No Trains but Planes and Evil Automobiles

Day 281
I was up pretty and had breakfast at my hotel before I packed up.

After stowing my things for a few hours I headed back to the internet cafe. I had so much blogging to do and the internet connection was so slow that it was maddening. I also didn't want to walk to much, my foot was still hurting a bit and I felt like staying off of it was the best option. After lunch I headed back to the hotel and took another frightening trishaw ride to the airport.

The thing was that the trishaw couldn't go all the way there. I had to walk the last ten minutes or so of it. Check in was a breeze though. At first I thought that my flight was moved up, but then I saw that it was actually delayed. The whole check in process was rather antiquated. Both the boarding pass and the luggage tags were written out by hand.

In the waiting room I was the only obvious tourist. After some time it seemed that my flight was delayed and I left the security area after some confusion about how to get out. There wasn't any food to buy in the main waiting room. I would have to go th ru security again if I wanted a snack. Security was rather lax and I didn't have a problem getting quickly through it. Not long after this my flight was announced and I boarded the plane. It seemed to be a new plane, but made some really funny noises. Indonesian airlines don't have the best track record and the off sounds had me a bit nervous. I decided to sleep through the flight and ignore my fears.

It didn't take long for me to get my bags together once the plane had landed. I just wished it hadn't been so late, I was meant to have arrived a few hours ago. I really dislike getting to new places in the dark, it makes everything so much more confusing.

As soon as I was outside the taxi drivers attacked. I told them to give me a minute while I looked up in my book what they should cost. I bargained one of the guys down from 150,000 to 80,000. As I walked to a car with my non-English speaking driver (we had bargained by writing down numbers), a man fluent in English said that he was safe and that the normal prices was 120,000. My driver tried to put my bag in the trunk but I decided that it would be best to keep it with me.

When were were about to go thru the airport parking security the driver kept saying "friend" and motioning for me to move up front. I refused to do this. Apparently I had found an illegal taxi. I knew that I wouldn't get in trouble so I acted like I didn't understand. The driver rolled up the tinted windows. At this point I began to feel that the driver was really sketchy and started to pay very close attention to street signs. The sketchy driver then pulled in to a very dark looking hotel and told me that this was it, it wasn't and I told him to keep going. He listened.

When I got to my correct hotel I paid him. He pursued me though and started to throw a fit. I knew that he wanted more money, but I gave it what he had asked for and wasn't gonna cave. He called the English speaker from the airport and tried to get me to talk to him. I refused. I think this was a normal act for the taxi guy and that most people just payed to get him to go away. He was messing with the wrong chick for that. The guy at reception ignored him at first and then spoke to him for a minute. The receptionist continued to check me in and told the other man to go away. The taxi driver kept shoving the phone in my face. Eventually I took it and said "I agreed to pay him 80 and I did, I will not give him another penny and I won't discuss it any further." I heard the man say "but you" as I handed the phone over. By now I was fully checked in and the receptionist showed me to my room.

I had planned to hang out for about 30 minutes, but my growling stomach got the best of me. When I looked o ut into reception the taxi driver was gone. I headed right next store to a restaurant for dinner. I didn't want to wander far.

That evening was rather restless. I kept dreaming that he came back to the hotel to look for me. I decided to leave first thing in the morning. I wasn't really worried about anything, but I knew that leaving would make me feel better.

Long and Terrifying Road

Day 280

I woke up early and chatted with the Swedish girls a bit over breakfast. If I get to Bali by New Years we are going to try and get together. I then headed across the river and got a jungle taxi. At the bus station I ran into one of the guides and said goodbye.

I think that the mini bus driver had his hand on the horn for the entire ride. He really might as well have taped the thing down. I don't know if it was to alert possible passengers or to warn people to get out of the way, mad man enroute. Possibly both. For unknown reasons each additional passenger insisted on squeezing in the same seat. I did get the most room though, well, that was only because my ass t akes up the most space.

The first part of the road was even more terrifying than on the way to Bukit Lawang. This time I managed to have my camera out though so that I could document the worst of it. Eventually I did manage to fall asleep and I got a bit sunburned too.

When I was the last passenger I was told to get out and get a cab. I knew I was in Medan but I had no idea where I was in the city or how far I needed to go to get to my hotel. The first trishaw driver I spoke to tried to compeletly rip me off. He wanted 50,000 for the ride. I had cost me 17,000 for my three hour ride so there was no way that I was giving him that. He would let any of the other drivers near me so I ended up having to walk a ways down the road to get away. There I found a guy who charged me 30,000, or about $2.75. It was about a 45 minute ride so I didn't feel like I had paid too much. The ride was scary though, there is nothing to protect you from the weaving traffic often just inches away.

I went back to the hotel that I had stayed at before, luckily they had some space for me.

Right away I headed to an internet cafe. I had been disconnected for far too long. I tried to book some internal flights to get me back on schedule, but none of the websites would take forigen credit cards. I ended up leaving so that I could find a travel a gent. This didn't take long and soon I was on my way back to my hotel.

At the hotel I found out what the cost of a trishaw should be to get me to the mall. I couldn't walk much and I needed a few things that might be hard to find outside of a big city. At first the guy tried to rip me off but I was able to bargain him down to a fair price.

After getting a movie ticket I headed to the mega mart for a few supplies. For dinner I headed to Pizza Hut. I needed some western food after all of that time in the jungle. After I had finished eating a few girls approached me and told me that they had an assignment for their English class to interview a native English speaker. They then asked me a few questions and recorded it on thier phones, as well as taking a picture with me. They didn't speak English very well and kept giggling, so I don't know how great it actually was.

Just as I was getting to the elevator to go to the theater another group of kids approached me for the same thing. They spoke much better English and actually had preparred questions before hand. They mostly asked about the States while the other girls had asked if I was married.

I just made it to my movie in time. I went to see Twilight again. It's bad, I know, but I liked it. When the movie was over I headed past the trishaw guys at the main entrance and found a guy around the corner who didn't even try and rip me off. It was nice to not have to bargain for something.

Back at the hotel I had an orange juice and wrote for a bit, but I was pretty tired and soon went to bed.

Aliens

Day 274
I was up early and packed quickly. At the main office I had to wait forever to get my boarding pass. I wasn't able to get it before because I didn't have my passport on me. It took so long that I was afraid that I might miss the boat. I really shouldn't have worried about this though.

The waiting area was packed and there were very few seats. When boarding finally began there was only one guy checking tickets an d 5 people at immigration. I as lucky and rather close to the front of the line. I could see that a lot of people were have rather long discussions with the immigration guys. I was worried that I might have some problems as well, but there were none. I was instructed to sit towards the front of the boat and pile my back pack by the emergency exit. In no time there was limited to no access to the emergency exit with all of the backpacks. Strangely all of the westerners were instructed to sit in the same area of the boat. I waited on the boat for quite a while. It was meant to leave at 9 but didn't depart until 10:30

They quickly put some very loud and very awful music on the screen. The air conditioner was turned up to arctic and I had to get my sleep sheet out of my bag, my jacket was too far buried. I hadn't eaten earlier because I was afraid that I would be late and I had thought I would be able to buy snacks on the boat so I had not stocked up. The only thing to buy on the boat was a cup of noodles. Later on they gave everyone some slightly stale cake.

The boat was pretty rocky and I don't know how I managed to keep my noodles down. I did manage to sleep a bit, bu t the volume on the tv kept waking me up. Several times two screaming little boys came running into our cabin and would climb over the vacant seats and backpacks. I think this is why pe ople put their kids on leashes.

After 7 hours the boat finally docked. It took a bit of time to get everyone out, but everyone who needed to buy a visa on the spot was able to skip the long immigration line. While I was waiting I met a few people from the boat. It didn't take long for me to get my shinny visa and they to get stamped into the country.

Right before I stepped outside I was directed to go straight to the waiting bus. Outside was a mob scene and I was told that the bus was full. I could see myself that there was exhaling room only. A man offered me a good price for a ride to Medan including an ATM stop. I told him that I needed to wait for my friends. I went back into the mob and managed to find some of the other people I had met on the boat. Another man tried to offer us a better price, but one of the people in my group had been told by a cop not to go with him. We stuck with the first guy.

When we were dropped off at the first hotel it smelled awful and we felt that it was over priced. The second place was the same. The third place the guy brought us to was the cheapest and the cleanest. It was just right. T o save money undercover Israeli Zoe and I shared a room. It was just under US $2 each. I say undercover because Israelis are not allowed into Indonesia, Zoe has a French passport though and most immigration officers don't bother to look at the place of birth when issuing visas. The other people in our group were recently married Brits Kieron and Kate and another traveling couple Dave and Samantha.

Once we had dropped our things off we headed to get some dinner. Over dinner the guy that had brought us to the hotel also tried to sell us a jungle trek. I declined because I have no business in the jungle and I didn't want to do anything that I knew would make me miserable.

After dinner we all took showers and then met for a beer. I was really enjoying chatting to everyone and I guess that I wanted to spend a few days with the same people. For unknown reasons I put in a deposit to go with everyone on the jungle trek. It wasn't peer pressure at all, just plan impulse on my part. Forget that, it was aliens. there could be no other reason I would do something like that. Damn aliens.