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Published: December 9th 2006
What a difference a week makes!
After spending a few days in Singapore sorting out my Visa for China and generally getting over my jetlag, we set off to spend a few days in Sumatra. We took a boat to Batam (an Indonesian island about 45 minutes on the ferry from Singapore) where we caught a flight to Medan - the difference between Batam and Singapore was pretty massive - nothing is quite as shiny and high and the roads and driving were all a little more like what I was expecting in Asia - although the prices were immediately better - even though we were probably ripped off on our 30 minute taxi ride from the ferry port to the airport, it was still only 50000 rupiah (about 3 quid).
We were also the only Western people around which meant we had a few folk staring at us which was only to get more pronounced as we got into Sumatra. Medan itself is the biggest city on Sumatra (about 2-3 million people) and isn't the nicest place I've ever seen, but we were heading straight to a small little place called Bukit Lawang. So, we got a Bemo
(little minibus not really made for western sized people) and made the 4 hour trip down some reasonably dodgy roads and checked out the sights along the way. It's too much to describe all the sights and sounds and smells, but it's very very different to home. All the buildings are low rise and mostly with tin roofs, and everyone of them on the main roads seems to sell coca-cola along with anything else you could think of.
When we arrived in Buikt Lawang we stayed at the eco lodge and arranged to go on a two day jungle trek to see the wildlife and in particular the orang-utans that live there. On the first day we saw 3 orang-utans - a mother, bady and 'teenager' really close up - about 3 metres from us, just hanging from some trees and playing about - was really amazing. We spent a night camping by a river and enjoying the food our guides cooked up for us - special mention has to go to the tasty pineapples - so sweet and juicy and we all tucked into a quarter pineapple each. The next day we did another small trek through the
jungle before returning down the river on 4 rubber rings tied together for some fun rafting - no helmets or life-jackets or any form of safety gear of course. All good fun.
That evening we made the trip back to Medan that evening (meeting some nice students along the way) and due to everywhere else being full (well, we were offered one single bed for both of us) we ended up in quite a posh hotel for the night - still cost us less than 10 quid each for the night though. We also had the rather ego boosting experience of a bus of nurses all screaming at us to wave at them - like I said before they don't see many westerners here.
Next morning we went to Bergstagi on another bus for 3 hours and walked round the local markets, and tried our hands at bargaining for fruit with the locals - I think we got better at it towards the end. All good fun though - basically just laugh at the first price they suggest and see how it goes from there. We also went up to a nearby hill where a Sunday market was
held and lots of locals went to chill-out for the weekend - nearly everyone we saw said hello to us (especially the kids), and a few asked if we minded having our picture taken with them - quite good fun being the tourist attraction. The next day we headed up the nearest volcano and down the other side to visit some hot springs as a way to relax after the trek.
After Berggstagi we took a gruelling 4 hour bemo journey to Lake Toba to stay in a small town called Tuk-Tuk. The island in Lake Toba is the same size of Singapore and its actually the middle of a volcanic crater that blew millions of years ago.
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