Part VII

sup peoples,

2nd attempt, this keyboard has a power button where the delete key should be.

I am currently chilling out in the resort town of Tuk Tuk which is located on a peninsular on Samosir island in the middle of lake toba. I've got the real gucci digs complete with warm shower for only 30,000rp! I think they put the price way down and expect you to buy lots of other stuff to make up for it. Suckers! Not really my scene though, theres only fancy restaurants around here when all I want is a Rumah Makan for some tasty penang or lontong. I ask the locals how to catch a public transport out of here to Berastagi and they all try and sell me tickets at dumb @ss western tourist prices. My take on it is I stand out on my hotels jetty and wave down a ferry to Parapat which is on the main highway. Can't go wrong there.

Lets see, what happened since my last chronicle. I got a nice cold beer after leaving the internet cafe from a friendly chinese dairy. It was my first chilled beer in a long time and it tasted fantastic so I had 4 the next night which was my last night in Bukittinggi so a cause for celebration. Managed to sleep through the 5am call to prayer which was a first and had to sort out transport to Parapat. Feeling a bit hung over I settled for getting a travel agent to get my ticket. Had to catch 2 bemos to the bus stop but got there in the end with a bit of Bahasa and a shonky map drawn by the boss at D'enam.

The trip was 13 hours along the trans sumatran "highway" which consisted of a country lane than winded through jungle and river valley and mountain range and lots of small towns. I actually managed to get about half an hours sleep during a particularly windy strech of road, don't sk me how, but my hangover was gone by the time I woke up. Stopped for some really bad penang in a dump of a place in the middle of no where, it was really got there too. Bought some water and it felt like it came out of the hot tap. As we went along I noticed a distinct lack of mosques and an abundance of churches. I'd left the lands of the maninkabau and headed to the lands of the batak who are predominantly christian.

I arrived at 3:30 am in Parapat with no where to stay and nothing open, the only signs of life being barking dogs and a few teenagers loitering about. I did a recon, it being a good time with few people about and found the ferry terminal so with that sorted I found a nice piece of pavement by the lake which was hidden from view where I could chill out for a while. I even managed half an hours sleep before being woken by a woman with her washing looking at me strangely. There was an incredible sun rise!

Walking back to the ferry / market area an annoying tout / wandering travel agent started following me and wouldn't go away. He followed me to the restaurant which served a very tasty lontong. The best so far! I can't praise this dish highly enough, its delicious! Anyway, he showed me some pics of the resort and came along too, and even paid for my breakfast. I'm thinking where's the scam? Took the ferry to the hotel called Anju Cottages and its sweet, just as he says. I think he just wants me to use him as a guide and travel agent but I don't cos I don't actually like the guy. He did hook me up with a motorbike rental for an ok price, except it didn't show up the next day when it was supposed to so the hotel owner borrowed a bike for me.

Samosir is a rather large island which is moutainous is the middle with a road circling it. I went for a cruise right around passing throngs of people on their way to church. There are churches everywhere and every family seems to have a family crypt. Some of them a pretty impressive too, so I took lots of photos. Most of the island is like a grave yard.

I got to a volcano with some hotsprings so cruised on in. I road up a path that looked pretty much like a footpath and next thing I'd ridden straight into the middle of a restaurant. The didn't seem to mind so I parked up and got the tasties fried rice I've ever had. The price of admission to their hot pools was a meal or a drink so that sorted I stripped off to my undies and had an enjoyable soak in the pool. The crater was smoking so I decided to ride my mighty 125cc beasty up to it alas, the road turned away from the thermal area but was a nice ride anyway, high above the lake in a farming area. Theres no rainforest left up here, hence no monkeys and iguanas about either. Looks not unlike NZ. On my way back I noticed the "crater" had stopped smoking cos it was only a bush fire.

Ah 3rd attempt at getting this out. Update from Berastagi, the power went out at tuk tuk and never came back up! I tried from here last night too but half an hour later gmail still hadn't loaded. I think they run internet cafes off a dialup over here and probably not even 56 k at that.

Ok... here was I. Cruised around the island as the road went steadily from bad to worse, it then turned inland into the hill country. Was some impressive land formations. Lots of little gullies with terraced wheat fields running up them. I founf a nice spot on a ridge in the middle of nowhere and did some very excellent qigong.

Got further along, quite chilled out after the gongs and the road went from pot holes to big muddy puddles. Manage to come flying off went I ran into a rut at about 20k. No harm done to either me or my ride, was highly amusing though. Not too much further though and the bike coughed and died. Outta gas man, though the gauge still registered 1/3 tank. I've got no luck with these damn bikes over here. I pushed the bike for about 20 mins withg annoying kids going "Hello mister!" Never mind hello, get me some gas! Not pushing this for the hell of it. At one stage I just had to fall over on the side of the road for a break. Eventually I got to what I assume was the local store. It was a shed on the side of the road with a bunch of locals sitting around a table. I asked for water and fuel and sure enough, she opened a pantry door and dug both out for me. Was a nice cruisy little run back to Tuk tuk then.

Got back to my hotel and all the loud locals had left. There was a dude from siantar staying next door with what I though was his mrs. He was there to go pig hunting cos he'd seen some when he was there a week ago. We had a yarn for a while. The next day they came over for a chat. Turned out it s not his wife but his cousin. Her husband p1ssed off 2 weeks before and hadn't come back. He'd been taking chicks there so they were there to spy on him. I wandered if the rifle was just for pig hunting! I did their portraits which pleased them although they weren't very goo, not really my thing but good practise. They went hunting that day and saw no pigs. So he shot some poor little parrot and decided to have that on the barbie instead! I joined them for dinner. The indonesian idea of barbeque is to pour lots of kero over some charcoal, wait a while and chuck the food on. Pretty damn noxious if you ask me. Had some fish and tried some of the parrot, was stringy and tough but edible. I got directions off the dude to get to Berastagi, no point asking anyone who worked at tu ktuk, they all want to sell you the ticket. Some noisy chinese people turned up that day. Its school holidays! hoorah...

Tuk tuk is a place of vice. You want it they can get it. They'll hook you up with a 'girlfriend' in about 20 mins too. This isn't for cash styles either, these are just local girls hoping to hook a foreigner who'll take them out of there me thinks. There was an american who'd been there for weeks cos he got a girlfriend. I was feeling a bit crook after my kerosene infused meal so had to pass on the offer.

Got sick of tuk tuk very fast. The westerners there were wasters and sad @rses. It's not really why I'm here and instead of the call to prayer I got noisy chinese families yelling and carrying on. To start with it was nice being in christian territory with people who get on the p!ss but I found the muslim minankabau were nicer people, then again, got weird hanging at Bedudal Cafe with people who never drank too!

The next day I waved down a ferry to Parapat and as soon as I got off, I was on a minibus to P.Siantar. It stopped for a while in parapat so I got a bunch of really good bananas and gave 1 to everyone on the bus. Had a chat to a woman with good english. Found out there was another woman on the bus going to Berastagi. Sweet, so I tagged along with her. She looks like something out of onces were warriors. Dark shades, easy on the eye but hard looking with long dark hair and black supertapers. She was travelling with her young sister.

The trip to Siantar was madness, the dude was screaming along and at one stage, Medan Raya Tours went rarking past which he wasn't down with, so he nailed it and only just let them in when a bus came the other way. Then he raced them for a while. We got dropped in Siantar which is a rather large city and the Permosi bus that goes to Kaban Jahe was there but the chick reckoned it was no good, too slow and smelly so we jumped on a bemo to the other sied of town. She left me there with the sister and wandered off for ages. The bus had to wait for her in the end. She jumped on and it turned out she'd been getting us some kai. So we shared a nice feed of fish, rice and simple flavourings, very indonesian styles eating with our hands, followed by some pineapple. Sweet. Got to Kaban Jahe after 3 1/2 hours of rough but not too bad roads listening to some good sounds, they had the massive sound system on the bus. The music I would describe as Sumatran Roots, it was wicked! There we jumped a bemo to Berastagi just down the road. She pointed out a decent hotel for me and wandered off to the market saying she'd come visit. She did too for a little while, I thought she might be a guide or something looking for clientelle but nah, she just wanted to come hang out.

Berastagi is in the lands of the Karo, the karo highlands to be precise, which seems to be christian mainly but with some muslims. A catholic local dude had a rant to me about the muslims blowing sh!t up, cos he wants to work in tourism but theres not enough tourists now.

I went to the info centre which is run by a rasta named Smily. Told him I was from NZ and he's like sweet and invited me around for a smoke! He's got a mate whos a kiwi whos living at Beratagi. I had to pass on that though but I got a little hand drawn map off him for climbing the volcano. Gunang Sibayak. Yeah! Non of this guides trekking stuff for me.

And thats what I did today, climbed an active volcano. Was choice! Was a 6km walk just to get to Sibayak, a lot of it was a little country lane through the jungle with no traffic at all, shame, I wanted to hitch a ride! Got to the end of the road which was some old abandoned government facility and had to locate the start to the track. There was a french canadian couple there who werent very friendly. They couldnt find the path so I pointed it out to them but I dont think they believed me. Ran into a dutch(?) couple on their way down, was only 20 mins from the sumit. Excellent.

The crater was wicked, had big steaming vents and a little lake. I ate my play lunch and headed for the highest point, a rocky piece with an aerial on top. Got part way up and got paranoid (sensible?) cos it was getting a little treacherous and I'd seen a list of all the poeple that died up there at the info centre. These were europeans and americans though, not intrepid kiwis such as myself! I hung out on a nice rock with a lizard who was doing just the same. Was a good vantage point and I could spy on the couple and a canadian guy who was after them. Eventually I decided it wasn't all that far to the top so I ditched my sandals (Hiking boots are for canadians!) and climbed barefoot monkey styles to the top. It was awesome up there, just past the tower, the solar panels and remains of a fence was a nice little piece of grass and some ferns. An odd spot cos all around below was ranpant volcanism. I did some qigong, the 8 precious brocade in fact, the first time since being away and got an excellent buzz up there on that mountain top.

Decided that the place was indeed sacred and needed a tidy so I removed the fence remains from the ferns and stacked them up near the tower and cleared the rubbish from the lawn and created an excellent little Zen garden, then hung out for a good hour or so playing old man of the mountain. There were some strange sanskrit pages up there to. Unusual, Indonesia uses the same letters as we do. No one else came up either, guess they weren't down with the cliff hanger styles to get there! The mist came and went as did the sun but it never got particulary cold (for the top of a mountain). On my way down from my perch I found a snake sleeping on top of a bush. My first ever snake.. wicked! I snuck up and took a photo. As much as I really wanted to get Steve Irwin styles with it, I decided this wouldn't be prudent and left it alone. A little further I found a wicked big beetle in a crevice.

I located the path back down, not the way I'd came, I wasn't up for the hike back over the ridge, but down to the hot pools and a little village. The path descended rapidly first through ferns, then larger ferns untill I was under the jungle canopy. Eventualy, after about an hour of jungle trek, I became surrounded by bamboo and the sounds of a mosque in the village slowly got louder and louder and the sound of heavy machiney was apparent, before suddently emerging into a clearing with 3 bulldozers working and some sort of industrial structure. Gas? Wandered out past security who just smiled and waved and went to the hot pools. Ran into the canadian who said the couple couldnt find the path down that we'd taken, though they ate lunch right there at the start of it. Not surprising, they couldn't find the way up either! Apparantly they kicked up a fuss about paying the entry fee too. A whole 1500 rupiah, thats about 30c... He thought the way up the top looked a bit full on but heard that kiwis had a rep for just getting on a doing it. Probably read the list of fatalities too! He decided to walk back along another path over the ridge. I couldnt be bothered with that so walked through the little village looking for a bemo.

A dude gave me a dub on his motorbike to the main road where I waved down a bus. It was packed but they still found room from me and this chick who was also waiting. The money collector climbed out the back door while we were moving and along the side of the bus to the front door to collect fares, then back to our door, opened it and climbed back in. Got dropped off right in town in Berastagi and enjoyed a well deserved beer.