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Medan
Very large, very loud mosque!
Pretty though.The last blogger entry I left you in The Philippines I believe. I think I've e-mailed most people this story (I aim to please) but ...........After leaving the internet cafe I went on a search for a place for dinner as Richard had stated that he wanted grilled fish for dinner and as there are many restaurant around advertising "Grill/Bar" I thought I'd go and choose one......so, finding a "Grill/Bar" sign I wandered in and found myself being stared at by a lot of men (mostly western) and a several women. The men eyed me with raised eyebrows and the women either smirked or looked a bit narced......I realised I had in fact wandered into a "Girl Bar" and not a "Grill Bar". In my haste to escape I bumped into a wall and nearly knocked a picture of the back view of a thonged lady off the wall. I was to, to say the least, rather embarrassed. And that was how we left the Philippines!
Not a very exciting journal entry I'm afraid but then Indonesia just wasn't all that exciting for us!
Indonesia:
We arrived into a small and hectic airport and an even more hectic city.
Batak House
The standard style home in Danau Toba. We had a smaller version to ourselves! Our accommodation was bleak to say the least but at least it was cheap. Being the most Muslim place in the world I was careful to wear nothing that may cause offence or grab unwanted attention (although the non muslim girls were wearing far less than me in their little shorts and strappy tops!). It was very hot and uncomfortable and we arranged to leave the following day for Danau Toba Lake where it is much cooler! Our hotel was right next to Medan's largest mosque and all prayers are sung out over very large speakers......including at 4am in the morning!
The next day (after very little sleep) we ventured to the corner Cafe to await our bus to Toba which we were paying a fair bit for but had been promised it was a good tourist bus.
We sat eating breakfast and a man approached our table grinning at me. I asked him if I could help and he just kept staring and went and sat opposite me (and next to Richard) and continued to stare. He asked where we were going and when we told him he said "why?"....Richard responded "well...to see it. To see the
Fish for dinner
We requested BBQ fish and off they went to catch it from the lake! lake...that's why people go there" and he nodded and continued to stare and ordered a glass of water which made me realise he was not here for the breakfast! I asked him to please stop staring at me I didn't like it and he leaned across the table and began stroking his hand up and down his glass and told me he was stroking his penis (other hand under the table at this point)!! Richard stood up very quickly and started yelling at him to "get out right now!" whilst I spluttered for the millionth time "how dare you!". The cafe told him to leave. I really don't know what he thought the reaction would be to saying that to me but it soon became clear that it really didn't matter how much I covered my hair and body. I am a westerner and we are seen as being extremely promiscuous and therefore no matter where I went I was stared at openly and touched as I walked down the street (nowhere rude or I'd have definitely hit someone!).
We later met a Portuguese guy who told us an amusing story! He was going into his hotel room and
Relaxing on our balcony watching the rain
...........and drinking my 4th vodka and coke! had an Indonesian guy say "please, please come!" so urgently that he thought he was in trouble and followed him. The guy stopped at the room to his own hotel room where, on the bed his rather large wife lay naked, and said "Please, you sleep with my wife! I watch! I do not mind! Please!". He declined and ran back to his room.......they must think us westerners are sex crazed animals!!!!
Our journey to Danau Toba was long and tiring with winding roads that made you feel queasy. The "tourist bus" was a small mini bus with no leg/head room and we were grossly over charged. But it was worth it. We stayed a week with Mr. Moon at Liberta. We payed GBP2.00 for the best accommodation we have had in 6 months! We spent a week chilling out by the lake and listening to the rain fall upon the roof of our Batak house. It was a beautiful place with great rolling lush green hills and completely surrounded by a huge lake.
After a week we decided to move onto Palau Nias which involved more bus journeys to get to Sibolga (I renamed it shitholega) where
we would get the overnight ferry from. When we arrived at the bus station in Shitholega we were told to stay on board so that we could be taken to the harbour. A strange and angry looking man was standing outside the bus by my window glaring at me with an angry look on his face. I smiled but hos expression remained unchanged so I closed the window but he continued to stare and jumped onto the bus just as we were pulling away and sat behind us leaning on the back of Richard's chair and still staring with his one crazy eye rolling about! We moved seats and when we got off at the harbour he followed us still. The bus driver said to ignore him "he's just a nut" (which was reassuring)!! Nutty man followed us to a cafe and continued to glare at us and we were beginning to get a little worried but he suddenly ran off!! Weird weird people!!!
Having paid for our boat tickets we were appalled to find that our boat had no beds just an area of floor with some numbers painted on it. We found our numbered area overrun with
Sibolga to Nias
This is the area I refused to sleep in.
Cockroaches the size of small dogs! large cockroaches and I had a large amount of men staring at me and so chucked a tantrum and declared "Richard I can't do it, I can't possibly sleep here with these people!!" (I'm entitled to the occassional tantrum!) and booked ourselves into a cabin which still had cockroaches and was filthy but at least it had a door we could close to hide away from people! The beds had red ants and every now and they'd walk onto you and sink their teeth in for no reason! We shared our cabin with a nice Portuguese guy who was travelling to Nias for the surfing.
Arriving at Nias it was clear to see the destruction the Tsunami and last March's earthquake had caused. Everything was in the process of being re-built and UN tents and vehicles were still very much in use. The beach was nonexistent just strewn with filth and debris and had just been left that way. We stayed one night and then left early the next morning and this time got a nice big boat with a cabin like a plush hotel room! We paid less than we had for the horrible boat as had been
Sibolga to Nias
Us in the "cabin" (small room with dirty mattress) on route to Nias. royally ripped off....again. Sick of being ripped off, stared at and lied to we went straight back to Danau Toba and the safety of Mr Moon! We stayed in our Batak for the next two weeks with Mr. Moon making us his very generously sized meals and giving us lots of free food as he picked fresh fruit from his garden and always shared it with us. We played table tennis, sat by the lake, read books and practised our Spanish speaking......and that was Indonesia! It may have been wrong to give up so easily and hide away rather than carry on travelling around, and especially sad at missing the Orangutangs, but I do not regret our decision. I felt so uncomfortable and spent my time staring at the ground so as not to catch peoples eye and to pretend that people weren't staring at me and poor Richard could see how uncomfortable I was and felt equally uncomfortable that there was nothing he could do. We had a great time in Danau Toba and caught up on all the missed/broken nights sleep we've had in the past 6 months and now have fully recharged batteries!
We were relieved
Sibolga to Nias
And a lovely toilet to use for 12 hours....yummy! to leave and get back to Singapore where everything works, it's easy to get around, everything is clean and we could use internet that actually works and without chickens running around our feet!
We are in Australia now and have meet up with one of Richard's best friends James and have so far spent most of our time either drunk or hungover......what!? It's Australia what did you expect!
The plans we've made for our journey up the Gold cost are nothing short of amazing and we are so excited about the things we've decided to do.....but you'll have to wait for the next entry to hear about them.
I have a feeling the next entry will be far more exciting!
Time for me to rack off and get meself a stubby (bottle of beer)!
All the best.
x
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Lianne
non-member comment
Free the monkey!!
God poor thing, I would have let it go. It has got an extremely weird looking face though, bless ha Again, great pics!! That toilet sucks, I would go near that, even if you paid me ha Lianne xx