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
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
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