After two years, three months, one missed flight and two nights on airport floors, I finally made it back to Indonesia!
After a slightly less smooth than planned journey, I landed in jakarta late on the Thursday night and paid for my visa on arrival. I was actually hoping this flight might be late to save me the faff of extending my 30 day visa to 31 days, but no such luck – despite the rest of my flights being late. I had chosen to stay at “pop jakarta” near the airport as it supposedly had a free shuttle bus to it, although finding it proved a bit of a challenge. After a lot of whatsapping the driver I eventually found where I was meant to be and stood to wait, since I know well enough by now that an Indonesian “I’ll be 5 minutes” means that they will be at least 15. Got to test out my Indonesian skills with some curious tour guides while I waited! Then finally made it to my hotel room for my first shower in 3 days woohoo!! And to call Adam and confirm I was finally in the right country.
Day 4 of travel saw me head back to the airport – unfortunately to the wrong terminal at first but luckily I had left plenty of time for such mistakes! A last minute gate change also tried to throw me off but I had already chatted to people heading to medan so knew to move when they did. Then finally I got to touch back down in Sumatra!
Makan was the first priority post reunion as I had been so focused on getting places on time it had been nearly 24 hours since I’d last eaten (I think – I had no idea what time zone I was in by this point…. Although I will note the last meal I had had was in business class from dubai and I was provided with a wine menu to peruse too!!).
Post food we began the looong drive together to lake Toba. In classic Indo style we managed to arrive about 2 minutes after the last ferry of the day to our hotel left, but after some negotiations we managed to get a different ferry over to the next town over, from which we took a Becak (driven by a friend of Tris dad of course) to our hotel. More food and another very well needed sleep!!
Sabtu – after a much longer lie in than my friends who wake up before sunrise to pray, it was time to hire motorbikes! As one of the only members of the party with a driving licence I was volunteered as one of the drivers despite having not been on a bike for over 2 years. Luckily for once helmets were included! We headed to a beach for the day, although my friends having not spent any time by the sea were pretty scared of the wind causing waves on the lake! Lots of rice and sunburn, followed by a visit to a market that had traditional Batak dancing!
Minggu – remembered the sun cream today! The day was off to an eventful start as we were sitting on the dock outside our hotel making noodles for breakfast when a Jetski approached. Somehow we were persuaded that 9am on a Sunday was the perfect time to try this out! After this and a swim our jet ski friend stuck around. From my basic understanding of Indonesian I could hear my friends agreeing to go somewhere with him later. Sure enough, later in the afternoon he picked us up (two at a time as per motorbike rules) and brought us to what seemed to be a random family’s home way up in the hill with a beautiful view over the lake. From here the random family were summoned to make us coffee while he created a fire and bbqd corn from their land. Following the coffee and corn the family invited us up from the land we were on to their home, where we spent a lovely evening watching the sunset with Ibu and bapak.
Senin – we had made a plan to drive to a hot spring today and I knew it was a long way so got up early. Of course a swim, jet ski and rice eating had to occur first before we could set off. Eventually we managed to hire our bikes and were on our way! We stopped at a traditional village on the way where we got to see women weaving sarongs by hand. The whole process takes 3 weeks and includes counting out the threads by hand to ensure the pattern is correct. Following this and admiring the incredible Batak houses, we made it to the hot springs, which were indeed hot!
Selasa – today we are having a relaxing day just swimming in the lake by our hotel before we make the journey back to bukit lawang tomorrow. Very much needed as the jet lag is hitting me pretty hard this time round!
Im so excited to finally be back in bukit lawang tomorrow!
Rosie Roams 