Scaring Small Children in Sumatra!

(Catherine)

As we've headed further south, the celebrity status we enjoyed (or should that be endured?!) in India has returned. Everyone wants to say hello, shake our hands and take photos and every school child wants to practise the five English questions they know on us. We've also discovered that in Sumatra we're pretty scary! While waiting at a bus station one day, I noticed a small girl of about three looking nervously at me. Her bottom lip started to wobble so I made a sad face at her. She promptly burst into tears, wrapping herself around her mum's legs. Imagine her shock when she later boarded her bus and turned around to see me sitting behind her! Another time, Matt reduced another small girl to tears by simply smiling at her. At home, we'd probably have been arrested by now!

In between scaring the locals we've covered quite a lot of ground so far. After the excitement of the jungle, we headed to Lake Toba - South East Asia's biggest lake - to chill out for a few days. We checked into what is apparently the 'swankiest' hotel in town (it's all relative!) and were given a cute Batak-style cottage with a tiny door. Our lovely room was only 3 pounds 30p a night so we couldn't help but wonder how cheap the least swankiest hotel would be!

We spent a relaxing few days exploring by foot and on bikes, visiting the tomb of a Batak King and an intriguing circle of 300-year-old stone chairs where village matters were discussed. Lake Toba is a really beautiful place and the Batak people who live there are genuinely happy and friendly. Music is very important to Bataks and everywhere we went we heard groups of people singing emotive hymns and young men strumming on guitars.

The only downside to Lake Toba was the lack of visitors. At times it felt like we were the only ones there as we walked past yet another empty restaurant or half-opened shop. In some places we had to wander around for ages shouting 'hello' before the proprietor eventually emerged, looking really surprised to actually have customers!

From Lake Toba we headed to the market town of Bukittinggi. The 'super executive' bus had sold out so we booked on the 'executive' service which turned out to be a normal local bus with rickety reclining seats and a stinking toilet at the back! We had numbered seats and as we boarded, the conductor was busy throwing a woman with a baby and an old lady out of them! The woman and baby managed to find a seat near the driver but the old lady was given a small plastic stool in the aisle! We felt so sorry for her - especially as the road was ridiculously bumpy and winding - but knowing that we had a 16-hour journey ahead of us, we were reluctant to give up our seats! Eventually, Matt could take it no more and decided that he would swap with her at the next meal break. Luckily for him, next time we stopped the old lady got off - after 4 hours of sitting on that stool! She was a tough old thing though and was still smiling as she jumped gracefully off the back of the bus!

We arrived in Bukittinggi absolutely exhausted and not looking forward to our next bus journey. We'd travelled on the Trans-Sumatran Highway, the most important road in the country and supposedly the best maintained, so it really didn't bode well for the rest of Sumatra! Bukittinggi was a pleasant place to stay for a few days. We saw the clock tower, ate cheap Nasi Goreng (fried rice with egg) in tents on the side of the road, got woken up at 5am by the local mosque's call to prayer, visited a canyon, saw some freaky stuffed animals at the zoo and enjoyed a KFC (sometimes you really can't face anymore rice!).

Our next stop is the Kerinci Valley to climb the highest volcano in Indonesia. So, small children of the valley beware, the scary Westerners are coming to get you!!!

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