lake toba, padang, bali

Asia » Indonesia » Sumatra » Lake Toba
June 14th 2009

Published: June 14th 2009

I am now in Australia, but here are some notes I scrawled ages ago as my Asia dream came to a close...

Lake Toba was a hard place to escape from. If I wanted to head South, which I did, the only option by land was a 18 hour bus journey to Pedang, with nowhere to stop on the way to break up the trip. It would be through beautiful mountainous countryside, but it would be at night. And the road is a swirly bumpy nightmare I was informed.
I decided I was going to do it though, and as a result stayed in Toba for far too long, alot of 'one more days', when ordering a pizza and watching football seemed like a more appealable alternative to bus torture. Eventually I bottled it and booked a flight to Pedang from Manila, although Manila was 4 hours away, so it took me days to make the decision. Days of eating pizza. (They were good at pizzas there, the secret was asking for extra cheese.)
I heard about Adam air, an airline with one of the worst safety records in the world. (Cheap though.) The website is banned from most internet cafes and if you google it you just get loads of stories about death compensation for relatives. Potentially, some of you could have been quids in, but I was forced to go for a different airline. The trip to Manila was arduous. I made this journey with a French girl I was mates with for a few days, which is not as good as it sounds. She spent most of the journey talking about 'doing' certain countries and places (tick!) which made it hard not to slap her.
After slapping her we went our separate ways (their a touchy race aren't they?) but not before the usual charade with the Medan bus driver who said he could take us to the airport for 10,000 rupiah. After 5 minutes of the journey he said it was now 60,000 rupiah as it was 'very far' or 'very traffic today.' He tried to intimidate us by speaking Indonesian with the other passengers and fake laughing but I could understand enough to talk back to him and demanded he let us out of the bus. We pretty easily flagged down a tuk tuk type thing and packed into it. A similar thing happened with a taxi driver last time I was in Medan and it all gets a bit tiresome in the unbearable heat so i slapped him.
I met an Australian guy at the airport who was booking the same flight as me. The ausie guy, who was about 45 and said he owned a mining business and boat, recommended the 'homestay' (i usually boycotted places describing themselves as 'homestays' as the term makes me barf) he was staying at so I checked it out and it was weird but I stayed as it was relatively cheap. For some reason Pedang is expensive for hostels. The one I stayed in was designed like a house, very smart and clean, and the bedrooms were about 18 quid a night. I stayed on a mattress for 6 quid a night in a not quite private room upstairs. The staff live there, constantly cleaning or watching tv or cooking. They were all friendly but it was like staying with a family, having to be polite and all that bollocks. (oh yes my cornflakes are delicious thankyou very much yum, I like things.) I was in Pedang as a stop off on the way to the Mentawi islands off the west coast of Sumatra, but the prices of transport and guides when I got there made me think twice. The Ausie guy said I could go on his boat for free but it was being repaired at the moment. It all seemed a bit odd. I was walking around Pedang on my first day there and it was horrible. The heat was unbearable and there was insane traffic everywhere. The people were very friendly though, wide eyed stares everywhere and a chorus of 'hello mister where you go ' every step. I was sick of the attention all the time and wanted to go somewhere a bit easier after 6 weeks, so I booked a flight to Bali, with a quick stop over at Kuala Lumpa on the way to sort out my new visa.
At Padang airport I was accosted by an airport guard as I went through passport security, who informed me we had a 'very big problem' due to me not having a flimsy departure card that I was given 10 weeks earlier and had blatantly disolved in the rain. After so long backpacking the tiny card, made out of cheerios had predictably been lost. This pathetic arsehole tried to act like a interegator in a bad cop programme, saying things like 'oh , I see you have guitar, maybe you can play for me..' and tried to look menacing. Also asking why I was here and where I had been. 'I replied 'I don't know why I am here, thats why I am leaving.' and 'where have i been? Mainly i've been up your wife.' Again, so touchy. The problem was not so big once I paid an administation fee (described as a 'menstruation fee' of 20 dollars. After explaining I don't have dollars as I am not American and am not in America he graciously accepted the local currency, a proud and dignified gentlemen.
Kuala Lumpa was the last place on earth I wanted to be. Expensive, rude, noisy, hot, pressured, self regarding and dirty. I liked it better than Crosby though. After the relentless debating pretend ritual with the taxi drivers ('where? oh very far', too traffic, expensive') i eventually got one for a reasonable price to the Indonesian embassy, only to find they wouldn't let me in as I was wearing shorts and sandals. Typical Malaysia. Reckons it's dead smart and business like. So I got a taxi back, another taxi there, sorted it out and had 5 hours to wait. So i got another taxi back to the hostel, and after 5 hours another one back to the embassy, all the time going through the same ritual with the woeful chauffeurs. Delightful days. Amazing Malaysia.
The visa was sorted pretty easily, but when I left the office it was now rush hour and I couldn't get a taxi for love nor money. I spent two hours in the blistering heat walking round and sweating, being ignored by taxi drivers, begging them to return, assuring them that I did like them after all, I didn't mean all those things I said before, I was angry. The one I found was a shared taxi where he tried to charge me double price of what everyone else was paying, so much arguing took place again. Such noble gentlemen they are too. Eventually I was back in my tiny overheated and overpriced dormitory with my visa and a flight to Bali was booked a.s.a.p.
And as I sit in a mcdonalds in Kuta, the tackiest of all towns in Bali, and as i am offered transport by a high pitched buck toothed local guy miming riding a motorbike in a very camp and hopeful pose whilst whispering the word 'mushrooms,' as a flurry of disappointing beaches flicker on by to be matched by over priced accommodation and shirtless ozzie morons with surfboards worshiping themselves in the reflection of one of the three hundred and four KFC's, or as the more cultured travellers head to Ubud to talk about yoga very loudly in American accents and use words like 'perceptualisation', it dawns on me that Bali is, actually, shit.
Which doesn't explain why I spent 5 weeks there. I suppose it sucked all the life out of me so I couldn't move and had to sit in my room watching dvd's and smoking clove cigarettes. Either that or I got there at the wrong time, where i have had enough of travelling or entered into a lull and became a miserable get and blamed it all on Bali, which just sat there indifferently, paid no attention to my misgivings whatsoever and continued to blaze on in a far too hot and slightly cold way.
When I first arrived I made the effort to get around and see the island and had some good times but it is increasingly evident that I have been spoiled by the beaches and life in Thailand and other neighbouring countries often don't come close. I'm sure it would be cooler to say Indonesia is far more real and un-touristed and fabulous or regions like Aceh are the new place to be, but they're not.

well, thats what i thought at the time, but Sumatra, on reflection was actualy pretty superb, and Indonesia is generally. It's all about attitude and I had had enough of travelling by then. Now I am in Perth and it has taken me six weeks to find work. It looks like I have a support work job. At the moment only doing relief, with full time starting in July, hopefully. On weekends and a few evenings I work in an Italian restaurant, being gradually trained how to make cocktails and be a waiter. Not very hard admittedly but useful skills. At the moment my cocktails remain discarded on the table at the end of the night, my challenge to pour them away before the boss sees them. Other mis-haps which at the time were not very funny, are putting a pizza on the table only for it to slide on to someones lap (she put it back with her hands and said 'no worries!' typical freemantle) countless wrongly made drinks, ordering of oysters nobody wants, giving a G and T to a 5 year old thinking it was lemonade and dropping leftovers on an unsuspecting long haired mans head, and not telling him when he never realised.
I just need John Clease to hit me over the head every day and I'll be complete.(And i've got my eye on you Russel Brand)

lake toba, padang, bali

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