Sumatra

Warning - this is another long one, since I have a whole trip to catch up on. No pressure to read it.

The last five days were spent on the island of Sumatra - the northwest most island of Indonesia. When the tsunami hit, Aceh was one of the spots that we worst hit, and that is the most northern area of this island. You might remember hearing about it in the news.

Sumatra is the island where the Hildebrandt family lived from 1982 to 1984 - in the city of Medan. Fran and Tom were teachers in the international school, Matt was in kindergarden and grade one, and Mike was in pre-school and pre-kindergarden. Dan was in Fran's tummy for the second year.

We arrived on Monday night in the city of Medan - the third largest city in Indonesia. We stayed in a hotel in a village just outside the city. We really only were there for about eight hours, so we didn't get much of an impression. Tuesday, we woke up at the break of dawn to be on the road at five. We drove a couple of hours to reach the orangutan jungle of Bukit Lawang. This was our first major adventure.

I learned that Orangutan is really a Bahasa word (Bahasa means "language" in Indonesian and Malaysian, and it's sort of the name of the language they speak in those countries - and the languages are extremely similar to each other). Orang means people, and hutan means jungle, so orangutan means people of the jungle. Who knew??

We got to some random hotel at the end of a village - as they all seem to be, and the guy there asked if we wanted to do the jungle trek or just walk to the canoe to get to the feeding area. As many people used to "own" orangutans in Indonesia, they're still nursing some of the orangutans back into the wild, and they feed them twice a day. We chose the jungle trek, and boy was it a trek. First the highlights - we saw five orangutans, and they were amazing. They're bright orange, and they really look so much like people, and they have the coolest way of swinging through the jungle. It was mindblowing. One of our guides had passion fruit and bananas, and we handed them to the orangutans. You can see the movies and pictures. We even saw a mommy with her baby. Gorgeous. I could watch them for days. This was a highlight of my life. Really.

Now - the challenging parts - Fran had a hip replacement earlier this year, and there is no way they should have let her on that hike. There were many places with big steps down, a short steep climb at the beginning, and many places that had tons of mud that you had to either walk through and not slip on or walk around, and neither option is too simple. The trek that usually takes people 1.5 hours took us 3.5 hours. So...we know for next time. Luckily we all had a sense of humor about it(especially Fran!), and it was an enjoyable experience for everyone.

Back in the car and back to Medan...and past Medan to head to Berstagi - a small village in the mountains. We didn't see much of the village, but the surrounding areas were gorgeous - looked like a lot of SE Asia looks, and exactly what I love. Especially I enjoy the monkeys who sit on the road waiting for trash. The trash part is gross, but the monkeys are so cute. These were pig tail monkeys. They have pig tails.

Berstagi was our first experience seeing the Batak culture. The Batak people are the local tribe in the northern areas of Sumatra - below Aceh. They have super unique looking houses (see pictures when posted), and they live simple lives. Many are Muslim, but it seemed like more were Christian. Lots of churches.

When we finally got to Berstagi, I believe we had been in the car for seven hours, so I needed to walk. We went for a short walk in the village (we were staying outside of Berstagi itself). We were the whitest people to ever walk those streets. We got lots of "hello, mister!" s.

Next morning we woke up early to go up the Sibayak volcano. We drove up most of it, and then walked up the rest of the road. Finally we reached the near top, and we had a bit of a neat trek to the center of the volcano. There were tons of sulfur, hot springs, and one was even so pressurized it looked like it was shooting out water, and it might be doing that forever. It was loud. Then a girl puked. Our guide, Lily (a man) took us to the trekkier path, which we walked down - all we tried to do was not fall. It was super steep and really muddy. We all fell. Many times. It was quite a spectacle. Mike, Dan, Matt and I all loved the hike, though, and that was another highlight. My favorite part was when Mike did a 360 while one leg nearly slid out from under him - about five feet away, but he maintained his near-standing position.

Back in the car...visited villages, and other sites along the way, and we drove and drove and drove and finally we got to the small city of Parapat, where we could catch a ferry to Pulau Samosir. Samosir Island is in the middle of Lake Toba, which seems to be a volcanic lake, and it's HUGE. Apparently one of the five or ten biggest lakes in the world (can't remember. sorry). The views were spectacular. We got on a ferry with some outstanding LOUD music (which Dan bought the CD later), and we headed across to Tuk Tuk, on the island. At each point, Matt and I were figuring which side was closer just in case the boat didn't make it (which didn't seem like that far off of a possibility. You know those SE Asian boats...).

We finally got to Tabo, our hotel on Toba, and it was excellent. Matt and I had a little Batak house to share, with our own balcony and hammock. It was a super relaxing place on the lake. Oh, and the big bottles of beer were only $2 each. That's awesome.

Next day, back in the car, and we headed to the other side of the island to watch some super traditional, simple Batak dancing. Matt did a dance with them. He's a Batak superstar. There was also a HUGE banyon tree there. I love those. They seem really powerful (in Bali they think they have spirits in them!).


Back to the car, and we stopped in a village where women were weaving - that's one of the trades of choice up there. Really beautiful work with the loom. At another stop, I learned that the gecko is a sign of prosperity, and women's breasts are also, so there are literally buildings with pictures of geckos and breasts. Not women with breasts - just breasts. Also, the Batak put water buffalo heads on the top of their houses - on both sides - for strength. Apparently in the olden days when they would kill people, they would also put their heads on the four corners of their houses.

Off to some nostalgic places for the Hildebrandt family, and then ended up at the market downtown. We bought a beautiful woven piece from a woman with beetle-nut juice red stain all over hear teeth, face, chin, gums and ALL over. The piece we bought was nice, though.

Matt, Mike, Dan and I walked back to the hotel. A nice walk. Matt carried some lady's pot of soup for a while. No joke.

Settlers that night - I won twice and Dan took the third. Close games with a lot of beer.

The next morning was relaxing, and I basically read an entire book (Sarah's Key) - and then we got back on the boat to Parapat. We saw a little Piston's jersey for some reason in a shop there. My mouse exploded in my bag - it was annoying that it got all over my clothes, and now everything smells like coconut, but more annoying is that it's super expensive, and we can't even get it in Singapore! I am going to have to travel without curly hair until I get to the states next.

After driving and driving and driving (mom, I didn't complain - I swear) ...we finally arrived back in Medan. Matt and I went for a walk in the village we were staying in, just outside of Medan, and I don't think anyone white had ever walked there before. Nearly everyone (usually it's just the kids) stopped what they were doing and smiled and waved. It's so cute. Like we're celebrities. This one man talked to us for a while. He said he grew ubi, but I can't find what that might mean. He even showed us the plant, but I'm not familiar with it. He said they eat the plant and the roots. He was divorced, and he had a son, and he invited us into his house. We politely declined and walked on.

A highlight of our hotel outside of Medan were the frogs. For some reason, both times we stayed there we saw tons of frogs all over the dining room. Big ones, too! There was one, while we were having breakfast the last day, who was up on a table, and then he jumped onto the back of a chair, and he straddled the chair and just chilled for a while. While we were the only ones staying there the first night, this night there was one other room taken - a local guy with his "girl." Like he's married, and this wasn't his wife. Yuck.

Our day in Medan was a day of nostalgia for the family. We started by going downtown to a shop near a minimarket that they used to shop in. Toko Ben wasn't open, so we visited Toko Dahlia instead. They got their soy sauces, nasi goreng mixes, and everything else one can't really get in the states to make Indonesian food. Then we headed to the international school. The guy who worked in the office when Fran and Tom worked there had just retired last year, and he showed us around. Matt seemed to remember everything being much bigger. They all found their classrooms, and we saw the pool where Matt became the International Swimming Champion of the World (in Medan). It was super interesting to see that these kids learn the same stuff that we learned in our school (with a WAY more global perspective), but they're in some city in the middle of Indonesia. Pretty crazy. The man, Karina, said that there are now 80 students in the school, and it goes up to grade nine. Pretty small, but apparently Mobile Oil pulled out years ago, and they were the big company when the Hildebrandts lived there, and there just aren't many people coming in. After the school, we found the two houses that they had lived in (each for one year). One looked almost the same (after 25 years!), but it was now an office, and the other had been torn down and turned into an office building. An ugly office building. Both streets had apparently been much more residential before, and now they were definitely both busy business streets. Indonesia super developed in the early 80s until the crisis in 97, so the place had exploded...

We ate at the ex-pat restaurant in town - Tip Top (which had excellent food!), and we headed to do a bit of shopping, visit the Sultan's palace and then the grand mosque. Both gorgeous. Finally - after some hours in the one mall in town, we headed back home to our Kitty.

Overall, we loved the trip. It was to gorgeous places, eating great food, and seeing so much. It was only my third Hildebrandt vacation, and I also appreciated the time with Dan and Mike - whom I don't usually get to spend too much time with. Good guys.

To see more photos, click here.

Two more notes - I lost one more reader. Congrats to Lauren and Mo who bad a baby girl this week! And...I went to get my hair cut today, and Cedric, the hair designer (who has very great arms) said I have gray hairs that he hasn't noticed in the past! In the middle of my head. Matt has a few too...I guess we're getting old!