Day 208 Medan

Early in the morning we went to the airport today. My adventure brings me back to Indonesia today, to the island of Sumatra. The goal there is to do a jungle trekking to observe orangutans. But for that, Moritz and I have to get to the jungle first.

The first step towards that was the round trip flight from Singapore to Medan. From Medan, we then have to continue by night bus towards the jungle. So we had to find a night bus first. According to our research, we found a jungle lodge in Kedah that offers orangutan trekkings. On their website, they also recommend a travel company that organizes night buses from Medan to Kedah. However, apart from the name, no address of the travel company in Medan was stated on the website, and neither Google Maps nor Map.Me knew the travel company. So we headed from Medan Airport towards the center of Medan by train, hoping to find a taxi that knows this travel agency or find another travel agency that also offers night buses to Kedah.

And we were lucky, we found a motorbike taxi driver who didn't know the agency, but knew the street and the cemetery where, according to the website's description, the agency should be located nearby. He helped us search, and after asking several times, we actually found the agency. We booked our tickets for tonight and now had half a day left to explore Medan. Our taxi driver offered to drive us around Medan and show us his city. We gratefully accepted the offer and squeezed back into the motorbike taxi to hit the road again.

Since it was already 12 o'clock, it was time for lunch. We told the driver that we were slightly hungry and asked if we could stop somewhere to eat something small and local. The taxi driver took us to a small snack bar and ordered for us. It's a bit difficult with English here in Medan. As we found out, he didn't order something small, but a whole menu. Before we knew it, we were sitting in front of about 10 plates with different dishes (chicken, seafood, fish, vegetables, etc.). We started eating, and since I wanted to try a little bit of everything, I also ended up with a piece of goat offal, as I later found out. Well, it wasn't that bad. The whole meal cost us less than 12 dollars, including drinks, unbelievable.

Afterwards, we started sightseeing and it quickly became apparent that not many Western tourists pass through Medan. Everywhere we stopped, people waved at us and tried to speak English with us. When we answered, they were very pleased. They also occasionally wanted to take a photo with us or tried to take a picture of us secretly.

First, we visited the former residence of the Sultan, ^

before continuing to a local fruit and vegetable market. The market was an absolute highlight. There was simply everything, and people were super happy when we took a picture of their stand and even asked us if we could take a picture of them. The market visit was quite fun. Only the smell wasn't the best. Old vegetables were simply thrown on the ground and started to rot there.

After driving around the city for a while,

the taxi driver invited us to his house to take a break. He introduced us to his little sister and his aunt, who lives in the same house. He wanted us to become Facebook friends with him. Of course, we gladly fulfilled his wish. He told us that he was very proud to drive around two Swiss people. He was very happy. He also showed us his two birds before we set off again for the second part of sightseeing.

After driving around the area for a while, we had a flat rear tire. But that's absolutely no problem here, because there is a mechanic every few meters who repairs the tires again.

So our tour was only delayed for 15 minutes before we finally went to the largest mosque in Medan.

Afterwards, we went back to the travel agency where we waited for our night bus. It was supposed to pick us up between 7 and 8 o'clock here. At 10 o'clock, our transport finally arrived. But it turned out that it was not a (mini)bus, but a private car. There were already 2 women with small children in the car. So we squeezed ourselves somehow into the car along with our luggage. When we finally started driving, we went in search of another passenger and drove around the city for a good hour until we found him. After he squeezed in, we finally started. It was already half past 11. But after a good hour of driving, we already stopped again, dinner. Eventually, we continued and somehow we started dozing off, unfortunately the driver too, as I noticed at some point. Fortunately, he realized it himself and we stopped at a gas station so that he could get some sleep. Later, we continued. When the road became a little more winding the next morning, the two women started vomiting. Fortunately, they were prepared and already had plastic bags ready. After what felt like an eternity, we finally arrived. It was already 12 o'clock noon. The journey took 14 hours instead of the stated 8 hours, and it wasn't really comfortable. So we didn't really get any sleep. But we are now at our destination.