A complete journal of what can go wrong on a trip

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So, after Berastagi and its volcano, we went down to Lake Toba, a few public buses later, squeezed into the back of minivans with various little Indonesian children climbing over us, and then a short ferry ride we made it to the island in the middle of the lake. All was ok, though it rained a lot and so took away some of the splendor of the lake, but a night was enough and we decided to get ourselves down to Bukittinggi. Just south of the Equator.

We found out that all the buses were full for three days and so eventually settled on a taxi company that does the trip for 220,000 per person. 8pm the guy told us. Be half an hour early. So we wandered around the mess of Parapat for a few hours, went to an internet cafe full of ten year old boys playing playstation, chain smoking and shouting the names of various European footballers.

We went back to the place around 7pm, basically because we'd exhausted every possibility of what could be done in Parapat. We read for an hour before being told that the car would be an hour late, so we waited. At 9pm, the car was going to be another hour late, at 10pm it was going to be arriving at 11. At 11 it was going to be another 30 minutes.

At this point all sorts of drunks started coming in to stare at us, and then shout something, some of them took a seat and flicked fag ash on us, some simply leant against a wall for 20 m inutes watching us try to ignore them.

At 11.30 the car driver had stopped for something to eat. At 11.45 he was 1km away. at 12am he was 500m away. I'd calculated that at the rate of 100metres every 3 minutes it would take him nearly 5 days to drive us to the Bukittingi. I queried this and the guy had no idea what to say. At 12.15 there was still no car. We asked what was going on, and got the distinct impression that the 7 seater Aircon car did not exist. At 12.30 a battered Toyota Carolla hobbled onto the kerb.

Blacked out windows, a dodgy looking driver and 4 and a half hours late we told the man we were going to have our money back. He refused telling us that this car would take us to another car.

I don't know if it was a scam or con, or if it was true, but the guy had not been honest with us in about 4 hours and I wasn't about to trust him now. He started shouting, I shouted back, then Rhian played good cop, and politely warned him that she didn't feel safe and that we'd simply come back in the morning with the police. 440,000 Rupiah suddenly appeared.

So we lost another night, hanging around in Parapat, found a hotel that rationed hot water, no matter how much you pay for your room!

In the morning we went to the bus station and having spoke to enough people found someone who enough locals thought might be trustworthy, he sold us tickets for the one o'clock bus to BukitTinggi. He did warn us that we would have extra seats instead of regular. It's a 13 hour trip, and we decided that in order to get out of Parapat we'd do it.

When the bus turned up we saw our seats, and decided that even though it was not much more than a four inch wide piece of wood.

After a couple of hours we realised this might have been a mistake. At one stop a man ran off and came back with a piece of pipe which was attached to something and then poked out the side of the bus.

Indonesia's buses have a compulsory smoking law that means each person traveling must smoke at least two cigarettes each hour, without any windows open. Anyone who does not obey this rule gets covered in ash and smoke.

Additionally, there seems to be a road planning rule that insists on various hairpin bends being taken at a minimum speed. Three hours in we were both holding vomit in our throats.

At the next stop, somewhat unscheduled, various men jumped out of the bus and started to throw water over the engine. A lot of steam was being produced from the aforementioned pipe.

After more bends and a near head on crash with a stationery building that refused to move from the drivers way, and then a bus that had the cheek to drive to slowly, Rhian vomited for the first time. Shortly after on a another hairpin bend, the bus left the road and cruised some air. So did Rhian as she flew from our, and I use the term loosely, "seat". landing in a heap next to the toilet door can't have been pleasant, but she still had the strength to vomit again. Addagirl! A point I may have missed earlier is that buses in Asia tend to have a toilet of the squat variety. I can only assume that to squat on one of these journeys must take the skill of an Olympic athlete!

Just after midnight the bus stopped and the engine was taken apart. Three hours later we got moving again with various noises coming from the engine.

Our scheduled arrival of 3.15 came and went and still without any sleep and more thoughts of throwing up we tried to look out of the windows to settle our stomachs. Staying on the seat was enough of a challenge.

At 7am when the sun rose and the light came we thought it couldn't possibly be far. At 8am it seemed as though it might still be, at 9am Rhian threw up again, having exhausted all the plastic bags available it was the turn of my fleece to be used. At 10am the bus stopped about 10km outside of our destination, the driver went to the back and started looking at the engine. Enough, was enough! We got the bags off, got in a cab, hassled hard and found a hotel to have a shower and a sleep.

We woke up at 5pm and then went to a cafe that some Dutch woman had told Rhian about. An hour later we've booked ourselves on a trip of some sort that means we'll be sleeping in the jungle for five nights with a tribe who eat monkeys, believe in evil spirits and live in pig poo. According to my mate Simon, it's in Liverpool.

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