Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We got picked up by two mini vans and drove back along the road of rocks...so I'm not sure why we needed the 4x4's to get here. We drove back to Medan where we started 4 days ago, changed to a bus and carried on? I'm confused but it doesn't take much. In Medan the roads are crazy again, I've just seen someone sleeping under his lorry literally with his head by all the passing traffic.
We stopped at a local market before we arrived at our hotel, selling the usual fruit, clothes, food. There were lots of men trying to sell horse and cart rides, they followed us around the whole time because obviously we stuck out like a sore thumb...tourists are rich apparently. I went and bought about 20 apples and wandered round feeding the horses, there was one who was so skinny you could see all his bones...he got 2 apples, not that'll it'll make much difference.
The hotel was so nice, right up in the mountains with a view of the volcano and a pool...it's a bit cooler up here so not sure I'll try to swim. The highlight is definitely the laundry service, I'll never take clean clothes for granted again and it'll be nice not to smell bad. Everyone wanted an early night because it was a 4am start for the volcano hike, I thought about my Guatemalan volcano climbing hell and decided to stay in bed. We had room service in bed and watched a film, simple night and steak for £2.50 was pretty good.
I thought I'd have a lovely lie in but with my room mate getting up at 3.30 and then the rooster and then the loudest call to prayer I've ever heard at 4.45 I ended up watching a film and that's pretty much how my day went...I did nothing and I loved it.
In the evening we went into town for dinner, I love street food now I'm brave enough to eat it. We tried a fried spring roll type thing, the dough was rolled very thinly then egg and vegetables inside and deep fried. Indonesian pancakes are a little different to ours, more like a cake. Gede bought one for us all to try, one piece was enough. The dough was like a crumpet/cake with chocolate, condensed milk, coconut and CHEESE. I didn't notice till I'll taken a bite but there was grated cheese in the middle, we've seen chocolate and cheese everywhere and avoided it so far but to be honest it was really nice. Then to finish off I had some chinese noodles which he cooked fresh and wrapped in a banana leaf - first food I've really enjoyed in Indonesia. So dinner along with a fresh fruit smoothie cost me £1...bargain.
When we got back to the hotel we were all excited to get our laundry back, until we realised they'd mixed all our stuff up and some stuff never even made it back. So there in reception we all unpacked our little laundry package and held up knickers, shorts and socks that didn't belong to us to try and reunite them with their rightful owner....just what you want to do in front of a total strangers. Obviously I moaned and obviously I got a discounted price, which when I worked it out was £1.50 for washing practically everything I own - yes I felt bad afterwards but they should know better and pants are not easy to find out here let me tell you.
- comments
Sal Glad you got some time to yourself