Blog 48

On the flight from Singapore we met a girl from Medan who promised her brother would give us a ride into town, and not only did he do that, he shared his cheesecake too (apparently a local speciality, a Swiss roll stuffed with cheddar and sprinkled with chocolate hundreds and thousands, it was vile). Jo smiled appreciatively and insisted that it was... Interesting. I wasn't as diplomatic and told him it was weird.

Busy and frantic. Backpackers don't stay here in Medan. There's not much to stay here for, which is why this white face of mine was met with stares, interest and sometimes laughter, understandably. Jo's knowledge of Malay and the fact that the Indo language is very similar, got us through. A ramshackle bus with 12 seats and 21 passengers got us, and a chain smoking 10 year old to Bukit Lawang, land of the Indonesian orangutan. We couldn't complain, the three hour journey cost us 30,000 rupiah (£1.50) each.

Bryn