So I begin my ramblings about yet another fun adventure in Indo.
Easter 2008: certainly an Easter to remember, for a mixture of good and
bad reasons!
Ok, so let’s start from the very
beginning, a very good place to start! I’d granted my team two days of
TOIL because they worked on a public holiday and Saturday; plus they
have also been working pretty hard over the past few months and have
been getting very frustrated with all the s#!t that’s been going on with
the WatSan program (read previous blog!). So together we planned to
take what was affectionately known as The WatSan Holiday. All members of
the team (me, 2 engineers, 1 PHAST staff, 5 construction supervisors
and 2 truck drivers) were keen, bar one of the PHAST team, who was
joining the ‘other group’ of local staff in Bali.
[I
really hate the divisiveness and power-mongering of the personalities in
this office. There’s two rival factions operating here and it’s crap. I
wish people would just get along!]
Anyway, back to the
story. So the plan was to head to Lake Toba together, spend a couple of
days there, and then cruise back to Medan. All good! The normal route
to Toba is to fly to Medan with Susi Air (1 hour) and then drive the 5
hour journey to Parapat. However, at 1 million Rp, the return flight is
out of the budget of many of our staff, so they elected to take the
overnight ferry from Sinabang to the port of Labuhan haji on the
southern coast of Sumatera, and then drive from there up to Lake Toba.
Considering
it’s not actually that far, it surprised me how long it takes. Halfway
through Monday, we find out that the ferry didn’t actually arrive on
Sunday as scheduled due to bad weather (we’ve had lots of storms
lately). So we didn’t leave til Tuesday evening; all good, nothing we
could do about it, so on we get Tuesday night, all rearing to go.
The
ferry was actually a lot more comfy than I expected: I was expecting a
vast, open, smoke-filled area with bench seats or chairs arranged for
people to sit on. But it actually had comfy, permanent reclining seats
and a TV (should have guessed that last part). Thank God there was a
non-smoking section! The smokers (a majority of the passengers) were
content to sleep in a smoky second section. All the cars, buses and
trucks were loaded in the hold, and passengers up top.
Not
that that meant we actually slept much, if any. Started off the night
imparting my extensive knowledge of card games (Black Bitch – yeah!)
before a bit of telly and attempting to sleep in ‘reclining position’.
It got quite rocky at various points of the journey … let’s just say the
delightful sounds of retching weren’t conducive to sleep, nor was the
loud music from various people’s mobiles! Indonesians have a real
penchance for loud music at both late and early hours…I think the most
amusing part was the rooster crowing at 5:17am. First I thought it was
someone’s mobile phone alarm, until I noticed one of the passengers
sleeping on the floor had a box with holes punched in it! J GOLD for
Australia!
Anyway, so come 7am we arrived bleary-eyed
in Labuhan haji. A Lontong breakfast preceded us all piling into a
rusty, clapped-out bemo (fitting 11 people into this thing was a feat of
its own) and after about an hours delay due to a totally disorganised
driver, heading off towards Toba.
For the entire day. And what a long day it was. At least when we stopped at the mid-way point, we had beer. Guinness, even! :)
Finally
we reached the town of Sidikalang, where we were to change buses. It
was also the home town of my engineer Aduma, so I met her parents
(lovely folks!), got serenaded with some local Batak songs and drank
Tuak (palm wine) with the locals.
We got the last bus –
a big, rusty, smoke-belching green monster with air brakes that
squealed every time the driver put his foot down – and headed off to
Pangururan in the rain. It was pretty damn crowded when we boarded, and
sitting on a school bench perched in the aisle wasn’t the nicest way to
treat my ass. But it wasn’t too bad – that is, until an oncoming
motorbike attempted to overtake the car it was tailing, saw us coming,
and in attempting to pull back in, lost control and skidded right in
front of the bus. The bus driver accordingly swerved to miss it, and put
us right into the ditch.
Luckily everyone came out
unscathed, if not a little rattled. Which you think would have been a
good reason to drive carefully for the remainder of the journey. But oh
no, not this guy. It seemed to make him more determined to drive faster,
perhaps wanting to get to Pangururan on time. Given that the road was
only wide enough for our bus (let alone oncoming traffic, the majority
of which were trucks), it was raining steadily, the road snaked along
the edge of a steep cliff, and there were major roadworks the entire
way, it was a very foolish way to drive and we spent much time almost in
ditches or right at the edge to allow trucks to pass. But we made it by
about 9pm, and set about heading to the losmen 3-by-3 in becaks.
Pangururan
is actually on Samosir Island, in the middle of Lake Toba, just on the
other side of the small peninsula that joins the island to the mainland…
hence Samosir isn’t technically an island. Anyway. The losmen was
pretty crap, but it’s redeeming feature was the hot springs in the
mountain behind, the water from which had been transported long
distances via a criss-cross of pipes to hot baths (men and women
separate of course, not to mention bule’s (foreigners) and locals having
their own separate areas too…). Talk about a great way to relax after
12 hours sitting cramped in Indonesian transport!
The
next morning we set off on foot from the losmen back to the centre of
town, took a million photos by the lake (Indonesians are such posers –
but they never smile! Such serious expressions!) and jumped into another
bemo to cruise around Samosir island. Samosir is such a beautiful
place, bright green rice paddies set against the volcanic mountains
dotted with pine trees; you can almost imagine an overnight snowfall and
Julie Andrews singing from the hilltops! The Batak people bury their
dead in above-ground family tombs that resemble small palaces, and
together with the churches dotted around the landscape (Bataks are
Christian), not to mention the enormous blue lake that engulfs Samosir,
it makes for an intriguingly beautiful landscape.
We
arrived in the town of Tomok and proceeded to hit the shops – and there
are many full of the usual touristy crap. Spent quite a bit of time
perusing said crap, especially as the construction supervisors and
drivers were keen to buy souvenirs and presents for their families,
given they’d never been to Toba before. After lunch we jumped on the
ferry and headed to Prapat, the main town in the area and transit point
for coming and going to Medan. So off in another bus we went, this time
one in much better condition (as was the road!) and a lot less crowded.
Phew!
So about 5 hours later we were back in Medan. And
while totally exhausted, all I wanted was some meat and a glass of red!
So off to Traders Bar & Restaurant with the Simeulue crew for a
big fat steak, followed by a few games of 9-ball and some margaritas.
Life is good.
But this is only half of the adventure.
Read next blog for instalment 2. Mainly because I can’t be bothered
typing it right now… but there’s orangutans in it, so you’ll want to
read it. Hehe!
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