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Thursday June 19, 2008 - Andy and I got up early today and had breakfast together before I headed off to the boat. Went back to the room to get my bag, said good bye to andy, and off I went. It was about a 15 minute walk to the ferry, and it was early but still hot. Once I got on board I chose a seat in the front of the boat. It was all inside, and freezing for the whole three hours. If only I still had my fleece! But I did have my Korean Air blanket from the third flight that I helped myself too since they had my jacket. It helped a great deal. There was also a movie on that was in English, taking place in China during a war. Pretty good, until the depressing end. There were two other westerners on the boat, but we didn't speak until after the boat had arrived. Once we got to customs, some people came and took our passports away and we got to talking for a bit. They are Dominik and Myriam from Switzerland, quite a cool couple. Passports in hand once again, we got assailed by the
same bus company offering us a free ride to town (Dumai) to buy a ticket on their bus. We accepted the offer and bought tickets to a town called Bukittinggi. We had a few hours before the bus left so we had lunch. This was my first introduction to Indonesian food. Some of it is like Malaysian food - fried rice and fried noodles, but there is a lot of fish and curries as well. And all of if is precooked and just sitting around waiting to be eaten. A little freaky, but the way of it here. So I had some chicken curry and it was pretty good. I didn't drink the water though - just wasn't sure yet and had a long bus ride ahead of me. I then went in search of an ATM. I had some Indonesian rupiah that I had exchanged for most of my Malaysian ringgit, but would be needing more soon. I tired three ATMS and was denied by all. What if I can't get money in this country? I got back to the bus place around 3:30, when we were supposed to meet for them to shuttle up so the big bus
station. Nothing happened, but I was suddenly surrounded by English students who wanted nothing more than to practice on me. So I thought, what the hell? There can only be a few minutes left, right? Turns out I had come across a time zone difference and had a whole hour to kill without knowing it. Shame, I could have used the internet. But it was ok talking to them in the end. Eventually Dominik and Myriam came back and then it was time to get to the bus station.
The bus left at 4:30pm and I was sitting across from the Swiss couple, which was nice. It was a long ride - but not too bad. In the beginning they were showing Tom and Jerry cartoons and playing techno music. It actually went together better than I would have imagined. We stopped for dinner eventually and ended up at a small booth serving noodles. It was a cold dish, but not bad. After dinner we had a long night on the bus. It was hard for me to get comfortable. There was a pillow but it was hard to keep it against the window and I kept waking up with my head falling down. Plus I was coughing and achy and sore from a cold. We arrived in Bukittinggi around 5:30 am. Too early to do much except bruise my arm on the way out of the bus. I somehow smashed my arm into the bus on the way out, and discovered later in the day that I had a monster black and blue bruise. Really unpleasant. And it worried me for a few minutes as I'd just had a biopsy taken right near there and thought the bruise was to do with some infection. But then I remembered my ungraceful bus exit. The Swiss couple was moving straight on to Lake Toba - quite far north. I only wanted to get a minibus to Lake Maninjou, less than two hours away. My bus left around 7am, so just before i went across to the ATM and was finally able to retrieve some cash from an ATM. Then I said good bye to Dominik and Myriam as they waited for their bus at 10am and got on my little minibus.
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