Blogs from Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia - page 13

This short and sweet story is about Mr. Lahmudin Surkian. He lives in a village next to a forestry concession I was recently working in. In fact he was the 1st person to live there, before it was a village and before it was a forestry concession. A time when herds of elephants still roamed the land and tigers, too. Mr. Lahmudin not only feels a special connection to the forests, but even to specific trees. Maybe it was his time spent living with the Anak Dalam, the children of the forest, many of whom don't have contact with the "modern" world and live close to nature. However the connection was nurtured, it is deep and sincere, just like the twinkle in Mr. Lahmudin's eyes. He's certainly less than enthused by the slash and burn agriculture ... read more

I departed Jakarta for Palembang two weeks ago with these instructions from my Indonesian friends, "Eat pempek." Pempek is a savory treat made from local ground fish meat mixed water, salt and tapioca. It's eaten with a vinegar based sauce. Masakan enak means delicious and all the variations I tried over the following weeks were indeed so. Further instructions came from one of my supervisors Mr. Hendi who said I must try the infamously stinky fruit, durian. A natural procastinator, I quietly put this one off.You'd be forgiven for thinking I had flown to Sumatra to only sample the local delicacies. In truth I had come over as part of a high conservation value asessessment (HCVA) team. In short our mission was to:Search for areas that contain or provide biodiversity support function to protected or conservation ... read more

We fly into Padang and decide to spend at least a day there on the advice of lonely planet. Well lonely planet is wrong on this one. Padang is not nice. It just another overcrowded city, but more devout so we struggle to get lunch. It is our first taste of Sumatera though and it is very different from Bali and Java. We feel like celebrities, everyone says hello and asks how we are. We go into a pharmacy to buy cream and all the female staff stand and stare at me. It is very strange and takes some getting used to. The people are so nice; everyone seems happy to see you and wants to talk to you. Anyway we skip out of this place pretty quick. Our next stop is Lake Maninjau. It is ... read more

And after saying goodbye to the orang-utans of Bukit Lawang, it was pretty much time to say goodbye to Sumatra too.My last stop on the island was a quick overnighter back at the provincial capital of Medan, where I'd passed through on my way from Berastagi to Bukit Lawang.Medan is Indonesia's third largest city, but there's certainly no love lost between it and the many travellers who are compelled to find their way here, en route to their intended other destinations. LP described it as possibly the top candidate for the answer to the oft-asked "worst place you've ever travelled to" question, and though that might be a bit of an exaggeration, it's certainly hard to see dirty, busy, disorganised and noisy Medan winning many hearts.I don't think it was the worst place I've been to ... read more

After making the difficult but inevitable decision to leave beautiful Toba, I continued northwards on a 4h ride to the hill-side town of Berastagi. Like many hill-side towns that I've visited the past year, this one was also established by former colonial rulers looking to escape from the searing heat of the lowlands. In this case, it was the Dutch of course. And as far as hill-side towns go, Berastagi doesn't seem to be that different from the rest, especially with regards to its pleasant, temperate climate. A small town essentially centred along just two main streets, Berastagi nevertheless packs some kind of buzz from a busting local Karo population, as well as Medan-Chinese weekenders, whose presence becomes increasingly apparent as we venture closer to the regional capital. The uniquely-accented Hokkien (a Chinese dialect) very similar ... read more