In the boat from Malakka to Dumai I was almost the only foreigner. there was also another girl but that was it.
There is nothing really to see in Dumai so I took a microbus to bukittingi (took something like 16 hour)

bukit tinggi wasn’t very interesting to me. yes there was a dutch fortress and some nice scenery, a zoo which I wouldn’t visit (cause who wants to support animal suffering)

bukit tinggi is also not the cheapest city, I had to pay $7.5 for a room on the roof in a hotel with bathroom outside, normal rooms would be 10$ or more.

Having nothing much to do I did a safari trip there, it included seeing fox bats, some villages, a nice lake and a 44 turn road.
So here is what happened: after paying for the package the guide told us before we leave “you may not see the fox bats” and I didn’t. the 44 turn road sounded interesting but it was horrible. basically the car has to go right then left then right 44 times in a row. I felt I want to throw up. that aside, cars coming from both directions have to beep to each others.
all of that doesn’t matter eventually we will reach the lake were we can relax (haha I wish).
The scenery was really amazing but the lake stinks. not just because people wash in it and dump their left over food but also because there was a lot of fish farming there. needingless to say no body swam. still the view of the lake was fantastic.

after that I went for one day to Harau lumpur a village around 60 km away from bukit tinggi.
to make the adventure more fun I used public transportation. I had to change transportation three or four times and that proved really challenging because of the language barrier.

My last transportation was by motorcycle (which is a common alternative to Taxi in Indonesia).
The driver was kind and didn’t want to take money because he was going there anyway!! but I insisted.

Harau has a really pretty waterfall and breath taking natural views with clouds forming mist in some parts but not others.
it makes you feel like you are in a dream.
Sorry Picture quality is bad because I forgot my real camera

Wish I could stay there longer but for 8$ per day I couldn’t afford to stay there alone.

Indonesian people are all very friendly to tourists. just like Nepali they also liked to ask about my religion.
interesting enough no one bothered to ask western about their religion, only me!
I was being asked on average two times a day, sometimes more.
Most of them would stop after first question (Muslim? no) but few did carry on to the end.
You should see the smile on his face as he ask (as if he is suggesting something fun) and the disappointment that follows.

Next day I headed back to bukit tinggi and took a public bus to my next destination lake Toba.

Here I start learning more about one of the most annoying Indonesian habit (smoking in a CLOSED bus).
No body seem to care or feel even the slightest level of guilt.
He can be talking and puffing the smoke in my face, no big deal.

other than that Indonesians tend to be extremely friendly and always curious about you, when you give them smile almost always they smile back to you.
many would go out of their way to help you (if they understand English of course)

6000 years ago lake Toba was a massive volcano the wiped life from the whole region.
but now the volcano became a giant lake with an island inside (called Samosir island) the size of Singapore!
a very small part of this island is called “tuktuk” and that is the touristic part of the island

tuktuk is by far my favorite spot in Indonesia, the weather is cool, the lake is good for swimming, the view is amazing and the culture is different.
the batak tribe which live there were canibalist in the past before they turn into Christiantiy.
still they have the place where they used to slaughter and prepare their enemies for cooking!!!
now however they are extremely friendly like the rest of Indonesians except that they rarely asked me about my religion.

Kids of one hotel owner playing

I stayed in Liberta guest house which was pretty cheap (from $3.5/night) and food was also cheap that guests of other hotels would sometimes come to eat at ours.
they also had ping pong, chess and other board games. due to the cheap price the place was popular and so I had a really great company there.
after spending more than a week chilling there I decided to leave and only then I realized I didn’t do most of the touristic stuff.

so here it goes: I rented an Indonesian canoe which is like the plastic ones except that it can sink in which case you have to take it back to shore.
it was fun especially what I call the “wave dancing” where you have to twist your body from one side to the other in sync with wave movements otherwise you will flip.

next touristic thing was eating Magic mushroom ( a kind of psychotropic fungus ), although illegal in most countries it is so legal in Indonesia that you can go to a pizza shop and ask them to put the mushroom on it!
I’ve almost never before had any chemicals that mess with my brain but, mushroom was natural, full of nutrition and seems to be safe and none addictive (why countries ban it remains beyond my understanding)
so I went to my favorite pizza shop and ordered my pizza with magic mushroom on top (cost $10 extra).
A delicious pizza full of mushroom arrived. An hour later I started to get headache, not a very good balance and difficulty in thinking clearly but in no way it was pleasant experience to me.
I later learned its better to try it in groups because the atmosphere around you has a big effect on whether your experience is good or bad

few days later other friends tried and they seems to enjoy it more than I did.
They went as far as laughing at my jokes!!!
but no one really lost their mind, just slight change in vision and happy/relaxed feeling

In tuktuk we also have these school trips who would approach you and ask if they can practice their English with you. how sweet I’ve enjoyed talking to the little kids, reminded me of my school days.
Two German girls of the group who were still on mushroom went to buy cigarets and bam they meet a school group that want to practice their German. It was funny how the two girls were trying to hold themselves together and pretend they are normal.

after that I went to go to Medan – a big none touristic city – to renew my visa. once I arrived there all tuktuk drivers wanted to take me to the same popular hotel but I thought better go to another less known hotel to get a cheaper price.
Not so many people seemed to know the cheap hotel I was looking for. but eventually I found it and here is the surprise: the house is basically a church with the upper flood being like a dorm.

the lady – the priestess – was very kind to me, gave me water, fruits for free.
Oh did I forget to mention is she is running for the parliament?

Since the place wasn’t popular I was alone in the whole floor with so many beds and a bathroom.
took me two days doing my visa and of course as a priestess you can expect the typical Indonesian what is your religion question, why not believe in Jesus?
She was very kind to me and I was willing to talk to her about that if it makes her happy but her English was really bad.
When I told her “I’d like to have this conversation with you but I don’t think you can understand my English” she didn’t understand a word.

later I learned how to communicate with her better (asking for directions and stuff) through google translate which worked fine.
Of course she later learned to use google translate to run religious conversation, it was fun but the awkward part is having a young boy helping her with the computer and reading what I am saying.
Of course it was a bit awkward when I wrote the sentence “I don’t want to discuss this in front of the little boy”, the boy had to read that to her.

As soon as I finished my visa I wanted to take a bus to bukit lawang. It was 4pm and I know transportation between cities “usually” stops at 5pm but I decided to try anyway. It took me more than an hour and half to go from the part of City I stayed in to the other side where I can take the bus and guess what? yes, it was too late already no buses going there until tomorrow and now I have to find a place near the bus station to sleep.

Hotels in that area where relatively expensive $10 or even $20 – spending $10 for staying 9 hours in a hotel (until 6am) wasn’t fair.

Eventually I found a filthy place consists of a big room with mattresses on the floor separated by super thin piece of wood. you can easily have a discussion with the person sleeping in the next “room”. they wanted $5 for that which was not fair compared to my previous $4 dom/church in the SAME CITY!!
I found another one next to it for only $3 rooms where similar or worse but $3 was ok but then a man from the first hotel talked to the owner of the second and price suddenly became $5

Suddenly it became a challenge and an issue of dignity, I’ll find a cheap place no matter what. I walked and walked and walked for hours – with two backpacks – but didn’t succeed and at some point I decided that I need to come up with a different plan.
I sat down somewhere in the street, opened my laptop, used google translate to translate the following message into Indonesian: “Hi, I am going to buikit lawang tomorrow. I will pay you $2 if you let me stay at your place until morning”
I wrote the translated message in a paper and then I approached many local/cheap restaurants and gave them the paper. it was funny how each owner is expecting a new customer with a smile, the surprise when I give him the paper and his reaction after staring at it.
I was surprised to get many rejections, It wasn’t really such a big deal and $2 was good money for a poor city like this.
finally there was that girl and her brother who – the girl – could speak English. she asked me if I have any family in Medan or friends to help me? I felt like “I am not begging I am giving money for sitting on a chair until sunrise!”. I said no, I am a tourist here [ gee what a shock ]
she talked to her brother but he wasn’t very open to the idea. he told her something then she told me if I already have $2 I can pay it to a specific hotel she gave me directions to. she told me to come back to her if that didn’t work.
I went to the hotel and rooms where $10 so I went back to her as she’s the only one could talk to me. she talked to her brother again and then said sorry sir but we don’t have place. I said no problem and left.
Plan B failed time for plan C.
I remembered a french guy I met earlier in Malaysia and told me how he traveled in Russia and China without paying for any hotels by finding isolated places and sleep in it until early morning then keep moving. I thought this is a good chance to try this despite not having a tent nor a sleeping bag.

Now where to find an isolated place in a condensed city like this? not so easy. I went into one side street then another branch then another but wherever I go people were there looking at the weird tourist walking in the tiny poor streets. what is the f*** is doing here? they must be wondering.

I gave up on that street and went back to the main street to try a different side street and here she comes the girl I met earlier with her brother on their tuktuk. they stopped and she said Sir we found a place for you.
Indonesians call any foreigner Sir even if he is a beggar – which I am not! -. Anyway I went with them to their house. I later understood that restaurant wasn’t theirs, they were just clients.
The house of this poor family was amazing. it was big with all the family living in it, the grandmother, the mothers and their children.

The brother with me in the house as I was about to leave in the morning

The family was very kind to me and also curious and like all Indonesians they asked about my religion however their behavior and hospitality didn’t change when I said I am atheist.

Only that girl spoke English but I managed to talk to the other members through her. I played chess with her brother which he won easily despite my seriously trying.
She introduced me to the whole family and I’ve really enjoyed that more than anything else so far.

When it was time to sleep she pointed to a spot on the floor where I could sleep and as I was about to sleep there she laughed and said no Sir on the couch 🙂
But it gets more emotional: during my stay an elder member talked to a young one. I didn’t know what they said but the guy seemed to say something like “why me?”.
They insisted that I sleep in his mattress/bed instead of couch [ how embarrassing ]

I spent the night there then in the morning the brother drove me to boukit lawang’s bus station.
I insisted to pay $2.5 for my stay (because lets face it, this is 10 times better than a chair in a restaurant) and I was a bit generous when paying for the ride. The guy insisted to wait until the bus arrive and I take it before he leaves!
End of Medan adventure.