... and I was short on cash, with no ATMs on the island. Bugger.



Some local details





Oh... I nearly forgot. One of the nice touches on the houses is the fertility displays. 4 breasts.



You've got to give credit to a culture that reveres breasts, eh?

[The Bigfella]

I'd been off and sorted out my airfare from Medan to KL... I had intended to get there by the end of this leg of the trip, but I'm not going to be rushed anywhere. If there's places to stop and enjoy... I'm going to do it. I extended a Lake Toba a couple of times, for example... as I had at Padang.

Connie played old fart... and I headed out that night by myself. My ticket agent had invited me to her Karaoke bar. I got there and found her canoodling on the couch with her boyfriend... so disappeared after one beer. It wasn't "that" sort of Karaoke bar btw.... just music and beer. Some locals came in while I was there and strewth... one of the girls could sing. She was brilliant, but I left them to it and wandered across the road to a blues bar. There were only some locals playing pool. Here's the shy barmaid...



I bought a couple of beers for the winners of the pool games, which they appreciated.

I loaded up in the morning and headed towards Berastagi, the back way. I'd managed to get a bit of cash advanced on my credit card... one of the benefits of staying at the upmarket ($15.50 a night) Carolina's. Rooms can be had around Tuk Tuk for about $3.00.... in the dives.

So... $40 later, I loaded up the walking stick



and headed up the hill. I spotted lots of these above ground burial crypts. This one was where the current King's brother (the previous King) is buried, but I saw one that had five levels. They go into the bottom slot for 10-15 years... until the family raises enough funds for a decent sendoff... then the bones are consolidated and they go upstairs a level.



Not a bad road, but littered with fallen rocks everywhere.



Took a coffee break here



Overlooking the northern end of Lake Toba

[The Bigfella]

I probably should've stopped here to see what the go was. It looked like a wedding... but I decided not to intrude. I still had my wet weather poncho on... or what was left of it. I'd lost the left arm and the rest of it was shredding a bit when I opened the throttle up a bit.



The road was getting narrow and was peppered with potholes





I posted this shot already... but it put the heebies up me enough for me to post it again. This sort of thing normally gets a palm frond or branch stuck in it to attract your attention. Mine was diverted to the broken road and puddle just before it... and I damn near went in to this.



Ughh

I couldn't figure this one out. Designed to stop buses and trucks using the road... but I couldn't figure out why. I had to duck to go under it... and there were plenty of minibuses after this that wouldn't have fitted under it. I dunno



I was getting ready for a break when I came up to this one horse town... a few houses, a copshop and a cafe. I pulled in for a coffee... asked for one and got tea, asked for food and got nods... so I pointed to some eggs and held up three fingers. Got three boiled eggs. Total bill $1.20. The guys here were giving the dark chap a bit of curry. He wanted money and I offered food, but he said no.



Incidentally, the guy pointing to my front wheel is another cop... packing a pistol in his waistband. I tried to get into my pack to give that guy a shirt, but couldn't get anywhere without a total unpack... so I gave him a dollar... and the guys who'd been giving him a hard time all thanked me. I dunno what the deal was.

[The Bigfella]

I ended up on a more populated road and eventually stopped for another coffee. This view was totally built out on a corner by a succession of little cafes.



The monkeys were all in the rubbish 50' below us... chomping away on whatever people threw them.

Ahhh - Berastagi. The only town I've ever seen with a cabbage monument



Its also got two active volcanos. Gunung Sibayak, which I climbed, and the currently erupting Gunung Sinabung, which is off limits.

I stayed at the Highlands Hotel - a weird place with only me and one other guest in the hotel... and over 100 villas, of which only one was occupied.



A lot of these villas were crumbling, derelict



Really weird.

[The Bigfella]

Just to show why this town, Berastagi, has a statue of a cabbage in the main street, here's the view opposite my hotel.



I was staying at the top end of town in more ways than one. $30 a night and up on the slopes of a volcano for starters. That doesn't mean its all top end stuff... although I did have hot water and a flush toilet... that actually worked and didn't even have a sign asking me to not put paper in it. A nice touch was the tape over the powerpoint near the holder for the shower head. You could lift the shower head up well beyond this point too btw. It always pays to check the electrics out in bathrooms in Asia...



The main reason for stopping at Berastagi, only 75 km or so short of my departure point from Sumatra was to climb Gunung Sibayak a relatively small volcano. As usual, I made a couple of wrong turns finding it.... paid my 40 cents entry fee and rode up to the top carpark. Most people were walking the access road, as it was a bit steep and narrow for the minibuses. I stopped to speak to a small group just before the top carpark and was lucky enough, after I couldn't find the access track, to see them disappear into the jungle. It was a German girl, her husband and sister and two local guides. They literally stepped into the jungle. I could just hear them and chased as hard as I could, on foot of course. Eventually, I caught them and we broke out onto the proper trail. It'd just been the guides taking a shortcut.



We got up a bit, out of the jungle and could see the volcano summit



There were plenty of vents as we got towards the top and it was quite noisy. These were real screamers



One of our guides giving some scale to the vents



Sibayak is 2,212 metres tall, 7,257'. Wiki said it last erupted in 1887, although the guides said it went off about 50 years ago. Its bigger twin in the area, Gunung Sinabung is a bit taller, just over 8,000' and is erupting at present. It was mostly cloud covered, although I did see the brown eruption cloud a few times. I've got a rather crappy photo of it somewhere, but didn't upload it.

[The Bigfella]

Plenty of sulphur around



Another couple of views from the summit



This one is looking down to the geothermal power station and where the commercial hot springs are. The Germans continued on down this side, I went back to the bike and rode around to the springs



Plenty of clowns have jumped into the crater lake and used boulders to write their name



I headed back down myself, although there were half a dozen local kids who had done the climb who followed me and kept asking for money. I only really encountered this up in northern Sumatra but its never worried me much. I normally say no, but I'll buy you some food if you are hungry.

The trail was a tad wet

[The Bigfella]

At the hot springs - I ended up in the wrong one, the German girls were in one a bit down the road, dammit.... the view was fabulous. There were plenty of individual pools, so you could avoid the kids. Looking back up at Gunung Sibayak





I was the only westerner at these springs

There was an old bloke wandering around selling packets of ground up minerals from the volcano. The locals were keen on it... men and women both rubbing it in on any exposed skin.




Heading into town again, I saw plenty of this sort of thing... cane baskets, lined with banana leaves, waiting to be loaded up.



I stopped at this little place, loading tomatoes



I tried to ask the bloke there how much.... and he was saying, I think, 50,000. If that's 50,000 rupiah per basket... that's $5.

It was late enough in the day after all this that I'd missed checkout time, so I stayed over and headed to Medan in the morning.

[B_B]

again, for like the umpteenth time, looks like a fantastic adventure! Thanks.

[The Bigfella]

I checked in to the place in Medan that Simon and Lisa Thomas (2ridetheworld.com) had recommended to me. Medan is Indonesia's third largest city and the guesthouse is quite noisy at the front.... and I couldn't talk Stanley into giving me one of the ground floor rooms at the back because he keeps them for the old and infirm folks. Um, Stanley, mate... my knees... Nope. Stanley insisted I bring the bike into the living room too... so it spent 3 days parked in there next to the organ.

Stanley pretty much insisted I not ride around Medan... he was worried about the bike and me. He'd told El Conquistador the same thing... but he'd ridden into town and someone had snitched a video camera off El Conquistador's bike while he was shopping. Um... I guess its nice to be sponsored and not have to worry about things like that... El C had 4 GoPros, so who cares if he loses one - not him apparently? He'd told me when I saw the busted mount a few days earlier, up the road, that it'd broken off... yeah mate - broken off when someone reefed it off.

Young Hannah and I decided to head out for dinner, then a couple more Dutch kids turned up, so we took them along too. Walked into town to Sun Plaza, which was a rather high-end shopping plaza with everything you'd expect in a similar thing in the west. I offered to buy them a beer and we ended up in a Sushi Bar. The beer was German... and $15 a bottle. We shared two between the 4 of us and moved on to somewhere that didn't need a wheelbarrow full of money to eat. I picked up a new camera there, so it was good shopping.



Unfortunately, we ended up in the Islamic quarter... from a beer drinking perspective.... so it was off the menu, but it was a fun place to be - until the heavens opened up on us....



The four girls here are local nurses on their way home after work. I think there must be a maximum height limit for nurses eh?




Hmm... I seem to have run out of photos again... I better check the cameras, because there are more... including the mosque that made it onto everyone's screens with the earthquake coverage a couple of days after I left Medan.

[The Bigfella]

again, for like the umpteenth time, looks like a fantastic adventure! Thanks.

My pleasure entirely. Don't let me discourage you from commenting either.... it gets damn hard to get photos onto the bottom part of a page if its only me that's been posting to it and loading it up with photos. Its OK from home, but in areas with thin internet... phew...

[ChrisBen]

My pleasure entirely. Don't let me discourage you from commenting either.... it gets damn hard to get photos onto the bottom part of a page if its only me that's been posting to it and loading it up with photos. Its OK from home, but in areas with thin internet... phew...

When you're on the road and dealing with slow connections you can go to the Menu bar at the top of this page, Go to forum actions/general settings, scroll down to Thread Display Options and uncheck show images. That way you won't have to wait for all those images to load, then go back and check "show images" to make sure they loaded.

[The Bigfella]

When you're on the road and dealing with slow connections you can go to the Menu bar at the top of this page, Go to forum actions/general settings, scroll down to Thread Display Options and uncheck show images. That way you won't have to wait for all those images to load, then go back and check "show images" to make sure they loaded.

Thanks for that. Much appreciated.

[The Bigfella]

Finally get to say G'day to the missus tomorrow morning. She ran away to America the day before I got home and flies in from Hawaii in the morning.

Gunna be strange sharing a bed. Having slept so many nights in a different bed nearly every night, I've woken up a few times during the night and lay there trying to figure out where the hell I am. Last time I was home... the same thing happened. I woke up one night, realised there was someone else in the bed and thought "who's that.... where the hell am I?"

[Spin_Drift]

Incredible adventure, Ian. Your fabulous pictures are so interesting to look at. You are showing us so many unusual things. It's wonderful to be able to share your trip.

How much further are you going to go? How much longer will your travels take, time wise?

You should write a book of your journey. It would be a best seller....

I can hardly wait to see what's next.....

[The Bigfella]

Thanks Spinner...

The short answer is that I don't know. I'm flying back to Sumatra in two weeks time. I've then got a ticket back to Oz two months after that.

There's still a bit of northern Sumatra that I want to see, including an area where you can see the Orangutans in the wild. Connie, the American lady I met at Lake Toba highly recommended going there to see them - she saw one male and 8 females/babies in the wild. Seeing the family of Gibbons in the wild was one of the real highlights of the trip so far - even if I couldn't get any decent photos. Incidentally - on that point - I wish I'd spent a week there at that National Park.

I may end up doing some backtracking. I want to get that blind guy at Lake Toba sorted out (shhh... don't tell the missus) and that may mean going back to his village. Hopefully not, but time will tell.

After that, I'm going to look at Malaysia. I have to get the bike shipped over - there's no vehicular ferry any more - and that can be a bit problematic, but I'm sure it'll be OK. I've got problems with Oz bureaucracy, but my wife offered yesterday to help resolve that. The bike registration expires soon - and the Australian department want something done that isn't done in Indonesia (they are insisting it be inspected by a government-authorised inspection agency..... they simply don't do that in Indonesia).

So, the plan is a couple of weeks in Malaysia.... then travel through the southern parts of Thailand to Cambodia. The Cardamon and maybe even the Elephant Mountains areas in Cambodia hold some appeal, the fleshpots of Thailand, less so.

By the time I get to Siem Reap, I reckon that'll be my two months.... and that's about when the monsoon starts up there.... so I'll leave the bike with a friend there and head home to do some work while its wet there. I'll need to be a bit flexible with all this - can't annoy my clients too much and my wife is also going to have her other hip done, so I'll need to be here for that. Unfortunately, she's a rather dedicated school teacher - and will only get that done when its holidays for her - which, of course, coincides with the best riding time in Asia. Dammit.

Anyhow.... I reckon for the balance of this year, I'll be riding May 9th through to mid July, or maybe a tad later... then again in October through to early December. I don't think that will be the end of it though.... I may want to do another stint to finish the trip off early next year, but I won't know for a while. I hadn't intended to spend 3 months in total in Indonesia.... so, there is no real planned time to finish.

The main objective of the trip was to ride the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos - before the Chinese push bulldozers through and pave it.

Incidentally, if I were to write a book out of this trip, I think it would be on a couple of areas that I haven't seen a great deal of yet. One of the motivators for this trip was to do something to address what I saw some of in Cambodia two years ago.... the child sex trade and the ongoing war damage - particularly wrt children.... neither of which are likely best sellers in the book world, btw. There's another angle on that rattling around in my brain too... a bit more popular too. Time will tell if it makes sense. Its more likely though that I'll just put some ideas together for a former colleague who has established a foundation to help women in Africa. I hit her up on the issue of the child sex trade a year or so back and piqued her interest - but, as I say, she was focused on Africa. At the time, she'd just raised IIRC $37 million at one fundraising event for that one.

[The Bigfella]

I’ve stopped updating this thread for the time being, but think I should tidy it up and explain why.

I’m not going to close it… I’ll probably add to it when I come across specific boating content, but then again, I may not. I’ve got some pretty specific things I want to do on my trip and they take precedence over squabbles around here.


Pipefitter made an interesting observation on another thread recently… here’s part of it:


Look at the air they have created here. Anywhere else in society, it's considered impudent, or rude at the very least.

Their first clue should be why they are here doing it in the first place. It's because nobody else around them, in real life, will engage them and for good reason and most likely views their internet as a godsend so that they don't have to listen to it.


I couldn't agree more with him.

When this thread got decimated late last year with a “smacking” that I didn’t believe was justified, I started a Ride Report over on ADVrider.com – a bit of a cut splice, based on this thread. I’ve continued to maintain the ride report thread over on ADVrider.com and it’s where I’ll concentrate on updates from now on. If anyone is interested, here’s the direct link.

http://advrider.com/forums/showthrea...740906&page=11

It’s a bit further advanced than here… start from post 161 if you want to follow on from where this thread left off.

I'll leave off at the moment with where this trip has taken me and where I'm heading this week.

I fly back to Sumatra on Tuesday.

That map shows, in green, the rides I've done on the KTM in the last year or so. This trip has been about the section in Northern Australia. The dotted purple line involved towing the bike to North Queensland. The solid purple line was the Scrapheap ride that we (one of my sons and I) did as a fundraiser for Downs Syndrome NSW.

This is the Timor-Leste and Indonesian component to date.



The straight dotted purple is aircraft trips so far. The other dotted purple is boat trips. One ship (for the bike only) from Darwin to Dili (oops, forgot the air trip to match that)... and ten ferries and the two-day boat trip to see the Komodo Dragons. The dotted blue lines are my likely path for the next two months. I'm heading up to Banda Aceh to check out the recovery from the tsunami (I'll come back here and post a photo of the "inland boat" if I get there) then off to Malaysia by boat and into Thailand and Cambodia.

First up though, I'm backtracking to Lake Toba. I had a very generous offer from someone on ADVrider to help sort out the blind guy that we met there. I've located a surgeon and hopefully we can get him active again.

The haters and pond slime can stay on this forum - they sure as hell get told to take a running jump, or something similar, when they turn up over on ADV. My apologies if this offends the many good friends I've made on this forum, but such is life. In the meantime, I'll still hang around and hold up a mirror to a few of the toxic views that get far too much air.

[PeterSibley]

An excellent travelogue Ian , wonderful photos .... thanks !

I take it the above was a dummy spit?

[StevenBauer]

I didn't realize this thread had been decimated. I've been pretty good about keeping up with it and haven't backtracked. Not having a picture limit over on ADV is pretty nice, eh? Subscribed over there now.


Steven

[katey]

Thank you, Ian.

[George Jung]

I missed the 'decimation', as well. Too bad - this sites loss. Thanks for the travelogue, and the new link.

[Robbie 2]

Thanks Ian.....I have really enjoyed this thread and will now check into the ADV site so I can continue to follow it in the future.
Regards
Robbie.

[purri]

Decimated? methinks...

[The Bigfella]

I didn't realize this thread had been decimated. I've been pretty good about keeping up with it and haven't backtracked. Not having a picture limit over on ADV is pretty nice, eh? Subscribed over there now.


Steven

I rebuilt a series of missing posts some time back. Not recent. Sorry, but it was just one of the inputs into not wanting to continue spending time putting posts together here.

There's half a dozen folks here who want to do nothing but bleat, moan and dig. That's fine by me, I'll respond in the same vein, although I'd suggest that if I do, I probably won't have posting privileges for long. A post got deleted yesterday that would have seen me banned if I'd made it. I've sat back and ignored them for long enough.

[PeterSibley]

I suspect you may be talking about a couple of other threads Ian , that's fine and the way the Bilge works . This a travelogue and a good one. I for one respect it as such . Please continue.

[Larks]

Ian, I can't see maps in your post above but thwo photos instead.

[The Bigfella]

Ian, I can't see maps in your post above but thwo photos instead.

You've got me beat. I see the two maps.

[Larks]

I see the two maps now as well, but when I went over to the ADV thread I also saw only photos on the map discussion, must have been something with the photo host site.

[The Bigfella]

Good oh.

I rang Medan today... got the lady who owns the guest house - she's in her 80's and wasn't getting far. Finally got on to her son, Stanley... "Oh yes, I remind you"... good, thinks me, seeing how he's got my bike and all my gear. I asked him if he got my reservation email. "No, email kaput". OK... situation normal.

[George Jung]

'Situation normal'. I believe that's my zipcode.

[The Bigfella]

As promised, here's a few wooden boat photos. Wooden ship actually. She's taking my bike to Malaysia tonight. I'd have gone with the bike... but a client had an issue and I had to do a re-write of a report I finalised when I was home last time. I really didn't enjoy working on spreadsheets and reports on this damn microputer... but such is life.

Here she is.. the Golden Lestari... I walked her length... I called it 34 metres... around 100 - 105'











and just to round out the 6 images.... here's my friend Nova from Bukit Lawan. Not only is she as tough as nails, she's as sweet as sugar.



The rest of the trip is over on advrider.com

[The Bigfella]

Sheesh, is it really so long since I posted here?

First up, the attempt to fix Kader's eyes failed. I took Kader and Sarma (one of his daughters) to see the surgeon in Medan... a horror trip by "taxi"... where the driver informed us part way there, just after overtaking around a blind corner "feeling is more important than eyes when driving". He felt it was OK to overtake... so he did. Anyhow, the news from the surgeon wasn't good... and a few tears were shed. We headed back to Lake Toba and after a week of trying to figure out what to do, we've funded a pig farm in the village. I say we, because it was done in conjunction with a forumite I've never met over on advrider.com. He actually provided all the funds in the end (despite all discussions being around him only putting in some money). There are some fabulous people out there.

That's actually the third localised project to come out of this trip... the others being getting internet into a youth development group in Timor-Leste and getting a friend in Cambodia into a tourist van. Hopefully they'll generate results into the future.

What prompted this update though was finally getting the files off my old, dead, Nikon. Here's a shot from Flores. The spiderweb rice paddies.








Rather lovely, aren't they?

And since I put this up on the Spinner thread... here's a couple of the Orangutans

[Phil Y]

Still following Ian, its a pity about the trashers-I don't think they are worth acknowledging, but I know you prefer to take the bait. I think a lot of people appreciate the thread.
Phil
PS, I think felicity has booked all our family for a trip to Vietnam in around sept/oct, which will include a few days on rented bikes. Unlikely we'll co-incide with you, but it would be cool to meet up if we do.

[The Bigfella]

Phil... are you going up to Sapa? If so, I'll make a suggestion... there's a family we stayed with out of town, I have their contact details somewhere. Much better than staying in a hotel. They aren't a commercial homestay, just lovely people.

[The Bigfella]

A few photos of the place I just stayed two nights at... the beach near Chumphon. Can't remember the name now (and the net's too slow to look it up... I'll edit it later)

This is the fishing village



and over the other side is where I stayed.... just past that unloading petrol tanker



I poked around the docks and boatyards a bit



Unusual shaped props




Some boats needing more work than others

[The Bigfella]

This one was interesting... I reckon over 50% of the planking had been replaced





Many different shapes around too



.... a quick shot of the village... as it started to rain




No idea what the timber was... this board was about 16 inches wide... the sawdust was green. Other timber I saw looked the same colour as teak... but I couldn't pick up on the grain as it was rough sawn.



One from in front of my "resort" (I was in the area visited by Thais, not farangs)

[Iceboy]

Once again, nice stuff Ian. I really enjoy following this thread. Jim...