"Welcome to my paradise"

Our group split off since 4 people wanted to do an organized tour of Sumatra and Wendy and I just laid low since we will see orangutans in Borneo. The bus ride from Medan to Parapat definitely wins my "Worst Bus Ride Ever" award. It was a bargain at $2 for 5 hours or so it seemed at first...We stumbled off the airplane, into a mini-bus and then were shepherded onto a crowded bus leaving that minute. We took the last 2 seats at the back beside a chain-smoking father with his 1-year-old baby on his lap. There was rumored to be AC but it felt like we were sitting beneath a heater instead. None of the windows opened except for one on the other side that the bus helper operated. There were 3 men who had decided they would be more comfortable sitting up behind us where we had stowed our backpacks and at one point at a sudden stop, one of the men fell forward and pushed my seat hard into me. Then there was the constant chain-smoking seemingly coming from all sides. I would feel a sudden wave of panic when it got to be too stifling and then at last relief when the helper would open the window for a bit. I had a thinly veiled shoving match going on with the chain-smoking father since he would keep moving over into my space (which was not much) or he would pretend to fall asleep and lay his head on my shoulder until I would nudge him off each time. Gradually the landscape turned from ugly dirty coastal town to lush beautiful hills. When we finally pulled into Parapat and went down to the dock to take the boat over to Lake Danau Toba we were so relieved. It was beautiful!

We quickly bought some mangos and mangosteens (my new favorite fruit) and got onto the boat and the first thing I heard was a local telling our small group of tourists "Welcome to my paradise." The hostel we had picked from Lonely Planet-Samosir Cottages-was such a find. We only paid $5 a night between the two of us and we had our own patio with an awesome view of the lake. There was also a really nice swimming area complete with diving boards. I jumped in as soon as I could and the water was perfect.

The next day I decided to go on a little adventure and go out to the hot springs. I had specific directions from my hostel on how to get there: walk 4km and then take a mini-bus for an hour from such and such town to blank town and then walk another 30 minutes following the signs to Air Panas (hot springs in Indonesian). I walked for about 30 minutes and was stopped by 3 different groups of high school students doing their English conversation homework. They each had questions written down to ask me and took turns and then I had to sign off for them and be in a round of photos. Very practical. I finally stopped to ask and was told that it would be another hour at least to walk to the next town to take the minibus so I opted to hitch a ride on the back of a motorcycle. I had to wait an hour for the mini-bus to leave since they were waiting for a boat to arrive with passengers, meanwhile all the drivers where chain-smoking over my shoulder and trying to read my book. Each of them gave up after about 5 minutes. Finally we were off and it was like a repeat of my first horrible bus-ride with all of the cigarette smoke but this time I had a hacking cough-smoker's cough perhaps?-of 2 days that was only getting worse. An hour later I stumbled out of the mini-bus in a nicotine haze and walked into the first restaurant I saw. I peered into the glass case of food that did not look fresh but I was pretty hungry though also feeling nauseous from the smoke and bumpy ride. I asked if they had chicken and she said no just fish. I gestured towards the other 2 plates of dark brown cubed meat in a sauce and asked if it was beef. "Dog" was the reply. I asked "dog?" and they said yes-both plates and wanted to know if I'd like some. My nausea washed over me again and I asked to use the bathroom. Outside of the bathroom stall in a dark dank corner were 2 of the most sickly looking mongrels I had ever seen lying around semi-conscious. Tomorrow's lunch? I quickly used the bathroom and left the restaurant without looking back. Before that I'd thought maybe I would like to try dog at some point but when faced with the reality of it I had no desire. I had a nice walk up to the hot springs after getting a good meal at another restaurant. I met a lot of the local kids flying their kites and playing in the street. They would all greet me with "Halo Mrs.!" The hot springs was a bunch of separate pools-men and women bathed separately. The women were mostly older and bathed topless with a sargong on the bottom and dipped screaming babies into the water. They were really friendly towards me and shared their soap. Everyone here has been really nice-offering food on the bus, generous help with any little question. Of course I was so used to everyone being friendly that when two little boys ran up to me when I was walking down from the hot springs with the dirtiest little hands I never suspected that one of them would wipe grease all over my arm and run off laughing.

Danua Toba had everything set up for a wonderful resort-tons of hotels and restaurants in a beautiful setting, perfect weather, friendly people and cheap prices. But there were virtually no tourists. Our hostel was full but I heard it was the only one. The streets were empty as were the restaurants and discoteques. I asked a few locals what had happened and basically they said it was a combination of things: the terrorist bombings in 2002 in Bali and Jakarta being big ones as well as the government not supporting tourism actively and making it harder for tourists since they no longer issue 60-day visas. One man estimated that current tourism is only 5% of what it was before it started to drop off 10 years ago.

Wendy and I took a trip over to the local market in Parapat to check it out and cuz I needed to find some underwear since I'd accidentally left 2 pair at the hostel in Singapore. On the boat ride across, one of the local girls was saying goodbye to her "tourist boyfriend" from France or somewhere. I'd seem them around before that. Another local girl was agressively flirting with his two friends-leaning over them and laughing crazily. Later that night back in Tuk Tuk (the peninsula where we were staying) we at dinner at a restaurant and the flirty girl from the boat ride was our server but now she was ultra-calm and quiet. We mentioned that we had seen her on the boat and I asked if she liked the tourists. She said yeah she was trying to get a tourist boyfriend-that she'd never had one before but would like to just like her friend had. Back at our hostel, on of the guys that worked there mentioned that his best friend had married a tourist and they now live in L.A. and that a lot of people from there end up marrying foreigners and moving away with them. Kind of sad to have that as a goal.

---

---