Medan and Bukit Lawang

The boat across from Malaysia was a lot smaller than I expected, I was expecting something akin to a channel ferry, but it was more of a big speedboat about 20m long, which meant you were pretty much confined to your seat for the whole 6 hour journey, with only the cultural ambassador of my future home, Mr Jean-Claude Van Damme, on the telly for entertainment. It was an expensive trip too, it would probably have been cheaper to fly.

Medan where you arrive at the other end, is a city of several millions and not a nice one at that. Full of traffic and pollution, the pavements are also a hazard with man size holes to the sewer below every couple of meters. I stayed near the central mosque and was consequently woken up at 5 in the morning by a very loud call to prayer. The bar restaurant I visited in the evening here was full of old male ex-pats with their young Indonesian girlfriends.

Next day I got a mini-van to the out of town bus station to get to Bukit Lawang. The bus I got there hung around for quite a while, and the journey, though only three hours, was accompanied by blaring music, chain smoking passengers and no air-conditioning, as well as a terrible road. It was on this trip that I started to feel sick!

I got to Bukit Lawang, found a hotel, succumbed to a guide who sold me a 3 hour walk into the jungle the next day though I didn't feel to great and then went for lunch to a Tony's pizza and pasta place, which had no pizza or pasta. I did have fruit salad in a desperate attempt to regain my health. In the afternoon I went to see the Orangutans at the feeding centre. This was great seeing them come out of the jungle a getting close enough to feel a bit scared. Although it was less than half an hours walk (and a dodgy canoe trip across the river) I felt well grotty after it, and the sun was really quite fierce. Afterwards I went straight back to my guest house and had some very uncomfortable sleep. When I ate my dinner I was freezing and then really hot and had a very rough night. The next morning I decided I wasn't up to my trekking in the jungle, so instead spent 9 hours traveling to Danau Toba!

Bukit Lawang was quite nice, still obviously recovering from the flash floods they had a few years ago, and it was very quiet in terms of tourist numbers. There was a lot of animal life even around the village and I felt I'd have seen a lot more on my trek than I did in the jungle in Malaysia.

Photots:

Mosque in Medan.

Transport across the river to Orangutans.

An Orangutan.