So it was time to cross the canal over to Indonesia. My position on the boat from Port Klang near Kuala Lumpur wasn't the most comfortable ever, but the on board entertainment kept me amused for a while.The first 10 minutes of the first movie showed about everything that I personally wouldn't select for an head scarfed crowd like this one. Protests soon erupted after which we continued with some more suitable Islamic R 'n' B singer with some well rhymed English lyrics. After that was over, the DVD of choice was an Indonesian metal band (my favorite was 'the devil wears batik') being played at a level that seemed to blow up the speakers. I'm really curious how these selections come to be.

We squeezed ourselves out of the boat and stumbled straight into the most hectic border crossing I have ever experienced. The port is known as a popular place for smuggling, which explained all the cops and militairy. At security our passports were greeted with a smile and some practising of English sentences. If that was hectic, the swarm of taxi drivers that ambushed us subsequently was even worse. After Thailand and Malaysia I had to get a bit used to these more Vietnamese/Cambodian scenes again and just coming off the food poisoning I wasn't really up for it mentally and physically, but I did kind of enjoy the realisation that Indonesia was going to provide for some more 'lively' travelling again. Considering the transport I must say I soon longed for those two previous countries. It also soon became clear that English language skills are not that well developed in Sumatra, but my 'camping - Indonesian' (to use a Dutch expression in an unusual way) seems to be sufficient for simple negotiations and conversations. We managed to crawl out of the beehive and find a comfortable taxi that would bring us to Medan, the 3rd largest Indonesian city and capital of Sumatra, 6 hours away. The jury has yet to reach it's final verdict, but it's clear that Indonesian is gonna be a competitive candidate for the title of 'most insane driving in South - East Asia', probably leaving top of the league competitors like Cambodia and Vietnam in its tracks. Though up to a certain extend I do understand that when you're playing the whole Guns n' Roses discography there are some moments that you feel like kicking the pedal through the bottom of the car and driving American Football style through traffic, spending most time on the wrong side of the lane and ducking back to your own 3 meters before huge trucks. It does explain though why Indonesia has one of the worst records of people knockin' on heavens door after having a nice little drive (of which we would witness at least one example later on).

We spend one night in Medan and walked through the city the day after that, apart from a huge mosque, some old colonial era Dutch buildings and a 1001 night-style sultan's castle was mostly another busy, traffic filled Asian city. Together with our fellow passengers who included a couple hundred crickets (which wasn't too bad since I thought I had cockroaches walking over my feet all night) we were catapulted up to Banda Aceh over night.

Banda Aceh is the capital of the Aceh region, a troubled region that suffered horribly during the 2004 tsunami, losing 190000 of it's people, and has seen a lot of political unrest wirth seperatist forced wanting independance from Indonesia. But the people smile and the Sumatrans love to have a chat and if they don't speak any or little English will just start whole stories in Bahasa Indonesian or a local dialect. Very friendly people.

We hung out with some of them waiting for the ferry to take us to Pulau Weh, the island 25 kilometers of the coast.

I can be short about Pulau Weh. very beautiful and the most active thing we did during our 5 day stay was snorkeling a bit in front of our resort. Highlight there were an octopus and a lion fish (Naked Gun connaisseurs will know that one). We looked straight down on the turqouise water from our bungalow, the food was good and the hammock fitted just nicely. Already a bit tired from the hassle that is trying to find reliable transportation without being ripped off we arrived in Bukit Lawang after a ride with some scetchy individuals. The plan was entering the Mount Leuser national park (which BL is an entrance port to) from an other spot, but that seemed to be a bit too difficult to arrange at the bus station in Banda Aceh.

Bukit Lawang is most famous for it's treks to see some of the approximately 7000 wild Orang Utan's that are believed to still roam in mount leuser NP, 200 of them rehabilitated from the local rescue center. Besides that it's a great spot to relax along the gushing river, sipping a avocado shake (I build up a horrible addiction to them).

At night the tour guide's hang out in one of the local restaurants and entertain the people and themselves with western classics on guitar. On of them, a funny Bintang-bellied guy, took us on a 2 day, 1 night trek into the jungle. We saw 5 female Orang Utans, all with babies, and one male on the first day. Although all the ones we saw once had been in the center (therefore feeling a bit less need to hide deep in the jungle and are easier to find) they are indeed wild again and it is wise to keep a distance, but some of them came up very close. Great experience. Satisfied with our monkey count we arrived at our camp near the river, which made for some great refreshing swimming. The next morning I woke up to a group of macaces raiding the camp, running of with our supply of fruits. We spend that day doing a short but pretty challenging trek to look for black gibbons, but they had the day off. On a raft made out of tubes we floated back to the village.

After underwater discovering and jungle exploring it was time for a new discipline. We encreased our elevation going up to Berastagi, a little town in central Sumatra that's in close proximity to two vulcano's, of which we would 'climb' one. After walking up on a paved road till about half an hour to the top things actually started to look like a vulcano landscape which was pretty impressive. From this vulcano sulfer gasses (with the infamous rotting egg smell) erupted, with the bright yellow materialized sulfer around the openings. It was great to walk around there for a while, we filled our lungs with sulfer and headed back down.

Sumatra once was a popular destination for travellers, but somehow (I could write an essay on that but won't bore you more then you already are) tourist numbers we send dwindling at one point. You never feel there's more then a handfull of other travellers around in the places you visit. This becomes very apparent in Lake Toba, our next stop. Once full of tourists it has a surplus of accomodation and restaurants, now hoping to get some guests once in a while. The place is absolutely gorgious.

The Bataks, as the local people are called, have a history of distrust for strangers. In the old days that would result in neigbouring villages fighting eachother and subsequently having eachother for dinner. That may explain for a bit of a different vibe coming from the people compared to the rest of Sumatra, but still enough smiles came our way as we drove and walked around the island. Every corner we took on our motorbike would reveal an amazing panorama. The Bataks have beautiful traditional houses and on their graves that you see all around the island they have mini versions of those houses so the dead have a house to live in. Or a little church, since this is Christian territory. It's definitely one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited in my life.

Of course we stumbled into another town again during a nationalholiday, so this time in Bukittingi it proved to be harder to find decent accomodation then to find an Indonesian man who isn't a chain smoker. By then we had joined up with our English friend Adam (G) and together we fled town the next day for the tranquility of lake Manangau, a 1,5 hour drive by local bus. We set straight back into Lake Toba mode, hanging out at our lake side bungalow, watching fishermen float around (in their boats that is), seeing beautiful sunsets. Of course we rented a motorbike and of course got lost somewhere we didn't want to be.

I did a quick assesment of my Bintang intake and concluded it was 0,0, so the dry announcement from the guy working in the bar we were sitting that there was an eathquacke going on in must have made some sense. Things indeed felt a little shakey. Everybody was already gathering outside like people are instructed to do in those situations. It lasted for a couple of minutes, went back inside and when we were booking a flight from Padang to Jakarta half an hour later the situation repeated itself. The tv showed pictures of people panicking and fleeing in the forementioned Aceh region, because the gouverment had send out a tsunami warning. We kept half an eye on the news the rest of the day and it soon became clear the thankfully water was going to stay put.

Bukittingi is a mountain town that is surrounded by a couple of nice attractions. Lake Manangau done, climbing the local volcano isn't the smartest thing to, but there was still some good stuff in store. Bukittingi has one of the most accesable parks to see rafflesia flowers in it's proximity, and giving up on a couple of possibilities before we were sure to get in on this one. It was pretty accessable indeed, were it not for me thinking the flower would be in some garden, but we had to take a trek through the jungle so I was cursing myself all the way for my choice of footwear, which were flipflops. We saw one that was just opening and one that was blooming for a couple of days. Everyone who has seen the 'bucketlist' has seen Jack N.'s character drinking only the most expensive coffee in the world. Coming back from seeing the flowers we got a little lesson about that particular type of coffee that is produced in that region on a big scale. The coffee beans are eaten by a wild cat, ferment in it's stomach and after it has done his business somehere locals collect it feaces, get the beans out of it and grind them. We had some of it and it was a nice coffee indeed. Since we're still in Indonesia, orders can be made. After that we navigated our bikes through the mad Indonesian traffic to the Harau valley, which was absolutely worth the visit. Beautiful countryside surrounded by steep cliffs.

We got a taxi to Padang, which proved to be the not so interesting place we expected, so the next day we fled to Pantai Bungus, a 45 minute drive. There we relaxed for a couple of days and did a snorkeling trip to a beautiful island. After a couple of nice days it was time leave Sumatra to get our flight to Jakarta. By now, Flo, Adam and I have left Java already and are kicking back on the Gili's. I'll tell you all about that the next time. One things for sure: Indonesia has been absolutely Amazing so far, exceeding my already high expectations.

For proof that all of this (and more) really transpired, follow the link below
(if I can get the pictures up)

https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.3114970867315.146467.1055735015&type=3