Part VIII

It's Salamut tinggal to the 3rd world shambles that is The Republic of Indonesia for I am now in Malaysia. Little India in Penang to be precise.

I shall recount my voyages since the last chronical.

Left Berastagi and headed up to Medan but only in transit before boarding another bus, which I had to wait 3 hours for cos I'd just missed the last. It was p!ssing down but I had some really good coffee and a tasty feed so that was ok. This bus took me to Bukit Lawang, the journey being 75 km but 40k of the trip was over a pot hole ridden abortion of a tarsealed road through palm oil plantations. Bukit Lawang is home of the Orang-utan rehabilitation centre which borders on to the Gunang Luasa (sp?) national park. Stayed the first night in a nice little wooden bungalow on stilts above a fish pond at a place called Nora's Homestay. She's a fat jolly woman who cooks a mighty tasty gado-gado.

The next day I headed off into the jungle with a dutch couple and a guide to go camping for the night. Was handy having a guide as he was able to point out plants not to touch cos they burn and other hazards of which I seem to be good at finding but have avoided any consequences thus far. I found another snake! It was a little blue fulla with a red head and tail and I was standing a few centimetres from it. I showed the guide and he told me I should move away a bit cos its deadly poisonous. Then he wandered off and got a stick to poke at it. It's rather dangerous cos it hides in the leaves and bites your foot if you stand on it. I was quite aware of this for the rest of the journey, me being in sports sandals. I asked him about the snake I found on Mt Sibayak, that was poisonous too, a green mamba. Just as well I didn't try to commune with it or it would've killed my ass. We walked up and down ridges through thick jungle and trails that were barely there.

We saw an orang-utan high in the trees with a young one. Saw lots of long tail macaques and Thomas' Leaf monkeys which are black with a mohawk. A bit further along a huge male orang-utan came down and hung in the tree right in front. (I'll send pics later. No USB on this PC) The jungle looked just like NZ bush, except theres huge ants every where and snakes and primates and stuff. I don't think my constitution is down with the jungle there though. Started getting a fever after lunch which got worse during the day but was only mild, just left my limbs with that horrible ache. I think it's the flu I picked up in Brisbane of all places, it's been trying to find a way in for weeks. Eventually we arrived at a shelter by a fork in the stream, made by a couple of fullas that were cooking curry for dinner when we arrived. It was waterproof which was a good thing cos there was an almighty thunderstorm that night, then it p1ssed down for a few hours. It's rainy season in north sumatra.

After a terrible nights sleep on top of rocks with only a thin bed role it was finally breakfast time and my fever had abated though I wasn't exactly in high spirits. We walked up onto a massive ridge line listening to the sounds of black gibbons having some from of conflict on the next ridge, didn't see them tough. Stopped for lunch by a nice little stream. There were a couple of little turtles hanging out there. They'd chase bits of pinapple we'd throw at them but they didn't eat it, was more of a game I think.

After a bit more walking on steep trails and bites from ants and mozzies and what I can only assume was a horse fly we came out through a grove of plants with massive leaves to the river where the fullas had a raft made of truck inner tubes. The ride was pretty sedate over a few rapids but was fun none the less and very scenic before winding up back in town. We'd walked quite some distance. Bukit Lawang township is rather small as 3 years ago there were some catastrophic floods which washed away most of it.

Stayed the next night before piling into a minibus back to medan with the dutch couple, Nora (who was coming to pick up some tourists) and half the town by the looks. Slowly picking up more and more locals untill we had 17 people packed inside and one hanging off the back. Nora gave me a hand getting my ferry tickets and finding a guest house, although I wasn't down with the power tools going on at the place she recommended so she sent me off with some tout who took me to a place that was full before circling around to the place I was going to stay at in the first place. Hence nothing in it for the tout, he tried to sell me all manner of things before buggering off when I told him I didn't need anything as I'm leaving tomorrow.

Zakias guest house is right next to this huge mosque. #2 in sumatra aparantly. The place (zakias) is a bit of a dive but its away from the busy streets. The traffic in Medan is insane. Apparantly lots of expats live there. They can have it! They couldn't pay me enough to live anywhere in Indonesia for more than a month or so. There's some real cool stuff to see and experiences to be had, its definately worth a visit but on the whole the place is a dump. I'd never live there.

The mosque cranked up really loud at the stardard 5am, theres a lot of speakers on that tower! Was good though, not the screeching distorted womens singing they had in Berastagi and Bukit Lawang. Checked out early and managed to find a nice little food outlet that sold lontong, an excellent farewell breakfast. It even had a prawn in it! After waiting for over and hour and a half from the allotted time, the bus finally left for the ferry terminal and thus a welcome exit. Was about 4 or 5 hours by fast ferry to Penang.

Highlights.

Bukittinggi - met some interesting characters there.

Lilis Homestay at Lake Maninjau - nice relaxed place to hang for a few days.

Climbing Mt Sibayak

The wildlife

Lontong and good penang restaurants.

Low lights

Smoking - everywhere, tobacco advertising everywhere, indonesian males who don't smoke get called lady boys.

Rubbish - nearly everywhere.

Internet - I dont think it's just slow, it just doesn't work properly.

Not much to say about Penang yet, looks nice, little india looks really cool, going to get a curry. They have broadband here too!