mon day 45

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I had previously arranged with Samuel that we were going to meet at my hotel this morning - he with 2 Australian girls and a driver to take us all to Bukit lawang ( 90km north of medan ) to do 2 days jungle trekking. Well, Samuel was there but none of the others - after having correspondence with Samuel over the last 2 days, it didn't come as a huge surprise - just a bit disappointing really. So, the option of the trekking was still real - I just had to get a public bus to Bukit lawang on my own to which Samuel was gonna help me out with. So after an hour of discussing options, money etc we headed off in a taxi to the bus station. It subsequently came up in conversation that i wanted to go to Jakarta in about a wks time and was yet to have booked a flight ( this was no bother as I had a wk still to sort it ) Samuel pushily suggested that we go to his tour company first to book it - as I may have difficulties booking it on line? Although have had no problems up to now! So fighting our way through a very busy medan - an hour later we made it to the office where a nice lady booked me a flight - a totally unnecessary journey as it turns out I could have booked it myself. So, feeling a little annoyed the next stop with Samuel was to the bus station - now taking twice as long as we were that much further away! So I made sure I was only going to pay half - and sensing my annoyance - and after me asking samuel also footed the bus fare for my journey to Bukit lawang. Turning left onto a busy road we had made it to the bus station - being a load of very tired vans at the sides of the road - not actually a station as such. Finding the one that I needed I got on leaving Samuel to pay the fare. We said our goodbyes and I was quite relieved to be leaving Samuel behind. In some ways he helped me out and in others he constantly lied - saying he had 3 jobs - he didn't, as well as others - so made himself untrustworthy. Picking up and dropping off a few people on the way, we travelled through villages and on mainly unmade roads in a very old 8 seater van. The journey only took just over 3 hours and i was met at the other end by a lovely man who owned a guesthouse that I was going to stay in ( he and Samuel knew each other ) and he was a guide for the jungle trekking also. So jumping in a motorbike rickshaw with my bags we heading into Bukit lawang - 5 minutes away and I was shown my room. Nice size room, clean and with its own bathroom ( cold water shower though) I settled in, had dinner and relaxed for tomorrows trekking.

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