As you know, I went to Medan to do a little bit of soul-searching (more like running away from the toxic air in KL) in February. I meant to put up my pictures earlier but work had been CUH-RAY-ZAY. The Bali post (my trip last year) will have to wait.. hahaha!
Now I know what will work. Piecemeal. Baby steps. Since my internet connection is a wee bit faster than an old man trying to cross the road, I figured.. why not do it small? :) Here goes..
My cousin, Kikin and I boarded a very early flight to Medan on Thursday. We planned to go straight to Danau Toba upon arrival and spend at least 2 days there. We did research on the internet and we were supposed to get a "bus" from the airport to the bus terminal where we could take another bus to Parapat, the town at the bank of Danau Toba.
As soon as we landed, we head out of the airport and the first thing we noticed was a KFC at a Petronas. We made a bee line to our target and totally forgot that KFC won't be open for business at 8a.m. Hahaha! Disappointed and starving, we tried to catch the "bus" to the terminal. It turns out the "bus" mentioned on-line is actually an ANGKUT. An angkut is a van with no doors and can fit up to 10 people at one time. I remember taking angkut in Bandung so, no surprise there. I bet org2 putih tu ingat ni "bus" because there is no ordinary bus in the city.
It was quite a long ride in the angkut to the terminal. Erase the normal bus terminal image in your mind. Picture uneven ground, full of pot-holes, thousands of angkuts and two buses. Oh, and literally people everywhere. Nope, they are not boarding the bus.. they are women selling bottled water, snacks and such. Well, most of the men just hang around the bus stop staring at the crowd, jumping around (yes, they jump), grooming each other (tolong kawan die cabut janggut or smthg). Basically nothing productive.. We were quite early to arrive at the bus that was taking us to Parapat. Thank God we were early or else we could have ended up seating on the floor of the bus. Right before the bus reach it bursting point, the driver finally turned on the engine. Note that there's no air-conditioning in the bus. I had little children screaming from all sides, XS seats and 5 hours journey ahead. We did ourselves a favour and promised to rent a car back to Medan.
Once we reached Parapat, we had our lunch and head to the Tiga Raja jetty to take a ferry to the island of Danau Toba, Pulau Samosir.
The view of Parapat from our ferry
Look at the angry sky.. It seems like we were at sea, with waves crashing and all. Bbrrr!
The ferry had 2 sections, indoor and outdoor. We did try to brave the wind, rain and cold but with ever passing minute, the wind seems to get wilder, the rain heavier and definitely colder. We gave up on "enjoying" the ride and took shelter in the gasolin-stenched covered area. After about 1 hour of ride, we finally reached our destination, Samosir Island at 3 p.m. Phew~
A preview of the beauty of the island. :)To be continued...
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