Random adventures in Medan

And so I made it back to Medan in time to meet up with Penny and Ian, two workmates from Australia who were about to embark on a five week Sumatran adventure. Medan being the gateway to this beautiful island provided a timely location to catch up with them and to finally see some of Medan myself. I have been to Medan many times, but have never really had the time to ‘see the sights’ (some would argue there aren’t really any) as I’ve always been there in passing.

We spent quite a bit of time in Sun Plaza actually, surprise surprise! The ‘oasis in the desert’ as I like to call it. Airconditioned, clean and as fake as any western shopping centre, it provides expensive shopping and great people-watching. In between bouts of hot chocolates, perusing dvds (I now have two whole Simpsons series – 16 to go!) and testing out all the gym equipment, we cruised around on becaks (which turned out to be almost more fun than the destinations themselves due to the fact that we were four bules squeezed onto one!) to various parts of town.

We visited the Mesjid Raya, Medan’s largest and most beautiful mosque, the Istana Maimoon (royal palace), hit up the Pasar Patissa, the central market for clothes, shoes and other goods (which are always too small for big, tall bules like me), unsuccessfully tried to visit the North Sumatra museum and generally just enjoyed cruising around the place.

But the most disturbing part of our visit though was yet to come. I’d recently learned about a new attraction in Medan: the Rahmat Saleh Wildlife Museum. Sure, this was the usual sort of place I’d visit – if the animals were alive. But this was a taxidermy museum.

Well, it was an attraction nonetheless. Plus I’d been told by the yokels that it was quite a bizarre and kitschy place to visit.

So in we went. And it literally blew us away – pardon the pun. There were hundreds of stuffed animals inside that had suffered the same fate, at the hands of a famous Indonesian businessman, with a hunting fetish. Lions, tigers and bears – oh my! They were all in there. Elephants, giraffes, kangaroos, zebras, bison, komodo dragons, rhinos, wolves, crocodiles, a seemingly never-ending collection of birds; you name a living creature, particularly an endangered one, and it was in there. Even the poor old polar bear (no panda thank goodness, not sure how he escaped this horrible fate). And there were three floors of these poor creatures. I now know why Sumatran tigers are almost extinct – I think I counted about 25 of them in there. They even had one display with a whole family of the poor little critters.

We luckily got FREE entry to the ‘night safari’ exhibition of the museum (wow!), which was basically a dark room filled with all sorts of animals of the night (and the day, I must admit) that were illuminated as you walked along the path to the tunes of howling wolves and growling tigers. Not really sure why this is usually a part of the museum that you should pay extra for. Maybe it was the huge turkey that randomly held pride of place along the walkway. Ha! Better off on my dinner table on Christmas day.

And talk about an exercise in self-promotion! Framed newspaper clippings adorned the walls. There was a ‘trophy corner’ that showed off his prowess in other pursuits for darts, bowling and other random interests. You could buy his book. You could also read about the golf tournament he attended with three ex-US presidents.

The big five were proudly displayed in five big photographs, along with hundreds of others lining the walls showing off his, and his kids’ (poor bastards) “achievements”. Even more strangely were the photographs of Miss Worlds and Universes and Galaxies from various years, who had come to visit this morbid museum and had been presented with a book by the man himself. Our own Jennifer Hawkins featured proudly. Hehe.

It was horribly depressing, yet morbidly fascinating at the same time. Another disturbing thing was the “kids’ corner” which housed everything from mice to guinea pigs to frogs arranged in random dancing poses. What was also quite disturbing was the deformed goat and sheep with two heads. Someone must have donated them. Whoever they were, they were clearly disturbed as well. May have even had two heads of their own.

For more pics, go to:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=43412&l=6f4f9&id=543196685

Welcome to the jungle!

Alternative title: LEECH LAND

Hooray for Idul Fitri! It’s the official end to Ramadan when everyone stops fasting and begins feasting. Sounds good to me. It’s only supposed to be three official public holidays, but because they fell on Monday, Thursday and Friday, we got the week off. Sweet!

I met up with Wendy, a lovely girl I’d met in Pulau Weh at the time of my last holiday, and randomly discovered that Robyn and Rob, two other friends I’d also made there, were also in town, so we met up for a lovely dinner and a few drinks. It was a nice reunion.

But then, the real part of my little holiday: off to Tangkahan. I was pleased to find that it was only listed in one of the two guidebooks I had – and not in the Lonely Planet – which meant that there wouldn’t be hordes of people there. I was also happy that I had some mates to accompany me – Sendhi, who I work with, and Wendy, a Canadian working in Medan – especially on the looooong bus trip there.

We made the trek out to Pinang Baris bus station in Medan, aiming to leave on the 10:30 bus, only to find that the 10:30 bus was actually the 10am bus, and we’d missed it. We got bored waiting around, even while perusing the local bakery’s fare of delicious goodies – and fair enough, as the next and only bus for the day wasn’t til 1pm – so we decided, at my urging, to jump on one of the many mini-buses to Binjai, an almost-suburb of Medan, and see what we could see. In the end, not much. But we had to wait somewhere, and waiting there was better than in Medan, where it was a lot more noisy and polluted.

Unfortunately it meant that by the time the 1pm bus rolled on by, it was packed. And so we stood in the aisle for a good hour or so before enough people disembarked and there were vacant seats. Nice one Jacqui! If we’d waited in Medan we would have got a seat for sure. The bus itself was a sight to behold – a big, rusty old clunker that looked like it had been side-swiped by about twenty cars, rendering the outside almost paint-less.

In the end the bus trip was around five hours. It wasn’t too unpleasant because the people on the bus were interesting, as was the scenery, particularly the further we travelled from the city. We ended up driving along a bumpy, muddy, ox-cart track through acres and acres of palm plantations – which was in itself disturbing, considering how much forest would have been cleared to plant them, and how the plantations went right up to the park boundary. And then we arrived at the end of the line: Tangkahan.

The village of Tangkahan is located right next to the Gunung Leuser National Park, amongst the plantations, but the bungalows and guesthouses for tourists are actually located inside the park, perched right on the edge of the beautiful river that divides protected land from farmed. A ferry transports you across the river to the guesthouses, from which we chose to stay at Mega Inn, a gorgeous little set of bungalows and a restaurant overlooking the river that are named after its owner. Mega had never heard of the English meaning of his name, and his broad smile grew even broader when we told him what it meant. Mega, his wife, and his two young partners in crime – Ucok and Preen – were awesome hosts, not to mention lots of fun.

So for the next four days we proceeded to relax, read books, make rock towers by the river, watch the monkeys in the trees, eat yummy food and drink ginger tea by the mugful. Our nights were taken up by singing and playing guitar with Ucok and Preen, and playing shithead (of course!). It was just what we needed – a nice break away from work in a beautiful, relaxing place.

We also decided to partake in the more adventurous activities that Tangkahan offered – one day which entailed riding elephants. Our two trusty steeds – Uni and Ardana – were amazing creatures, and while I’d ridden elephants once before, I’d forgotten just how beautiful they are. It’s amazing how well they can be trained to understand Basaha Indo commands and how they stoop right down to the ground to allow you to clamber up onto their backs.

At one point they became quite perturbed by something rustling in the forest, probably a monkey or pig, but we certainly didn’t see it! Apparently elephants can sense the presence of other animals from quite a distance. What was really amazing was the deep sound which reverberated through their bodies – it was like being inside a stationary car with the motor idling. They were clearly not happy, but after a bit of urging from our guides, continued on down the slippery path. Watching their ginormous feed plodding along, I wondered if they would ever slide down the steep slopes, but their sheer size and weight guaranteed our safety. Provided we hung on, that is! Getting a front seat – mahout style – was fun too, sitting on the neck of the elephant, with its leathery ears slapping your legs as they walk. Their skin is thick and leathery too, and quite scratchy due to the coarse hairs that cover it. You simply move your leg against their ear to instruct them which direction to turn.

We emerged from the forest to our now familiar river, where, in the rain, we helped to give the gentle giants their daily mandi. Scrubbing them down with brushes and water was my favourite part of the day – getting up close and personal with these beautiful beasts was really enjoyable. And they certainly enjoyed the scrub! The mahouts thought it was hilarious – and probably do every time – when after an offer of a shake of the trunk turned into a water fight after they instructed the elephants to give us numerous squirts of water! :)

We also did a short, one day trek through Gunung Leuser National Park. Ucok and Preen accompanied us on the trek, learning to become guides themselves, and of course undertaking the all important job of carrying delicious nasi goreng for our lunch. It was such a nice day out; we trekked through the beautiful jungle for three or four hours, where the diversity in plant life was amazing and the haunting sounds of the hornbills surrounded us.

Our other little guides were the constantly lurking and surprisingly fast-moving leeches – pacat in Bahasa Indonesian for the little suckers and linta for the big ones. We had both, weren’t we lucky? And could they suck blood! Wendy, who had come a little unprepared without her trekking boots, did her walking in flip flops – and paid the leechy price! But even I, who was wearing socks and shoes, still got attacked because the little buggers managed to make their way through my socks. Our feet were a bleeding mess by the time we reached the river to eat our lunch. The final straw for me was on return to my bungalow, when I noticed a spot of blood on my shirt. When I lifted it up I found one of the little buggers had made his way into my belly button and proceeded to attach himself there, sucking himself silly until he was big and bloated. Gross! I still have a little scar there to this day! Boo!!!

Sadly our jungle trekking finished, but that wasn’t it for the day. Our next destination: Oh-oh! A caaaave! A daaaarrrrk, gloooooomy cave! We can’t go over it….. we can’t go under it…. we’ll have to go…. through it! The cave was a twisting, turning maze of pathways leading to nowhere or to huge caverns that opened up in front of us. There were hundreds of bats perched on the ceilings of the main cavern, their little eyes twinkling in the torchlight, and they swooped us with glee as we picked our way along the tunnels. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when one came screaming down the tunnel and flew straight into the back of Wendy’s head! Didn’t help her claustrophobia either! The colour of the stone was also an unusual shade of orange, which I didn’t expect, and which didn’t show up under torchlight – it was only Wendy’s camera which exposed the true colour of the stone. Probably from the clay soil through which the rain leaches, and created the cave in the first place!

After we emerged from the cave, much to Wendy’s relief – and it had certainly been a task to even get her in there in the first place! – we jumped into the river and made our way over to some natural hot springs which bubbled out of the rock and had over time created a crevice, just big enough for 2 bules and 3 Indonesians to squeeze themselves inside. So we chilled out there for a while in the lovely warm water before deciding, finally, that tubing on the river was in order to get us home. It was hard to leave our steamy little oasis, and the water of the river seemed all the colder for it! But tubing was the perfect way to end our day of trekking; the river was surprisingly fast flowing, and before we knew it we were already back to Mega’s for another cup of ginger tea.

I really didn’t want to leave Tangkahan. And I’ll certainly be going back there again. Our next physical challenge is to conquer the four day trek between Tangkahan and Bukit Lawang. Providing we can conquer the leeches :)

Check out my photos from the trip: