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Published: June 15th 2005
Getting tired. 11 months into our grand trip, and it's taking it's toll. Sights and places that previously would have had us ooohing and aaahing now barely get a second glance. Northern Thailand, Laos and Cambodia have left us templed out. The islands and beaches of Thailand have left us beached out - and Vietnam just left us exhausted with the bartering effort of it all.
So, to remedy this malais, there was only one thing to do. With a quick reworking of our itinery, we jettisoned the over developed beach resorts of Bali, and headed off to the exotic shores of Sumatra.
Sumatra, like Borneo, conjures up images of a vast, remote wilderness - of exotic creatures, dangers lurking from everywhere, smoking volcanoes, and primitive tribes running around in loin cloths and blowpipes. Well, actually, there are no primitive tribes, it's got huge cities and most of the rainforests are being plundered by illegal logging, but it still an amazing place to visit.
10 years ago, Sumatra was the next big thing on the backpacker circuit - the next big adventure location. Guesthouses and trekking companies sprung up and cafes selling fruit shakes and banana pancakes were plentiful
Then it all went downhill - economic collapse, civil war, malaria outbreaks, the Bali bomb, Visa restrictions, disasterous floods, and then the tsunami all conpsired to basically wipe Sumatra off the backpacker trail - and as disasterous as it is for the Sumatran economy, it was good news and for us and our aim of getting some adventure back into our trip.
We entered via ferry, from the colonial Malaysian port of Penang, where we'd spent a couple of days exploring the nearby resort island, and it's mix of Chinese, Indian and British influences. 5 hours later, we were in Indonesia, a colossal country of 220 million people, and some 17,000 islands. The largest of these, and the 6'th largest island on earth, is Sumatra.
Our initial impression certainly wasnt the lush jungle or smoldering volcanoes - it was a huge, noisy and utterly horrible city of Medan. No tourists here - the locals, seeing westerners, assumed we were with the Red Cross effort on the coast, and attempted to throw us on the bus to nearby Banda Aceh. Eventually finding our bearings, we then left as soon as we could. The dusty streets, the pollution, the haggling
over 10p, the dangerously reckless motorcycle taxi ride and a tiny cramped minibus that bumped and crashed over Sumatra's awful roads - yes, this was real travelling again.
Our destination, which we reached well after dark was the end of the road, and the tiny town of Bukit Lawang. This was the jewel in the crown of Sumatran tourism - with its neighbouring primary rainforest, and it's huge community of orang-utans, including a rehabilitation centre. It used to be booming, with loads of hostels, cafes, tours of all kinds and all the normal touristy infrastructure. Even when the rest of Sumatra was getting no visitors, this place was ok - people would come on a 2 day trip from Malaysia just to see the Orang-Utans.
That was, until November 2003.
One night, as a result of illegal logging in the rainforests upstream, the river flooded, and swept away the whole town. Hundreds died - and Bukit Lawang simply hasnt recovered.
But arrive we did, and had a great couple of days - staying in an (undamaged) spectacular hostel overlooking the orang-utan sanctuary, and well upstream of the remains of the town. For 12 dollars a night, we got the
honeymoon suite, with it's own private waterfall, 4 poster bed, and massive room (an entire floor, in fact). I should mention that there were loads of mosquitos, no hot water, and electricity for only 3 hours a day, but it was still fantastic - especially with view from our balcony that enabled us to see the Orang-Utans coming down to the river for a wash and a drink.
The next day we went on a all day trek through the mountainous jungle - really hard work, and very difficult terrain - this was proper, primary rainforest, and tough going. We saw some wild orang-utans (not the semi wild ones who still come to the feeding platforms), loads of monkeys, but missed out on the tigers and elephants - another day!! By the end of the day, we were very glad of a cooling dip in the river, and a ride downstream on an inflated lorry inner tube.
With time short, and a huge distance to cover, we set out on another all day, bone shaking journey across Sumatran highways. Unfortunately, we had to brave the traffic of Medan again as we made our way on an assortment of dodgy
buses to Lake Toba. This is a huge volcanic lake set amongst lush mountains, and with a scenic island in the middle of the lake (the island itself is the size of Singapore!). We'd had to forsake hiking the volcanoes of Berastagi due to time, but we saw the volcanoes gently smoking from a distance.
Lake Toba, and especially the charmingly named town of Tuk-Tuk that sat on the central island of the lake, is an absolutely stunning place to just sit back and do nothing for a few days. We found a lovely little place to stay, sack back in the hammocks and enjoyed doing not a lot. Tuk-Tuk, again, is virtually a ghost town. Scores of restaurants, cafes and hotels sit empty - and the locals, (who speak good english) simply dont understand where the tourists have gone. No floods, tsunamis or malaria here... it's really sad.
After a couple of days of wandering around, admiring the distinctive houses of the Batak people (a Christian enclave in the middle of the worlds largest Muslim country), the occasional ride about on a motorbike, and a lot of just taking in the fresh air and eating fresh lake fish
(and even managing to catch the Lions game on tv, where I tried to explain the game to the Indonesians, whilst cheering on my little brother - leaving them very bewildered) we had to move on.. on a very, very long journey.
Now, long unconfortable bus journeys have become common place for us over the last year - one marathon trip in South America was 46hours - but this 16 hour beauty absolutely took the biscuit. Months ago, I would have got frustrated, but now I was just amused by the black comedy of it all. The cramped seats next to the toilet, the chain smoking locals combining perfectly with the recycled air conditioning, the horrendous roads and windy curves being negotiated at Formula1 speed, and especially the scam by the driver to install 2 tiny benches at the back of the bus (at our feet) and pick up a few extra unofficial passengers, who proceeded to lie down and fidget annoyingly at our feet. As the dawn broke, and without a minute of sleep, I tried to forget my discomfort by pondering some of the ageless questions of Asian bus travel - why does the bus wait an
hour before you leave, then immediately stop for fuel? why does the petrol pump attendant smoke casually while he fills up the bus? why do they play indonesian pop ballads at high volume at 4.30am??
but as Jonny Cash sang in his eternal wisdom - "long ago I stopped asking why"
So, with the journey of doom out of the way, we had a day in the pleasantly located town of Bukkitinggi - nestled in the cradle of 3 nearby volcanoes, and resonating to the hypnotic hum of the 5 times daily call to prayer from the Mosques.
A day later, we were in nearby Lake Maninjau - if anything more spectacularly beautiful than Lake Toba. Created, yes, by an ancient volcano, this lake was surrounded by steep sided, jungle covered mountains, and bordered by scenic rice paddies. And again, there were no tourists (save us).
After a couple of days of doing not a lot, we again braved Sumatras roads, and came to the West coast, and the city of Padang - a place so dusty, noisy, unattractive and featureless, it must have been twinned with Medan, it's northern neighbour. It's choice of decent affordable hotels was
right up there with Lahore, Pakistan as being the worse I've ever seen! It's residents, however, were as super friendly as everyone else has been in Sumatra, and this has been a real highlight of our time here in Indonesia - everywhere we've been, our arms have been sore from waving back at everyone, and ears ringing at the "hello meeester.. welcome to Sumatra!!" - jaded as we are, it's a real pleasure to feel so welcome here.
And so after one night in a massively overpriced 4 dollar hotel room - we headed off to the airport, and then to Malaysia - but not before one last surprise. We were woken at 5.30am, not by the call to prayer from a Mosque (which has a kind of hypnotic, dignified kind of noise that is almost soothing, and easy to sleep through) but in this case, the sound of children singing indonesian nursery rhymes, being blasted out of a loudspeaker, at a local community centre. I was furious at being woken by this horrendous screeching, but as usual here in Sumatra, no one else seemed to mind, no one complained, but no one knew why... I doubt if Jonny
Cash ever came to Sumatra, but if he, like us, stopped asking "why"; he would've really enjoyed it here in the land of adventure.
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Barry
non-member comment
Great Diary
I stumbled upon your blog and amazed to see so many places have you travelled in indonesia. I originally from north sumatra and it brings all great memories I have there. I now live in Illiois with family.