Some of you who know me better may have heard that on the 1st of February my family lost one of the most special, funny, caring, loving and honest men I've ever met, my Grandad or Gang as he was known to me. He was John Williams to some, Jack Williams to others and when we were together he was always Big John and I was Little John.
As you can tell we were really close. I spent most of my childhood at my grandparents house whilst my parents were working, so the influence he had on my life and who I am is beyond measure. My love of nature probably stems from listening to his stories when I was young about George the Gorilla crashing through the jungle and of his time working at Chester Zoo, afterwards I'd spend the day searching for beetles, centipede's and frogs in his garden. Anyone that new my grandparents can attest to how beautiful and lush their garden was in Llanasa, to me though it was the Amazon, the Congo, Borneo, whatever rainforest I could imagine, the perfect training ground for a young aspiring biologist. When I was older he taught me how to use tools when he took me to the building sites, lessons I'll never forget and always use in life. The most important lessons he taught me though were to never base your life on money instead base it on happiness, always be honest and do the right thing and the importance of family and good friends.
Before he passed I spoke to him on the phone and we actually chatted about my blog and how he enjoyed reading it and how it helped him to understand where I am and what I'm doing and how proud of me he was and to keep on writing. Before he retired he was a builder and was climbing roofs and building walls until he was 76, so when I told him that the next post was going to be about the local houses, temples and churches I visited in the mountains and how they're built and about a tea I drank that was oddly similar to the peculiar stuff he used to take to work with him he was over the moon and so excited to read it, I just wish I could have written it sooner.
So this is for you Gang, I wish you could read it. Thank you for just being you.
You'll always be in my heart, love you always and missing you more than ever.
Little John.
In Loving Memory of
My Best Mate and Grandad
John Williams
"Gang"
1932-2015
Welcome to Sumatra
After our refreshing trip to Jogja, away from the smog and bustle of Jakarta I was feeling refreshed and ready to take it on once more. Luckily on our arrival we were able to go to the Home Affairs office and pick up our Surat Pemberitahuan Penelitian or Research Notification Letter with no hassle and took less than 5 minutes. Once we had this form we didn't need to stay in Jakarta and were able to book flights leaving the next day to Medan, our base for the next 8 months with AirAsia for £40.
Before leaving Jakarta though we needed to get some shopping in for gifts, toiletries and other things and get some food, this meant a return to the Grand Indonesia Mall. As much as I'm not a fan of the malls the one big positive with them is the huge range of places to eat in the malls. It is on this trip to the mall that I had what was probably one of the best meals I've had in Indonesia, though when we first went in I wasn't expecting it, nor the name of the restaurant. While we were looking for food we passed numerous Indonesian, Thai and Japanese restaurants but we finally decided on a Chinese restaurant hidden at on the top floor of the Grand Indonesia. From the outside it was a bright, almost garish modern Chinese themed restaurant, and the menu was very distinctly modern Chinese, none of the more traditional foods I've seen on so many other menus in Indonesia like Shark fin soup and bird's nest soup, this was more modern with new takes on classic street food and some dishes served in the boxes more usually found in American Chinese takeaways. I settled on the Hong Kong Seafood Noodles and some beef wontons and the girls had some sort of rice dish with fried beef and what was probably without a doubt the best sweet and sour chicken I've ever eaten! Unbelievably crispy chicken that had been soaked in the sauce, which had the right amount of sweetness and sour, with a hint of spice and the surprise addition of strawberries to it helped to create such and amazing flavour. My dish was brilliant as well, it came in one of the takeaway boxes loaded with prawns, calamari and some sort of white fish and tasted so similar to the prawn chow mein my Grandad loved from the Chinese back home it brought a huge smile to my face.
The only thing with the restaurant was it's name. Funnily I didn't take note when I went into the restaurant and when looking at the menu I was surprised by the number of dishes with and ingredient I'd never heard of before, whatever it was that made the Fook Yew sauce. Only then did I look around and see the posters with a pop art karate kid proclaiming Fook Me? No Fook Yew! Then it started to click and when I looked at the napkins I finally realised I was in a restaurant called Fook Yew. This was just the start of some of the funnily/offensively named things I've found in Indonesia. Though it's childish of me I still have a chuckle when I see names like these about. After gorging ourselves, it was time to prepare for the journey the next day and somehow pack all of our gear up again.
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| Great name for a restaurant |
Somehow I fitted everything into my bags and even had space this time! No idea how that worked out? At the airport I also found another wrapping station like at Heathrow, except instead of £10 it was 50,000irp which is around £2.40, bargain! Needless to say it was the return of the Christmas Turkey, though Rosanna also got hers done as well so I wasn't on my own looking weird wheeling a turkey about the airport! The flights were fine again and leaving Jakarta we flew over the Thousand Islands which is a place I hope to go next time I'm stuck in Jakarta, apparently it's one of the favourite place for rich Jakartans to go at the weekend to escape the city. From the air they look beautiful and far removed from the huge sprawl of Jakarta which is only a short boat ride away.
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| How I get away with checking in three bags, by wrapping them all up in one and making sure it's less than the allowance, just really difficult to carry and looks a little weird. |
The Thousand Islands from the air, no idea if they've got anything to do with the sauce though, Indonesians really like Thousand Island dressing with their salads!
Though our flights were uneventful, my first experience of Medan and Sumatra was anything but. On arrival we collected our baggage and went to meet the driver that the guys at the SOCP office sent for us, we found them easy enough but the girls had to go to the bathroom. Whilst waiting for them I heard a thud and turned to see a huge crowd of people running all in the same direction, the next minute some paramedics come running through carrying a small boy in their arms and sprinted out of the airport. All I could do was stand and watch completely speechless. I am ashamed that as a certified first aider that I didn't run forward to give help, yet at the same time I don't think I could have gotten through the throng of people and was shocked at how the paramedics handled the patient who could have had a spinal injury as they provided no support for his head or neck whilst carrying him and possibly risked paralysing the child. Unfortunately when I came through the airport the other day to come home, I found out that the child didn't make it and that this was the third incident in the last year of a child falling from the higher level of the airport as their parents weren't watching them whilst they were climbing the barriers.
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| The view of the arrivals at the airport from the departures and where the boy fell from. |
When the girls came from the bathroom the crowd had dissipated and I was just left there with a look of pure shock and horror on my face and they asked what had happened? Needless to say they were shocked and upset by what I told them and when we finally got to our taxi and left the airport we ended up following the ambulance for a part of the way. Our journey to the hotel from the airport was also a rough welcome to Sumatra. The journey started off fine just a bit of traffic and rain starting to fall, the traffic quickly built up though with us spending most of the journey sat in gridlock, when we finally started moving we got to the reason for the slow traffic, a palm tree had fallen over onto the road completely destroying the barriers, luckily it hadn't hit any cars. This though was just the start of the journey, as we reached the outskirts of the city the rain started to pick up and pretty soon the taxi driver was driving halfway across the central embankment as the other cars tried to avoid the 3ft puddles that had built up on the outside of the road. This again slowed down our journey and in the city centre as we neared our hotel, we saw so plenty of people mopeds riding through these ponds that had built up on the side of the road and happily letting their sandalled feet drag in the water. I later asked one of the staff at the SOCP office about this and it turns out that Indonesians consider water clean no matter what, even when it's brown with unidentifiable brown lumps floating around in it! We finally made it to the hotel safe and sound and was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was, especially compared to it's price, I'd certainly recommend the Jangga House Bed and Breakfast if your looking for a cheap hotel and don't mind being to far out of town, though it is literally 2 minutes away from the SOCP office which is why we were recommended it.
The first day in Medan was spent going to the office, meeting the staff and working out what we needed to do once Ross and Mandy the supervisors arrived. After meeting everyone we went out for a meal at what turns out to be the SOCP staff's favourite haunt, Rolands. It's a German restaurant ran by a German guy and they have quite a decent beer selection and do some pretty awesome pretzels! It was here we also met Ian Singleton the Director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, he's a really funny and friendly guy though I can imagine can come across a bit intimidating as he has that intensity you find in a lot of conservationists who've spent a lot of time in country.He is a really great guy though and look froward to working with him and all the guys at the SOCP.
The next day Mandy and Ross arrived and though they'd been travelling 26+ hours and severely jet lagged they stuck it out and came straight to the office to have a quick chat with Matt our field supervisor and the person I owe a lot to for helping sort out our visa's and what we needed to do to be able to research in Indonesia. This "quick chat" quickly turned into a 5 hour long research pow wow, covering the projects, the sites soil types, recent illegal logging activity in the site, drones and orang pendek (Sumatra's version of Big Foot, though Orang Pendek means "short person"). Eventually the wills of Ross and Mandy broke (I was gone in the first hour and was happily playing snake on the cheap nokia I picked up at the mall the night before) and we finally left for food which of course ended up being Rolands again. The one good thing about going back to Rolands was I was at least able to get a couple of pints of beer in me (the local brew Bintang Pilsner isn't that bad, sweet but a little watery) and some more pretzel so I was happy and ready for the day of bureaucracy that was to come.
We were up bright and early the following morning and so headed to the office to meet up with Matt and Nova, one of the other SOCP staff, before heading off to the University of Northern Sumatra or USU's campus to meet Ibu Nursahara the Dekan (Dean) of the Biology Faculty there and our Indonesian counterpart. This was meant to be a quick trip to pick up our letters from our counterpart so that we could then go on and head to the local immigration office to apply for our KITAS, this wasn't the case. We went in to meet Ibu Nursahara and we all introduced ourselves, she's a lovely person by the way, very friendly and a world expert on lianas, but not long after Matt went into a very long conversation with her, with a concerned look on his face. It turns out that the Indonesian government had brought out some new laws and changed the application procedure for 2015. The main one is to apply for a KITAS you now need to complete a Surat Domisili form but to be able to submit one if those you need a KITAS, great bureaucratic logic. The staff at the international office at USU took over dealing with this situation after we spent 2 hours filling in forms for our KITAS and the now mandatory Multiple Exit Re-entry Permit, which I'm very glad I had in the end. The whole meeting including the filling forms took 4 hours, though half of that was waiting for the staff from the international office to finish their lunch break as they were also celebrating a surprise birthday as well. After we'd finished and submitted we were told there was not much we could do now for a week, so we planned what to do with this time.
What was decided was to make the most of the next day and use it as a touristy day and go up to the mountains and the town of Berastagi, then the next day go shopping for last bits of equipment and then go to the elephant camp 20 mins walk from the Sikundur Field camp and more importantly just outside the National Park so we could work in the same forest but not get into trouble for not having our Simaksi's yet. The last few days then were for Mandy and Ross to stay at Sikundur and visit the logged areas and take as many GPS points along the trail system as possible to validate the drone data and then once they were back in Medan spend the last 2 days discussing what we'd learned in the field and our projects and any changes needed.
With plans made we set our alarms for bright and early and went off to bed. The next morning we were picked up by one of the SOCP's drivers and guides Edo and we set off on our journey up into the mountains. So we started our journey out of town heading south into the mountains to the town of Berastagi to visit the fruit market and to a smaller village to visit a traditional Karonese house. The province of North Sumatra where I'm based is split into many smaller regency's based on much older tribal boundaries and cultural differences, many of these are collected under the term Batak, though only those from the Toba region actually call themselves Bataks, the rest use their specific tribe's name such as Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun etc. The highlands where we were heading were a part of the Karolands which include the Karo regency as some parts of the other surrounding regency's, these mostly consist of the cooler highlands and some of the higher and lower lowlands. There are is also a large Karo population in Medan, and Edo our guide was also a Karo. The Karo are also then split into five marga or clans; Karo-Karo, Ginting, Perangin-Angin, Sembiring and Tarigan. These marga function similar to the old Scottish Highland clans with each being split into multiple sub-clans and within marga marriage being prohibited e.g. Tarigan to Tarigan, which in the old days was done to prevent incest and inbreeding as Edo put it.
As we finally left the outskirts of Medan and found ourselves into the countryside and the trees started to become taller and more common a site we came to our first stop on an innocuous bend in the road. Edo pulled the car over and parked on a wide verge and told us that the SOCP's new sanctuary was being set up over the river from where we were parked and asked if we wanted to get out and walk down to the river to have a look, of course we said yes. Now normally when going into forests or walking down steep banks the first thing on a risk assessment would be wear appropriate footwear, blue canvas plimsolls are definitely not these. Luckily I made it down the slope and after a small walk we came to the river which had such an idyllic look to it at first, with big rounded boulders strewn about, almost clear water the sun glistening on it's surface and a thatched hut over the other side of the river, you could almost mistake it for paradise except for the plastic bottles, crisp packets and other bits of plastic littering the river banks. Though the rubbish disappointed me, the number of butterfly species and the colours of them staggered me and the dragonflies and damselflies, though my chasing them with my huge macro lens brought a few strange looks from the others, I didn't care.
After scaring off every butterfly in a 5 mile radius, I finally went back to the car so we could head back onto the road to Berastagi. Not long later we started to come across some small villages and shops at the side of the road and quite a few of these had wire cages outside, with black things in them. At first I just though these were chickens again like you see in a lot of Indonesia, but when I asked Edo his reply was"bats". Of course my first question was "Bats? Are you sure you don't mean birds?" he said no these were fruit bats. I still didn't believe him so we pulled up in front of one, but he told us all to stay in the car as the owners wouldn't be happy for us to be there. Turns out they really were fruit bats, all huddled up hanging from the top of the cage. I was deeply angered by these as I love bats and spent the previous summer radio tracking bats in the UK, so to see fruit bats caged like this was really harrowing. I asked Edo what were they for, apparently they eat them, but not for food but as a traditional medicine for asthma and other chest problems, with the amount of bats we passed all I could think is that's a lot of people with bad chests, but smoking is popular still and air quality in the city isn't great. Still an inhaler would do a better job and evidently they haven't been watching the news lately as the recent outbreak of ebola in West Africa has been linked to the consumption of bats, though there's no evidence of those in Asia carrying it, but it's something you'd expect people to be wary of.
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| The depressing way that wildlife is used in Indonesia, bats in cages waiting to be eaten as a cure for asthma |
Not long after passing those café's we finally crested the hill and were met with huge plantations of conifers which were planted in the colonial days to actually make it seem more like the alps and the mountains of Europe to attract more visitors. Along with the planting of conifers the Dutch also implemented the planting of European crops such as cabbage, potatoes, strawberry's and other plants which can only survive due to the cooler temperatures. These crops are still cultivated up there still and we passed many fields and signs selling strawberries, potatoes, cherries, oranges and of course the plant Sumatra's most known for; coffee. The prevalence of fruit and vegetable farms up here is also why Berastagi has such a large and well known fruit market, and one of the reasons why we were going there.
Once past the trees what dominated our view wasn't the fields or the town but the volcanoes of Mt Sibayak and once passed that Mt Sinabung, it is the ash from these volcanoes along with the cooler temperatures that have made this Sumatra's garden and such a lush and productive region. Though the ash and the nutrients it provides is a great bounty for the locals it is also an ever present threat for the communities threatening to blanket them in ash at any time. Mt Sinabung has actually erupted three times since I've been in Indonesia, once in January the on the 9th of February and then on the 14th of February. Each time the nearest villages have had to be evacuated and locals given masks to prevent them from breathing in the choking ash. Though it is good for the soil, the ash has the negative effect of killing off the crops that are planted so a lot of the locals will be facing some hard times ahead. The last eruption on this Saturday also killed 14, and the local government had only allowed them to return to their homes the day before from the previous eruption.
When we drew near to Berastagi we were given a choice whether we wanted to go to the fruit market first or go to the traditional house first, we decided because we didn't want the fruit to go off to go to the traditional house first, also it was the further one away so everything else could be done on the way back to Medan. On the way to the village that the house was in we passed more fields and got our best views of Mt Sinabung with it's slopes scorched of life and covered in ash, looming over the surrounding villages looking almost serene, belying it's true nature.
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| Mt Sinabung stands as an ever present reminder of Indonesia's tectonic origins, and is both a giver and destroyer to local communities, providing the great soil quality for their crops but also taking when it erupts. |
After stopping to take photos of Mt Sinabung, we set off down the road again and eventually turned off the main road and headed down a smaller rougher lane and came into the village of Lingga. At first most of the houses looked like what we'd seen across much of Sumatra, the low single story buildings until we turned the last corner and were met with the sight of two huge wooden brightly painted, angular long houses with their palm thatched roofs figureheaded with buffalo horns on each side. On stepping out of the car we were greeted by one of the village elders who also acts as a tour guide for the traditional houses. He explained to us that the bright colours were associated with the clans with each clan being represented by a colour, whereas the odd shape of the buildings was related to their Animist beliefs. Though most Karo are now either Muslims or Christians they still hold on to their more traditional Animist beliefs, with spirits of both dead ancestors and non-human spirits such as those of the forests and mountains. It is due these beliefs that their houses are given their unique shape, the number three is especially important in Karo beliefs and this is why the house has three angles to it.The buffalo horns are also a common site on Karo buildings both old and new as these act as a sign of protection from evil spirits.
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| One of the traditional long houses, it's shape has three sides as three is a special number in Karo beleifs |
The buffalo horns on the gables and the lizards painted on the sides are for protection
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| The other traditional house, the one we went into with our guide. |
These houses were apparently 170 years old and they were actually building a new one not far away as the locals were moving towards building more of these and relearning their skills and preventing them from being lost with the passing of their older generation. Each house is home to eight families, with the main living area taken up by four stone hearths with each hearth being split in half and shared between two families. Above each hearth is a construction hanging from the rafters, with numerous shelves and hooks for them to hang cooking instruments, pans,bowls and garlic pots. The Karo make special carved wooden containers for keeping garlic as it is a big part of Karo cuisine and holds a similar place as in Western superstition of keeping bad spirits away. There really isn't a ceiling to speak of in a Karonese house, a couple of large rafters go the length of the house with the roof held up by a tangle of bamboo poles, this space isn't used as with them cooking on open fires it gets very smoky, this smoke though helps to keep mosquitoes at bay. Due to the houses being raised off the floor they are also very cool as air is able to circulate underneath and the house is kept off of the warm ground.
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| One of the hearths. Each contains 5 stones as this is another sacred number but when they split it each shares the middle and has two of their own, giving them three, the magic number. |
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| The living space is quite big though the beams that provide support for the roof are a bit low for me |
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| The large constructions hanging over the hearths are where they keep their pots and pans and other cooking instruments. |
To the sides of the living space small walls were erected to give family members privacy and their own rooms. The girls though always have their beds near to the windows so that when the boys come calling they can either listen or throw water on them. The boys once they're over 17 years old are kicked out of the family house and move into the boys house that was just around the corner from the other houses. A peculiarity of Karo culture is that when the boys come calling for the girls their not allowed to say anything, instead they come playing traditional bamboo flutes that they make themselves. Each man in Karo culture has his own melody, these they either come up with on their own or can even be passed down from father to son. It is these skills that the boys learn whilst living in the men's house along with other skills for life. On leaving the house the guide pointed out that the step and handles we'd used to enter and exit the house is also where the women of the house give birth, with the handles giving them a support to hold on to. Afterwards we went to a small hut where the guide showed us the flute and garlic holder as well as a bamboo calendar they use to set the dates for weddings.
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| The birthing step |
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| The boys house |
Once we'd finished our tour of the house and the guide had finished we hopped back into the car and headed off back to Berastagi. On the way though we stopped at the local museum. This was inside a modern interpretation of Karonese architecture. Though there were few exhibits these helped give a further insight into Karo culture and history. The exhibits included some of the tools and weapons used by Karo, the traditional wedding dress for husbands and brides which are an amazing show of colour and pattern. There were also some carved statues of spirits which they would use as totems to focus their prayers on. Next to these were a set of carved wooden masks, these were used when conducting rituals such as prayers for rain and good crops. These masks were representative of three spirits/idols, the red was the general, the yellow represented the queen and the black mask for the king. As we left we put our names in the book and gave a donation. Just over the road from the museum was the local catholic church. This too, had a distinctive Karo look to it with buffalo horns alongside a cross on the steeple and a distinctive colourful front to the church, if only other modern churches looked so interesting.
The Karolingga museum, showing a traditional style building, built of modern materials
Karo masks and hands, the General on the left in red, the Queen in the centre in yellow and the King on the right in black.
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| The local catholic church with the icon of St Peter on the front, and the traditional buffalo horns on the gable, perfectly mixing the traditional beliefs with the modern Christian ones. |
When we arrived at the market we were met with a partially covered market surrounded by taller traditional buildings with the multiple gables and buffalo horns, and the sight of children riding horses up the street. This gave Berastagi an almost alpine feel, belonging more in Switzerland than Indonesia. This image was quickly shattered once we stepped foot in the market, the first stall the greeted us was selling rabbits, puppies, ferrets and chickens all in small bamboo cages, this was then followed by numerous stalls selling fabrics and tourist items with the stall holders each clamouring for our attention and to bring us into their stalls. Taking a turn into the middle of the market though took us away from the noisy souvenir sellers and into the plant sellers, passing numerous plants both familiar from British gardens and completely exotic, though I was surprised to see the Haworthia's, Aloe Vera's and Snake plants that I have on my window sill back home. Further into the heart of the market we found the fruit and vegetable stalls, the reason we came to the market. We were met by stall after stall laden with fruits, variety after variety with only a few really recognisable to me such as passion-fruit, strawberries, pineapples and oranges and then loads which I didn't recognise such as mangostines, passion-fruit which are bigger and orange called marquesa, green oranges, salak, purple tomatillos tasting halfway between a tomato and a plum and dragonfruit with the flesh the most deep and intense shade of purple (couldn't get the colour off my hands for three days!). Luckily with the ones I didn't recognise I was able to try them all as the stall holders were trying to bring us in to their stall and not the competition so as part of this they were offering us samples of everything. So many of the fruits were amazing and delicious it's just a shame the oranges were quite dry and the strawberries looked far from appetising.
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| The outside of the market with some plant sellers on the outside along with all the souvenirs and fabrics |
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| Heading into the heart of the market, passing through the plant sellers |
After we filled a couple of bags with dragonfruit, mangostines, green oranges and marquesa's we headed out of the fruit market and back on the road to Medan. On the way out of Berastagi we passed a hotel that Mandy remembered from her time in Sumatra back in the 90's. This hotel looked more like a Swiss apline hotel than anything that belonged in Indonesia, as we passed it we saw this small traditional style house that had been left to ruin yet it also made for a haunting site and very beautiful photo.
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| Really beautiful, traditional style building left to ruin, just outside the grounds of the major hotel in Berastagi whose parklands many tourists and local could be seen flying kites in, picnicking in and just generally enjoying. |
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| Taman Alam Lumbini |
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| The shrine to the Buddah and prayer area when you enter the temple. |
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| The eastern shrine with the "Christmas trees" of lit up red Buddahs |
The two prayer trees
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| The humongous carved wooden doors on the eastern side of the temple. |
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| The view as you leave the temple, the doorway gated by the beautiful carved doors. |
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| Ross on the bridge over the gardens. |
The view of the gardens from the bridge.
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| The view of the main temple of Taman Alam Lumbini from the gardens. |
After taking one last look at the temple we headed off back on the road to Medan. One the way back we stopped at one of the café's we passed on the way up and stopped for a drink and to take in the view. From the road it looked serene, quiet and beautiful however when we stepped out of the car and into the café what greeted us was Spandau Ballet's Gold blasting out at full volume and pretty much killing the atmosphere. However undeterred by the poor judgement of the owners in playing music that loudly we went upstairs and found some seats looking out over the view. To be fair the view was gorgeous, looking out over forested valleys and out onto the plains and Medan in the distance. The only thing that spoiled this then was when I saw a waiter from the café next door carrying a tray and then fling the contents from it out over the drop. When I went to the edge the façade was finally broken, when I looked down I was confronted with piles of rubbish mounting up against the foundations of the café's and strewn across the trees. When I first saw this I was completely gob-smacked and couldn't get my head around it and even now I find this wanton disregard for the environment shocking, yet this is common place in Indonesia as there is no real municipal waste removal so people deal with it anyway they can either just throwing it out into the streets or burning it in small pits on the side of the road.
Whilst there we ordered some drinks, Edo convinced me to try the local speciality Bandrek Susu. Bandrek is a Javanese ginger tea made by boiling ginger with other spices with each shop having their own special recipe, this one's recipe included cinnamon and coriander. The susu is something you'll find often with many hot drinks in Indonesia, though this means "with milk" this is usually condensed milk. This they pour first and let settle on the bottom of the cup and then pour the tea or coffee on top leaving it in split, defined layers. Strangely this is very similar to something I remember my Grandad drinking when he went to work building, though he'd also have five teaspoons of sugar in it as well! When they serve it to you you're then meant to stir it and mix it thoroughly, then it is ready to drink. The Bandrek Susu flavour is difficult to explain, it's very spiced incredibly warming and with the condensed milk it's very sweet and creamy. The nearest taste I could think of was like very spicy rice pudding without the rice. Up in this colder part of Indonesia it's perfect and while we were sat there a huge fog bank rolled in and completely blocked out the view, it was eerie though how quickly it happened. One second it was clear and the next the view was completely white. Just another example of how special Indonesia can be.
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| The gorgeous view from the top of the cafe, taken using my fisheye lens |
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| The horrible view waiting for you if you looked down out of the cafe |
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| Where we sat and the view of the café's down the road |
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| How quickly fog rolled in and obscured the view was unbelievable. It barely looks like the same place. |
After we finished up our drinks we hopped back into the car and headed back to Medan, along the way we passed a really overgrown graveyard which looked completely different to all the Muslim graveyards we saw the rest of the time. When I asked Edo he told me it was a Japanese graveyard, I asked if this was from the Second World War, turns out it was much older. Apparently it was from a Japanese colony that was there before the Dutch some 300 years ago! This colony was a mining colony, though Edo couldn't give me much information on it or what happened to it, certainly something to find out about again. Finally we got to Medan and of course of all places we ended up at Rolands for our meal and to plan the next few days, which included some time in the rainforest. Those I'll cover in my next post, hope you enjoyed this one. Hwyl Fawr for now!
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| Bandrek Susu with possibly the best backdrop, wish I could have shared it with you Gang. |
