Day Twenty-Five -Bukit Lawang to KL

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Day Twenty-Five - Just Get Us to HK

Today wouldn’t be great, we knew that. Essentially it was another three-hour offroading, moped avoiding, potholing, buttock clenching drive; a long wait in the rundown remnants of an airport last graced with modernity in 1983; a flight taking off on one of the most dangerous runways in the world; and a short kip in a transit hotel before our much anticipated flight back to HK.

You get days like this travelling, sometimes they are unavoidable but they still suck.

We got out of the rooms early and relaxed over breakfast. Leanne even took time to paddle in the river before our 4x4 arrived and Shannon picked up a few trinkets. The journey back was predictably painful although the ATMs this time were much friendlier. With no discount for me not rafting I handed the cash to Obiwan slightly teed off but to be fair, the guys were all good and it was worthwhile.

Medan again greeted us as a seething mass of traffic going in any random direction and progress was slow. The airport was dead which wasn’t too bad and some noodles took my mind off the time. Immigration was painless and after a little while, we boarded our Air Asia flight. Although it would have been cheaper to fly with an Indonesian airline (or even Air Asia Indonesia), I was happy to have a decent airline fly us out.

As I’m sure you don’t know, Medan Airport (Polonia) is due to be replaced. Terminals have burnt down a few times, the runway is too short, it is in the middle of housing areas and it is the scene of abut ten too many crashes or incidents. The replacement is due to be open in October 2009, oh…

Essentially, it is regarded as ‘dangerous’ and so I didn’t tell Angela this as it was our only timely gateway to Bukit Lawang. Melodrama aside, in Asia sometimes you need to go with the flow but I still avoid places like this when I can.

Safely in the air and stocked up on Milo and donuts, all was well and after getting through Malaysian Immigration we walked over to Tune hotel number two. This one had smaller rooms than downtown and wasn’t that great. The rooms were tired, not greatly cleaned and the aircon was shocking. Then again we checked in at 9pm and were leaving at 3.30am and the bed was good.

We were all a bit grouchy with each other but the girls got fed and we could all turn in for the night. Shannon struggled to work out the shower (aww) but eventually we settled.

They are going to go spare when we rock up ‘Fantasy Road’ tomorrow.

Today’s Highlight Still managing to keep Disney under wraps…

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