Blogs from Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia - page 8

So after only getting up once in the night for a wee and waking with what felt like someone shining a torch in my face ( it was the daylight!) I was relieved to know that I must have got some sleep during the night. Not feeling too keen on having an early dip in the river I settled with a roll of deodorant and some clean clothes. After being entertained by the large group of macaques diving and swimming for scraps of food - have never seen a monkey swim before! And watching the large resident lizard lazily making its way up the river we sat down and had breakfast ourselves. We all had a choice of tea or coffee, omelette or 3 layers of toast with cheese, tomato, onion and egg finished off with ... read more

I had previously arranged with Samuel that we were going to meet at my hotel this morning - he with 2 Australian girls and a driver to take us all to Bukit lawang ( 90km north of medan ) to do 2 days jungle trekking. Well, Samuel was there but none of the others - after having correspondence with Samuel over the last 2 days, it didn't come as a huge surprise - just a bit disappointing really. So, the option of the trekking was still real - I just had to get a public bus to Bukit lawang on my own to which Samuel was gonna help me out with. So after an hour of discussing options, money etc we headed off in a taxi to the bus station. It subsequently came up in conversation ... read more

After giving up on the totally unreliable bus service, I got a taxi to the airport for my flight at 11.20 to Indonesia. The flight took 30 minutes and because of the time difference we landed at 11.00! After paying for a 30 day visa on arrival which was £15 and a bit of a grilling from an official - anyone would think they would want visitors here! I was let through, walking through the airport a chap approached from a tour agency offering to take me into the centre of medan - about an hr away and costing 275,000 rupiah, at this point I didn't really know of any other option so I took him up on it, later finding out that it cost roughly £16 so not completely ripped off. The man came in ... read more

Banda Aceh, and the nearby coastal town of Muedula, were at the epicentre of the Tsunami that hit this part of the world on December 26, 2014, just over ten years ago. As such, we made a point of spending a half day touring a number of key areas in the city. In addition to the Tsunami Museum, we visited the fishing boat that had been launched on to the top of a house about 4 kilometres from the sea, where it subsequently served as a lifeboat saving fifty nine lives. We also visited the huge ocean freighter that was launched inland kilometres away from the ocean, testifying again to the strength of the tsunami. It was powerful and touching to be in the heart of the vibrant fishing village today, and realize that this same ... read more

In case you don't already know her name, allow me to introduce you to my new travel guitar, Ramblin' Rose. Although I have taken her predecessor - a Martin Backpacker guitar - with me for the past two Dreamchasers adventures, this year I upgraded to an oh-so-beautiful, elegant, rich sounding Baby Martin, so this is really Ramblin Rose's first big trip. Of course I watch her like an overprotective mother, wrapping her carefully, always keeping her in sight, and never ever letting anyone else carry her around, etc. etc. You do remember that I mentioned recently about the roads of Sumatra being particularly rough? Well, I have been a little rough myself for the past month, fighting off first a sore back, followed by a head cold and then a bout of traveller's you-know-what, so I ... read more