The last leg of my journey in Indonesia was filled with more long days of travel.  I woke up early and did some shopping (got a cool pashmina and some hand craved candle sticks in a cool Batak design).  Then I took the 10:30am boat back to Parapat.  Next it was a 5 -6 hour bus ride back to Medan.  I was getting really sick of the Indonesian buses by this point and this was the worst bus of all.  I don’t mind being crowded and hot on bus journeys, but I just can’t stand having to breath in all of that smoke for extended periods of time.  (This bus journey was even worse, because it was raining.  So the smoke was trapped in the bus and there was absolutely no fresh air coming in.  Yuck!)

I was a bit pissed of with the chainsmokers by the time we finally got into Medan, so I jumped in a taxi and showed him the business card for the guesthouse I wanted to go to.  The driver said he knew where it was, but this turned out to be a lie.  He just dropped me off on the side of the road in the “tourist” part of Medan.  (There really aren’t many tourists in Medan, so it makes it a bit more tricky to get around.) 

I set off to find a guesthouse.  I didn’t really care where I stayed, I just wanted to put down my bags and find some food.  (I hadn’t ate since breakfast, which had definetly become a trend for this trip because of all the long bus journeys.)  The first place I came to seemed fine, but a bit rundown.  The receptionist took me up to see the room, but when he opened the door he told me I couldn’t see it right away.  He ducked into the room and shut the door behind him, telling me to wait for a minute.  This seemed quite suspicous, so I opened the door to see what he was doing.  He was re-making the bed with the same dirty sheets that had been on it the night before.  Gross!

I left that guesthouse, because I figured there had to be something better.  I was wrong after wandering around for about 45 minutes, I couldn’t find a single place to stay.  I was quite annoyed by this point, but I had to go back to the first guesthouse.  They had already rented out the dirty room to someone else, so the only option left was to sleep in what appeared to be a storage room for old furniture.  The room was jam packed with beds and other random things, but by this time I just didn’t care.  (The bathroom was even worse!  The “shower” was a big plastic bucket filled with water that you were supposed to wash with and also use to flush the toilet.  Yuck!  I didn’t bother with a shower.  I thought I’d be dirtier than when I started!)

I didn’t want my last impression of Sumatra to be a bad one, so I found a nice salon down the road and decided to pamper myself with a night of beauty.  I had my hair washed, a manicure, pedicure, back massage, neck massage, and head massage.  All for about $15.  The head massage was amazing!  It has to be in my top 5 Best Massages of All Time.  (And that’s saying alot, since I get at least 2 massages a week.)  I defintely could have lived without the manicure though.  My fingernails were quite long and the lady decided to cut them into sharp points.  So I basically had claws when she was done with me.  I had to file them down a ton when I got back to my room.

The next day (or later that night) I was awoken at 4:25 am by a very loud call to prayer by the mosque next door.  I looked out the window and saw that my guesthouse was surrounded my mosques.  (There were 3 of them within a 1 block radius of me.)  They all seemed to be competing for who could be the loudest and have the longest signing. 

I left the guesthouse by 7:30am and set off for the ferry ticket office.  (I had been told when I booked my ticket back in Malaysia, that the bus to the ferry left at 8:00.)  I got to the office a few minutes before 8, but it was all locked up.  My motorbike taxi man was nice enough to take me to a very local breakfast place where we had coffee (flavored with tons of condensed milk) and Mee Gorey (fried noodles with veg, egg, and unknown ingredients).  It turns out the bus wasn’t leaving until about 9:45. 

I got the bus to the ferry port and then took a 5 hour ferry to Penang, Malaysia.  As soon as I got checked into my guesthouse in Penang, my manager called me.  He said that I needed to jump on an early morning bus (in about 12 hours) and go to Thailand to meet up with a group.  (I was supposed to have a few more days of vacation, but that’s the way it seems to be when you’re a tour leader.)  So I collapsed on my bed and slept for as long as possible and then took a 10 hour bus ride up to Krabi, Thailand the next day.  (I had been in 3 countries within a 24 hour timeframe!)

Now, I am leading my last tour with Intrepid.  I have about 1 week left to go and then its freedom for 7 weeks!  I can’t wait.  I’m going to travel around Myanmar and Laos, and hopefully relax and recuperate in Thailand for a bit before I start my teaching job in Japan.

After the first day of being completely lazy in Tuk Tuk, I decided to try to see as much of the island as possible on my second day.  So I booked a motorbike and a motorbike driver through my guesthouse.  (If never driven a motorbike before, so I figured having a driver would be much safer.  I think I should have given him a driving test before agreeing to go with him.  We had an interesting ride that day!)

Puala Samosir (the island in the middle of Lake Toba) is as big as the whole country of Singapore, so it takes about 8 hours to drive around on a motorbike.  My driver and I set off at about 9am and had our first stop at the stone chairs.  They are ancient chairs where the head of the Batak village would sit to discuss village matters.  There was also stone furniture for torturing people and beheading them! 

Then we drove to the Batak village/ museum.  The museum was pretty pathetic.  It was one small room with some dusty cases holding wodden tools and things.  We stuck around and watched the Batak dancing performance.  It was interesting to see a different cultures traditional dances, but the dances themselves were a bit boring.  Most of the dance moves just involved slowly walking around, bending your knees, and maybe moving your hands a bit. 

The scenary for the drive definetly made up for some of the less than amazing tourist sites!  (I’m going to email pictures shortly.)  But the mountains, lake, farm fields, rice paddies, etc were just goregous.  At that point I was really happy I had a driver, so that I could spend all of my time just appericating the beauty of the island.  It wasn’t until we got closer to the hot springs, when my drivers skills on the motorbike came into question.  We had 4 mini-accidents within about a 3 hour timeframe!  (Grandma and Mom will be happy to know that I had one of the only helmets available on the island.)

The first incident was when we were driving slowly down the side of the road.  He drove the front tire off the road and into a deep ditch, causing the bike to fall down and us with it.  (We were only going about 2 mph, so not really a big deal.  But it did make me a bit more nervous about the whole motorbike thing.)  Then the 2nd accident was when we were driving on a deserted windy moutain road.  We hadn’t passed any other vechiles in a while, so it must have thrown the driver off when we saw another motorbike approaching us.   He drove straight into them!  (We were both going really slow, so no damage.  But this was starting to get a bit ridiclous!)

We went to the hot springs and soaked for a bit.  And then had some lunch.  About 20 miinutes after getting back on the bike a truck passed us on the right side (going in our direction).  Instead of just continuing to drive straight he jerk the handlebar so that we sort of sideswiped the truck.  What was going on with this guy?!  Then a few miles down the road as we were driving across a bridge, he jerked the handlebar again so that we ran into the side of the bridge!  (No one ever got hurt, but I was seriously thinking that I wouldn’t back it back to the guesthouse the way that this guy was driving.)  I told him that I wanted to skip the last few tourist spots and just go back to the guesthouse.  We did make it back in one piece.  The driver kept apologizing and saying he didn’t know why he was driving so bad that day.  He was a sweet guy, but I’d never get on a motorbike with him again!

I pretty much just relaxed, ate, did some shopping, and read for the remainder of my time on Lake Toba.  It is such a peaceful calming place (except when you’re on the back of a motorbike)! 

(One other interesting thing- At dinner I saw that they had chicken tacos on the menu, and since I love Mexican food I ordered it.  It came out like a huge enchilada or chimicunga or something.  Inside it had tiny pieces of chicken, plus carrots, green beans, pea pods, and cabbage!  It was the weirdest “taco” I’ve ever had!)

After the jungle trek near Bukit Lawang, I had an incredibly long travel day ahead of me. (This was supposed to be a vacation?!) Bukit Lawang and my next destination Parapet (a town on the shore of Lake Toba) are only about 120- 150 miles apart. I was thinking that it would take a max of 5 hours to get between the 2 towns, when I was looking at the map while planning out my trip last week. Wrong! It ended up taking more than 9 hours! First I had to get a motorbike taxi to the bus station, then the same crowdy bumpy bus back to Medan (the 3rd biggest city in Indonesia). Next it was an hour on a motorbike taxi racing across Medan during rush hour (the 2 bus stations are on opposite ends of the city), then a 4 1/2 hour bus ride out to Parapet.

I haven’t mentioned yet how Indonesian men are the biggest chainsmokers I’ve ever seen. Smoking is totally acceptable on the buses, so basically every second on the bus there is at least one person smoking next to you. By the time I finally finished my epic bus journeys I thought I must have 2nd hand-smoked at least 2 or 3 packs of cigerattes. Yuck! (Also, I knew that I had hurt my ankle on the jungle trek the day before, but it wasn’t until the bus journey that it decided to swell up. It was really painful, especially since the bus was so cramped and I couldn’t strench it out at all.)

I arrived in Parapet at 10pm. I think everyone in the town was asleep, so I started to get worried about where I was going to stay. The bus stop was a few kilometers from the center of town and all of the guesthouses, and I really didn’t want to wander around in the dark. Luckily the bus driver was really nice and he asked me which guesthouse I wanted to stay at. Then he drove me straight to the door, so I didn’t have to worry after all. I was really hungry (I hadn’t ate anything since lunch in Bukit Lawang), but I was too exhausted to worry about that. So as soon as I got a room I feel straight asleep.

I had been planning on spoiling myself with a sleep in (at least until 9am), but Parapet was anxious for me to wake up. By 5:30am there were roosters crowing, dogs fighting in the street, kids screaming, and loud music blasting in my guesthouse. I eventually rolled out of bed and was up, packed, and ready to catch a ferry out to Tuk Tuk by 7am. (A little background info: Lake Toba is the biggest lake in Southeast Asia. It is a volcano crater that has filled with water and there is a huge island in the middle of it. The island is the size of Singapore! Tuk Tuk is the main tourist town on the island.)

I grabbed some breakfast at a small wartel (sidewalk restraunt). The breakfast wasn’t too excitng, instant rameon noodles with some spinach and and poached egg mixed in. (They seem to eat a ton of rameon in Indonesia for some reason. Bizarre, since they have so much amazing fruit and veg available!) Another tout met up with me while I was waiting for the ferry and he recommended a guesthouse for me to stay at in Tuk Tuk, Anju Guesthouse. Anju turned out to be the perfect place for me! My room was only about 10 feet from the edge of the lake and it had a huge picture window to enjoy the view while I was laying in bed. It also had a hotwater shower (yeah!) and western toilet (yeah!), all for $3 a night!

I was exhausted and as soon as I got into my room I took a 3 hour nap. I was still really sore (especially my ankle) from the trek, so I decided to splurge and get a traditional Batak massage. (Batak people are the native people in this area. They have very interesting houses, and seem to have a totally different culture than other parts of Northern Sumatra.) The massage was lovely and my ankle was soon feeling better!

The rest of the day I was totally lazy and napped, read, and ate. (I’ve totally been indulging on passion fruit and avocados since I’ve been here. They don’t have them in Thailand or Malaysia, so I haven’t been able to eat them for more than 6 months. What a treat!)

I had a 9 day vacation from work, so I decided to make the most of it and explore a new country that I hadn’t been to.  I didn’t want to do Bali (the typical destination) so I chose Sumatra, the biggest Indonesian island.  (Indonesia is made up of more than 17,000 islands, so I definetly still have alot more of the country to explore.)

My vacation started out as anything but relaxing.  Since I’m on a very small budget, I had to go with the cheapest airlines (Air Asia) and they only have flights to Medan from Kuala Lumpar.  Since I was in Singapore, getting to KL wasn’t a big deal but it did involve taking the subway and 3 different buses.  I left Singapore at about 8am and got into KL at about 4pm.  I checked into a cheap backpackers hostel (a dreary dorm room, which was really loud and they kept the lights on all night) and then headed to the Mall at Petronas Towers to see the new Harry Potter movie. 

The next morning started nice and early – 4am to be exact.  I woke up got ready as quietly as possible (since I was in a dorm) and grabbed a taxi and then a bus to the airport.  (Kuala Lumpar’s airport is about 1 1/2 hour drive outside of town, so it’s quite a pain to get to.)  Then I boarded my 8am flight to Medan, Indonesia.  The flight was only about an hour long, so I arrived in Sumatra nice and early in the day.  Getting a visa on arrival was really easy, and cheaper than I thought it was going to be (only $10) so I was quite happy.  Then I grabbed a taxi and headed to the bus station. 

I got th public bus that was heading to Bukit Lawang and settled in for a long, cramped, bumpy ride.  Indonesia reminds me alot of Africa.  It is a much poorer country than Thailand (what I’ve become used to in the last 7 months). It’s sort of hard to explain the similarities, but the shops, roads, and houses have an African vibe to them.  I often felt like I had left Asia behind. 

We arrived in Bukit Lawang, and I had met two touts (Tourist Hunters) along the way.  We wandered around the local market for a bit and then grabbed a motorbike taxi into town.  Bukit Lawang is much smaller than I had expected it to be.  It used to be a town of 700 people, but 1/2 of the population was killed in a flood that happened a few years back.  It’s quite amazing to see how resilient the people are.  Bukit Lawang has an incredibly friendly vibe to it and the minute you arrive in town, you feel like a long lost friend.  Everyone comes up and chats with you etc. 

The touts got me set up in a guesthouse, that was quite grungy and gross, but for $3 a night who’s complaining.  I then booked a 2 day jungle trek with them. (The 1st day was 7 hours of trekking and watching orangtuans, monkeys etc.  Then camping out in the wilderness, followed by more trekking and then rafting back to town.) 

That afternoon I went to the Orangutan Feeding Center, where they feed orangutans that the center has rehabilitated and relased into the wild.  On my walk to the center, I saw a mother orangutan with her baby just hanging out near the river.  (I didn’t even have to go to the center, they had come to me.)  It was so cool to see these animals for the first time (not in a zoo).  I did go to the feeding center, and the mother and baby showed up followed by 3 more orangutans, and then some Thomas monkeys. 

That evening, I was invited  to a going away party for a group of students that had been doing some volunteer work with the orangutans.  It was a fun time.  All of the local guys got out their guitars and sang songs all night.

The next day I set off at 9 am for my jungle trek.  My group consisted of Yen (the local guide), 2 Aussie boys (Kurt and Nick), and myself.  I was quite excited to see Kurt and Nick, who wouldn’t want to spent 2 days with some extremely cute Aussie boys.  But I soon realized that it wasn’t such a good thing to be paired up with them.  They baiscally ran up the mountain, without even breathing hard, and I was out of breath within about 15 minutes.  They were really sweet and agreed to slow down to my pace a bit more, but I still had to push myself really hard to keep up with them. 

After about an hour of trekking we saw 3 orangutans.  It was so amazing to see them out in the wild!  There was a big male, and female, and their baby.  We were able to get about 5 feet away from them.  Cool!  A wildlife photographer for some German magazine, was also watching them with us.  We continued our hike and saw some monkeys and more of the beautiful rainforest. 

There was one thing that was really a downer though, the whole time we were trekking, we could hear chainsaws going in the background, cutting down the vital rainforest of Sumatra. 

We hiked that day for more than 7 hours.  Some parts were insanely hard!  (It was like rockclimbing where there were toeholes, and roots sticking out to pull yourslf up on.  Plus I was carrying my big backpack the whole time, since I hadn’t thought to bring a smaller one with me.)  One other interesting thing happened during the hike.  I was attacked by a gibbon!  (A gibbon is basically a big black monkey, sometimes they have whitefaces.)  We were standing on the path watching the gibbons from a safe distance when they decided to come in and take a closer look at us.  At first I thought this was really cool, but then the gibbons surrounded us.  They were only a few feet away from me on all sides, so there wasn’t anywhere to go.  Then one reached out and grabbed my hand and scratched it!  I totally freaked out, and ran away.  Of course the boys thought that it was so cool.  As we started walking away, the gibbons starting following us swinging through the trees and kept catching up with us.  (Now, I’ve never been a big fan of monkeys, so I wasn’t to happy about this.)  It felt like we were in Planet of the Apes or something!  We managed to get away in the end.

We made it to the camp site, which was goregous!  We slept in a little lean-to made of bamboo poles and a plastc tarp on the side of the river.  The porters made us a fabulous dinner and we chilled out for the night. 

I was way to sore to hike the next day, and the guys were in a hurry to get back to town, so we didn’t hike the second day, but constructed a makeshift boat out of intertubes tied together in a line and white water rafted back to Bukit Lawang.  It was so much fun!

Sorry that I’ve been so bad about updating my blog.  When I’m running tours I go to the same place every two weeks and do the same things, so I don’t have a ton to write about.  But that’s all going to change soon. 

I gave my notice to Intrepid last month and will officially be finished with tour leading on August 4th.  (The main reasons behind this are: I can’t stand being a babysitter to a whole crew of teenagers. The lifestyle is pretty tough on me, besides not really being able to have any friends or hobbies, I have to do whatever the teenagers want to do, which is always drinking everynight.  I’m not a big drinker, so I find this part of the job really annoying.  I don’t get paid much and I don’t want to waste it all on beer in some bar in Thailand.   And really I’m just bored of the job.  I love Malaysia, but Thailand gets old fast.)

So I will be moving to Japan to do a 3 month teaching contract there starting on September 18th.  I’ll be teaching university students, but at least this time I’ll be the teacher instead of the babysitter so I’m excited about that.  Then I’ll be coming back to the US for Christmas.  Probably spending a bit of time in MN and then FL, after that who knows where in the world I’ll end up next. 

I’m going to make the most of my last 2 months in South East Asia.  I have a 8 day vacation once I finish the trip I’m currently doing, so I’ll be going to Sumatra, Indonesia.  I’m going to go see the orangutans, maybe go whitewater rafting, climb a volcano, and relax by the biggest lake in SE Asia.    After that it’s back to work for 2 weeks and then I’m going to spend about a month travelling around Myanmar (Burma) and Laos.  Then I’m thinking about indulging myslef at one of the meditation/detox places that are so popular in Thailand.  Basically you pay them a bunch of money to starve you, only drinking fruit shakes and shots of wheatgrass, you do yoga, meditation, spa treatments, and steam baths everyday.  And then after 9 days you are supposed to be totally relaxed and healthy with all of the toxins and bad things out of your system. 

I’ll try to update my blog more frequently while I’m travelling.