Traveling through Northern Sumatra

After intense days in Banda Aceh, I set off on May 24, 2026, heading towards Medan, the largest city in Sumatra with around two and a half million inhabitants, or five million if you include the metropolitan area. Indonesia is the country of 17,500 islands. Many are tiny, but Sumatra is huge: from its northern to southern tip, it measures more than 1,700 kilometers. Its area of 480,000 square kilometers is almost twelve times that of Switzerland or 120,000 square kilometers larger than Germany.

This means that traveling becomes a challenge. The most comfortable option would be a flight, but I decided to take the bus. Medan is only about 600 km south of Banda Aceh, but the buses take around twelve to thirteen hours for this distance, and I don’t want to strain my back for that long in one go.

Three Stages

So I’ve divided the journey into portions: On the first day, 250 km from Banda Aceh to the city of Lokhseumawe, which has around 200,000 inhabitants but is quite unknown even in Indonesia. On the second day, a little over 150 km from Lokhseumawe to Langsa, nearly the same size and almost equally unknown. I stay in Langsa for a few days with the good but unfulfilled intention of visiting the famous mangrove forests. Finally, another 170 km to Medan.

In Banda Aceh, I’m supposed to be picked up from the hotel by the minibus, but the trip begins rather frustratingly: The driver appears an hour late, but only after the friendly receptionist has called three times to inquire. Then we drive around for another hour from bus station to bus station, during which I have to exchange my online purchased e-ticket for a hand-filled ticket (which no one wishes to see afterward).

We stop several times along the way because our driver also sees himself as a package delivery service. And of course, we also need to eat, at a large establishment on a busy street. The available meals—various sauced dishes with fish, beef, or chicken, as well as fried items—are already on plates at a buffet, so hurried travelers won’t waste time. As a side dish, a young woman serves rice from a large pot. The whole setup doesn’t look very reassuring. But my fish curry tastes excellent, and my digestion doesn’t react unfavorably to the food, which is also extremely inexpensive: not two Swiss francs or Euros for a meal.

No good memory of Lokhseumawe

Night has already fallen when we arrive in Lokhseumawe. The bus driver, who has dawdled the half distance, suddenly seems in a hurry and doesn’t want to drive into the city. He drops me off on the highway and pays a rickshaw driver to take me to the hotel. The old-fashioned vehicle, probably welded together locally, creaks under the combined weight of myself and my luggage as it bumps along a partially unpaved road through unlit neighborhoods, and I hold on with one hand to myself and with the other to my suitcase, which threatens to fall off at any moment.

Finally, we arrive at the hotel. It’s called “OYO 2180 Vina Vira Hotel.” OYO stands for “On Your Own” and is an organization and booking platform for budget hotels, hostels, and guesthouses found in every Indonesian locality. I booked through Agoda, where the room looks quite acceptable despite the mini price of around six and a half Swiss francs or just under seven euros per night. However, the photo posted online bears no relation to reality: I spend the night in a dark, windowless closet-like room with old, wobbly furniture and rundown fixtures in the bathroom. Exceptionally, I forgo showering, and I don’t sleep in but on the bed, fully clothed, for fear of picking up any beetles.

Let’s put it this way: Lokhseumawe will, perhaps unjustly, remain in memory as the most unfriendly place on my journey, especially since the Vina Vira Hotel was the only establishment I’ve ever frequented where not a single employee exchanged even a word with me. I was silently checked in, silently led to the closet, and silently sent off the next morning. Here it was, the unkind treatment I had actually expected in Banda Aceh.

Langsa, on the other hand, was quite different, even though the tuk-tuk driver I hired at the bus station couldn’t find my guesthouse and I had to struggle to ask around since, of course, there are hardly any English speakers in Langsa either. But the city somehow seems friendlier than Lokhseumawe. This is certainly also due to my accommodation, the fairly new guesthouse “Hayy” in a side street. Not to be compared with the Vina Vira from the previous night, although the room this time also costs just under nine francs or nine euros per night. (Something surprised me, however: I have never stayed in a hotel room that offers a shower and toilet but no sink. Brushing my teeth, shaving, and washing my hands in the shower is rather inconvenient—but of course, it’s not a catastrophe.)

I walked through half the city a few times to get food at “Sams Coffee and Roastery.” We are still in the province of Aceh, and this establishment is strictly Islamic, though modern and bright. It is frequented mainly by people I could be the grandchild or great-grandchild of, but I feel comfortable; the food is excellent and so is the espresso.

Overwhelmed by Events

But I am also overwhelmed by events in Langsa – and as someone who traveled and lived in Arab countries for a long time, I should have known better. My stay coincides exactly with Eid al-Adha. Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, is the highest and most important festival in Islam. It commemorates the story of Abraham, to whom God commanded to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. (In Islam, which arose much later than Judaism and Christianity, Abraham is called “Ibrahim,” and Isaac has no name.) Ibrahim was ready to fulfill the divine demand; at the last moment, however, God stopped him and sent instead a ram that was sacrificed in place of the son. At the same time, Eid al-Adha marks the peak and conclusion of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. An important aspect of the religious festival is the sacrifice of animals, usually sheep, goats, cattle, or camels.

In 2026, Eid will be celebrated from May 26 to 29. And the celebrations mainly take place with family. This means that public life is more or less at a standstill. Thus, it is impossible to book a trip to the mangrove forests on May 26, for which I have come to Langsa in the first place. And it is almost impossible to find an open establishment or supermarket. I already envision myself starving on the streets of Langsa when “Sams Coffee and Roastery” opens at 2 p.m. to my rescue. On May 27, I want to continue to Medan, but it is impossible to find a bus. Eventually, I manage to convince a taxi driver; he asks for a full million rupiah for the 170 kilometers, and I have to stretch my brain again to calculate and realize that this amounts to less than fifty Swiss francs or euros.

Should I have flown? Certainly not. It’s days like these that stay etched in memory, not those where everything goes smoothly. In Medan, I check into the modern “deSatu” hotel next to a large shopping center called Center Point. In the same street, very loud live music spills forth from an Irish-style pub called “Healy Mac’s,” which is open around the clock. We are no longer in the Sharia-controlled province of Aceh but in the more liberal province of North Sumatra, and “Healy Mac’s” features on its drink menu nearly all the alcoholic beverages one could dream of during a week of abstinence.