Sumatra continues...

Today is July 9th 2013, it is now 11:05am.
I am sitting in a laid back green plastic chair overlooking the Thanks to the World tsunami memorial park in Banda Aceh. The weather is gorgeous. I am sipping on half a liter of fresh squeezed coconut milk with concentrated milk and lime juice... Ximena and I just visited the tsunami museum, and then she just left to the airport heading to London.

I just realized it has been more than two weeks since I last wrote an entry in my blog...pretty much since I left Bukit Lawang.

So here goes what happened in the past two weeks...

My last morning in BL I had the intention to head to Aceh to go dive in Pulau Weh, but then, at the very last minute and after reading some forums in an internet cafe, I figured that it would be better to wait more time for the continuous rain to stop in Aceh, and also to delay my trip to Aceh so as to be there for the first few days of Ramadan since Aceh is the most Muslim part of the country. And plus I believed that both Chantal and Ximena would probably still be in Lake Toba. So I totally changed my itinerary, headed south and not north anymore.

Ufff the trip from BL to Medan and then to Parapat (connecting port to Tuk Tuk island in Toba Lake) was a nightmare...long and terribly hot! And well, I arrived in the tiny town of Parapat at 2am...try  find a place to sleep that late in a town that spreads along the lake shore.

Anyhow, the next morning I catch the first ferry to Tuk Tuk. When I arrived to Liberta Hostel (the fantastic crash pad of the famous Mr Moon and his young team of amazing cooks), to my great surprise, Ximena is still there, though just about to pack hip and take off to Aceh. Lol. Lucky me, I manage to convince her to stay a few more days. :-)

Lake Toba is an absolutely magnificent lake, at the center of which is a very very large and gorgeous island called Samosir, center of the impressive and mysterious Batak culture (cousin of the Torajas).

Samosir is no flat land at all, but rather similar to the Toraja valley, though a much smaller version. It still would require a good 6 to 7 hours by scooter to go around it. But what an incredible succession of landscapes, dotted by goats, cows, cats, dogs, and water buffaloes all along the road as if it was just a dirt path. Oh, and let's not forget the traditional batak houses. All made of dark brown wood, ornamented by ancient carvings painted in black, red and white. The Toraja houses look quite plain new compared to these. The meaning of each element of the Batak houses is fascinating. The main body of the house is in the shape of the traditional boats. Each house has 5 steps to climb. If it has 4 then it is the house of a slave. If the stairs are made of stone then it is the house of the king of the village. The door to enter is purposefully very small and low so that when entering the house one has to bow and thus symbolically pay respect to the hosts. The ground part of the house under the king's house is supposed to be a jail....

If you remember well, back in the Togians when I met Ximena, I cut her hair. Well, now I was myself in a real need of a hair cut. It had grown so much it looked like I was wearing a helmet! So my first afternoon in Toba, Ximena cut my hair. :-)

One key detail about Liberta is that its menu and the quality of its food was so fantastic that it was very enticing to just stay there and chill out by the lake shore, fronting the immensity of the lake and the lush green mountains surrounding it. Plus, for once the water was actually cold, so really refreshing to go for swims in the hot afternoons.

Samosir island, contrary to the rest of most of the country, includes pork in its cuisine. So hey, after such a long time of only having overcooked beef, and chicken, BBQ pork sounded like a yummy idea. So off we went on the quest of finding the one place recommended by a few people as having the best grilled pork in the area.

We walked all around the village of Tuk Tuk, and crossed the town of Ambarita. 'Abuse babi' we were told when arriving there. Boooh! No more pork today. Such a long walk and still no food in our stomachs. Oh well, we settled for what was one of the best mine goreng ever.

On the way back, it was already dark, and we kept on passing by those wooden sheds, used as palm wine ('tuak', the tuak from toraja is way better than the one in toba) and domino men's bars. So we had to stop at one and get some cultural experience. So much fun. Aside from the wife of the owner, Ximena was the only woman there. So we had a glass of tuak each and played dominos there with some other men for a good hour.  Son relaxing and fun. Then back on the road.

Ambarita is well known for its stone chairs part of town, owned by the Shialagan family...and we happened to walk by it as the town and streets were deserted, the moon was full and the sky sprinkeled with bright shiny stars. So entering the walled area, at night, with a slight fog, the stone chairs under this ancient tree, was so mysterious and mystical at the same time. As we approach the back of the garden, we are called out by two people sitting on a wooden bench, on the upper grassy area dominating the garden. We go and sit down with them. Believe it or not, but it so happen that the older man (55 yr old) was actually the king of the community, the Shialagan family, and a former aerospace engineer. Mr Gadin. The younger, Edy, his brother, a very talented carpenter. Both were quite drunk on tuak, so after a good hour, at about 11pm they invited us to go back the next day for some more sober conversation.

What a fascinating evening!

Back at Liberta, we found Rene, Pepe, and Ken playing Yanif, an apparently famous card game among backpackers of which one can easily become addicted. Lol so we played until about 2am.

The next day, after breakfasting on a delicious banana and chiocolate enormous pancake, we went back to the stone chairs and spent the whole morning there, Ximena, Ken, Pepe and myself, learning about the Batak culture, from the mouth of the king, and while all the other tourists were just taking some photos and trying to make sense of everything around them. Lucky us. When leaving Mr Gadin, he told us that the next day, weather permitting, a film crew would be there to shoot an independent Indonesian movie. Ha! You bet we will be there!!!

The next day, after yet another late night of playing Yanif, Ximena and I rented bikes and headed to the stone chairs. As we walk past the gate, the film director asks us if we mind being in the film. Hell yeah! So she the director says 'action' we both walk through the door, the camera right in our face, until we hear 'cut'. :-)   the name of the movie is 'My Father' should come out at the end of the year in Indonesia.

So yes, yet another half day spent with the king and his family.

Oh, and a fact which I find even more cool and fun is that while we were there, that same day, there was another small crew armed with a small high end technological helicopter remotely commanded filing the stone chair garden...the team was from Google Earth!!! :-)

The next day, given how exhausted we were after a full day of biking through the roller coaster roads, we decided to rent a scooter. (Hopefully this time I wouldn't crash!) So we did, and rode through half of the island.

We started the day by checking out the Ambarita Thursday morning market. Small, simple, but adorable. There, we had the second round of breakfast by indulging on a fat martabak campur. Yummmmmmmmy!

About 20 minutes a later, in the middle of nowhere, we bumped into this Batak wedding being celebrated. Fantastically lucky of us to be able, while sitting on the edge of the road, to observe, the concrete reality of the traditional process of a Batak wedding being implemented as per what the king had explained to us the day before, and knowing the meaning of everything going on. It was very curious to also obersve that there were as many street vendors vending food, toys and other gadgets as if it were a market.

A few hours later, we finally made it to the famous hot springs on the other side of the island and at the junction of Samosir island and the Toba mainland. Ufff...should be named the boiling steaming springs! So hot high up in the mountain that we had to walk back downstream to be able to take a dip. But wow was it worth it. Floating in a little natural pond of hot water, overlooking the mountains and the lake while then sun is getting ready to set.

Since we had not used the facilities of the restaurant/swimming pool/shower of the restaurant we had to walk through in order to get access to the natural hot spring stream, i felt there was no reason for us to pay any fee...but the restaurant owner felt differently, and rushed towards the door to block our exit and yelled at us to go to hell and find another way to get back to the parking lot. Though it was a tad frightening at first, we then found it quite hilarious, as we had to climb back to the natural pond, and then down along the wall where the restaurant throws all its litter. Ha, you should have seen how proud the owner was to do this to us in front of everyone. Lol and we were laughing at him.

I stayed a week in Lake Toba, thus Ximena stayed one week more than she had planned. :-)

Samosir island is such a strangely uniquely relaxing place. You feel like you are living at another era while on the island. Though there are quite many tourists, foreign and locals, the island is a so big, the lodging options are so numerous and spread out that you still can get a feeling of being secluded.

Samosir island and its Batak culture has some of the nicest and intricate woodcarving and painting I have ever seen. Only wish I had a lot more money and an actual home to buy some pieces and ship them home. Oh well...I guess it will call for another trip in the future.

After a week of relaxing cultural and sporty gluttony of banana pancakes and avocado juices, not to forget nightly Yanifs, we decided to head up north to Aceh. The feedback from Fede and Giulia, and the idea of travelling with Ximena was enough to convince me.

Two options to get there though. The more direct way, through Medan, or the very long, yet scenic roads of the west coast. Ximena was short in time due to her flight back to england, so we went for the fast and more direct way. I will do the west scenic road alone on the way back.

Medan in itself does not seem any different from any other big developing world city. But going in and out of Medan is definitely by far the most annoying and exhausting thing so far on my trip. What a nightmare of traffic, pollution, and airless heat.

The 12 hour night bus ride from Medan to Banda Aceh went like a breeze.

We were both very surprised when we got to Banda Aceh. Everything looked very relatively new (compared to the rest of the country we had seen thus far), and the infrastructure quite developed. We had forgotten that after the 2004 tsunami/earthquake, numerous countries and NGOs came here to rebuild everything. It cost Aceh 170,000 deaths for the region to be rebuilt. Sad, yet positive at then same time, as it allowed the area to make a huge economical leap forward.

It is sad to see that when a tsunami or earthquake hits countries as large with strong economical potential like Indonesia, many country do get involved financially and do actually lead to very positive and concrete change allowing the country to restart, yet she the same thing happens to a country like Haiti, where there are not that many natural resources at stake, though many countries and organizations pretend to get involved, nothing concrete actually gets done. Haiti after the earthquake/tsunami was just as bad as before. It's just sad the see the hypocritical and monetary oriented behaviour of foreign governments and organizations in such dramatic circumstances. Governments should not act like corporations and their fake corporate social responsibility initiatives, but rather show their moral values towards humanity in general. Whether you will make a buck out of it or not, human lives are human lives.  But I guess Indonesia has more oil and gold than Haiti.

So, once in Aceh, we quickly made our way to hop on the next ferry to Pulau Weh, a couple of hours away by slow boat.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! This ferry ride was hilarious. Ximena and I probably spent the first 30 minutes standing up on the upper deck, while most of the passengers would line up one after the other to take a photo with us. You know those statues at the wax museum, or these real life carton board cut outs of celebrities where people line up to take a photo with Justin Timberlake or Madonna pretending to be next to the real celebrity? It was exactly the same. It had felt a bit like that already for the past 2 months, but this time, to a whole new level. Excellent! Like I wrote before, if you want to know how it feels to be in the skin of a celebrity, simply travel to Indonesia...but beware, it is not as amazing as it seems, as least on the long run. Just so interesting to think that locals might have a collection of photos with total foreign strangers, the same way little kids in the US collect baseball players cards.

When we arrived in Pulau Weh, on the south shore of this big island, we didn't really seen much of what was to come, other than a very dense lush green jungle covering the background mountains.

Right of the boat, we get harassed by taxis and bejaks, as per usual, but this time, they were asking us Rp 50,000 per person to get to Iboih, which seemed horrendously expensive...little did we know that it was a good 30km away and that the road to get there was a succession of very seriously steep slopes on and on and on, up and down, down and up...but, as proud and adventurous as two early 30's backpackers that we were, we kept on insisting that the price, our price should be Rp 50,000 for two! Not being successful at all with our negotiation, we just decided to hit the road walking...with our big and heavy backpack (I seriously need to change my gear when I get to France and go to Decathlon!), and in the mid afternoon burning sun, not really knowing where we were going.

Ufffffff.....after a good 5 km, and passing by many goats and cows, we tried our luck again at negotiating with bejaks passing by. Rp 60,000 was our last offer, we got it, at last! Ximena and I were quite speechless and stunned all along the ride as we realized that walking it would have been pure impossible madness. But wow, what a gorgeous ride!!!!!!!

And then we finally arrived at the entrance of Iboih...cute very small beach town, or rather beach strip made of cafes, warungs, souvenir shops, dive shops, coconut trees, hammocks, traditional little wooden boats, cats, dogs, goats, foreign and local tourists, and this delicious vibe of relaxing vacation in the middle of the jungle yet at the beach at the same time. Oh, and the water was as turquoise blue as can get, the clearest water I have seen so far.

I would not call this place a heaven as it is not that secluded, and is populated by quite a lot of people.

All of the lodging options are spread out along the hilly and jungly cost, and it requires quite a hike (with our backpacks) to walk by each of them. All of them offer wooden bungalows on stilts, some perched in the jungle overlooking the ocean and some right on the ocean.

We stopped at OONG, apparently the cheapest option, and found a room in a bungalow right on the water. It was a big two rooms bungalow. The other room was inhabited by the fascinating Bruno, a retired Italian former sailor and then chemical engineer. The bungalow was so close to the water that it felt as if each wave was going to swallow the bungalow. The bathroom was outside...there was a small door in Thu back of the room, and very long and narrow wooden board would connect our doorstep to the doorstep of the bathroom 5 meters away and about 1.5 meters above ground. (Had to be careful when going to the bathroom, or else, well...)

Bruno is a fantastic story teller and such well travelled. He told us one morning that his daily morning moto is to tell himself while looking in the mirror 'Bruno, que culo!' (Pronounced with a strong Italian accent) It made us laugh so much, yet made so much sense. At such stage in his life, to be able to afford to spend the rest of his life hoping from paradise to paradise, ma que culo! :-)

On a corner pillar of our terrace, there was, for whatever reason, a little scooter rear view mirror hung there. I am telling this because our first morning waking up in the bungalow, we heard a big 'boom' and some loud noises coming from the terrace...as the sun was rising. When I peaked through the window to look at what might be the case of such noises, I surprised a big make macac monkey, looking at himself in the mirror. It was so funny and unexpected.

Bruno left the morning of the fourth day, so not having our favorite neighbour anymore, we decided to check out from OONG and check in at the last cottage on the shore, Yulia. We found a much much better bungalow, perched high up in the trees, yet, right overlooking the water at the same time.

Before keeping on going further about our stay on Pulau Weh, I absolutely must share an experience that has provided me with so much admiration, and so much hatred amend despise at the same time. Let me explain...
Our second day on the island, Ximena and I we having lunch at one of the local warungs, right in front of the beach, and just at the beginning of the 'hiking' trail to get to all the cottages along the shore. As we are people watching to try and get some more of the local culture, we see a young male foreigner passing by, with a crutch, and dragging what looks like a heavy suitcase, while he is obviously seriously crippled. The weather is terribly hot, and he seems to be struggling quite much on the flat part of the path. I call the waitress up so we can pay and run to help him. It takes a bit of time as you can imagine. To get to where we were, he had had to walk quite a bit, and climbed up and down quite many stairs from where the tax in dropped him off. As I am writing this, I am still in such a shock that not a single soul offered to help him carry his suit case and walk with him to help him find a lodging. 80% of the men on this island have no job and just spend their days doing nothing. How do these people dare considering themselves human, and Muslims when they let such thing happen without moving a finger, and just screaming out to him with a big smile 'welcome to paradise!"

We ran to catch up with him and take him suitcase. His name is Clement, he is a 27 French tourist, crippled from both legs and speech impaired, has managed to travel all through south east Asia, in these conditions, and yet managed to keep his smile, and not feel and resentment for such despicable soulless locals.

While I walked along Clement, carrying his suitcase, Ximena managed to find him a cheap room at OONG.

Clement's story has since been such a source of admiration for me. Such adventurous, curious, unstoppable, and courageous human being.

For the following two nights I had trouble sleeping because of how mad and upset I was at the locals.

On his fourth day (our fifth), Clement had to catch a becak at 7am, so he had to wake up early and take off from OONG at 6:30am to hike back to the entrance of the town where the becaks are. At first, the staff from OONG said it was way to early for them to be able to wake up. Ximena and I (were at no longer at OONG but at Yulia then, but we can by the night before to ensure that he would be taken care of) had to shame them and insist for them to accept to get up and accompany Clement to the becak. Unbelievable!

I need some serious meditation training and learn to manage my emotions better as I tend to let my anger take over control to often.

The rest of our stay on the island was spectacular. The day before moving to Yulia's we bumped into David and Sara, great Spanish couple we had met at Toba, as well as Ken, Australian retire whom we also met at Toba. They checked in at Yulia as well. The yaniff crew was reunited at last. Lol

The remaining 5 days, we went diving every single day. What amazing dive sites, especially the Canyon, which we almost didn't do, as we had initially planned to leave the night before.

Our favorite dive master/instructor at Tirta Diving was Alberto, a hilarious early 30's Italian who has been to the best dive sites in the region and who was the most passionate staff of the whole shop.

Best food and coconut shake at Deedee's. Best banana and chocolate pancake at Dolphin's. Best banana poridge at Yulia's.

Our last afternoon on the island, we decided to rent a scooter and venture around to see the rest of the paradise island we had been on for a week already. Ha, finding a place that would rent us a scooter with a couple of drops of gasoline to get us started was quite a hassle. We need up finding one at last, but no helmets. When I asked about helmets, I was told by a bunch of men at the same time 'helmet no need, no polisi on island'. Does that tell you about the level of education of the people here, or what!? When i told them that helmets were for personal safety and not for the police, they didn't seem to get it. :-S

The ride around the island was just magical. Aside my very bad skills at manoeuvering a scooter down steep very curvy hair pin roads, I did quite well for the overall drive.

Slaloming between the flocks of cows, buffaloes, goats, monkeys...

The other coast of the island was nothing like the coast we were staying on. No tourists, barely any villages, white beaches, the jungle hovering the road with its red and brown foliage and dead leafs carpeting  half of the road space. The sky was of a dark grey, and the wind was blowing very strong and horizontally, creating a continuous ballet of leafs in the sky and pretty much at eye level on the road...and when the flying foxes appeared by the dozens above our heads, it made the ride even more 'hitchcokian' of a scene, and made us wonder if the world was going to end at the end of the road. Fantastic!

And then, after a week...came the time to pay farewell to this piece of heaven...direction Banda Aceh, right on time for the beginning of Ramadan.