Ibis Hotel Pekanbaru

... or more like their neighbor's side yard). As it turns out, it took us 'til the end of the day, though we did take an hour in the afternoon to pulldown the Tati house (I'll try to upload some video on this soon).

Additionally, mid-morning a few military guys showed up & proceeded to help us out for an hour or so before moving on elsewhere. They took a LOT of breaks & a few ...

... yahoogroups.com) dan Ferry dari Depnakertrans berada di kota tersebut selama 2 hari. Disana saya mengisi materi mengenai Global Harmonized System (GHS) yang akan berlaku pada akhir 2008 nanti... Para peserta datang dari level yang jauh diatas saya rata-rata sudah berumur kepala tiga sementara saya sendiri baru kepala dua...untung ada dr Sudjoko yang banyak memberikan ilmu pengetahuan dan ...

... to smoke on a bus in any other country. Finding myself a bit jaded, I decided to get to planning the specifics of my time in Indonesia. I looked at everything on offer in Sumatra, Java, and Bali, being that I limited myself to those islands. I had been considering a trip to Komodo to see their infamous dragons, but it revealed itself to be touristy, expensive, and since I was by myself, why bother? On this wave of apathy and exhaustion, I decided to cut out the rest of Sumatra and ...

All photos are at http://tulsatrot.travellerspoint.com From Berastagi, I rode 3 mini-vans to the port town of Parapat. From Parapat, I would jump on a ferry and leave the next morning to Tuk Tuk, a small town on Samosir Island in the middle of Lake Toba. Of note, Indonesia has an alarming rate of man made destruction of their forests and there are forest fires that are currently blanketing parts of Indonesia and well as countries east ...

The day following the trek we were back on another rickety old bus, bumping and weaving our way back down Sumatra. Yan sat happily beside us, having decided it would be best if he escorted us down to Lake Toba, even though we insisted we'd be fine. "Oh I'd like to, now that I feel we are friends bla bla bla". We've definitely heard that one before Yan, we knew he was just doing it to make a few bob. We spent the night in a 'nothingness' town ...

... waterfall on the way and fighting of leeches that got into our socks and shoes. The lake is crater lake and has an area of 99.5 kmē, being approximately 16 km long and 7 km wide. The average depth is 105 m, with a maximum depth of 165 m. The natural outlet for excess water is the Batang Antokan river, located on the west side of the lake. Most of the people who live around Lake Maninjau are ethnically Minangkabau. Villages on the shores of the lake include ...

... place we went to had an interesting array of food from spicy chicken to curry chicken, fried fish and some green vegetables. However, the first thing I saw was a rat crossing the restaurant. Well, we did stay for dinner not thinking about the rat. Getting back to the out-of-town bus station the next morning was a whole different story too. When in need of help, I turn to the police, so I asked the police men at the corner of the road for a bus to the terminal. He stopped the first ...

... with 63 boxes, 2 pigs, 14 chickens (actually it wasn't that bad but it felt like it after the spotless buses in Singapore!) with our knees somewhere close to our noses! This is what we like! And this is when we discovered another trait of a typical Indonesian bus journeys - the buskers! Everytime the bus stops, a different set of buskers gets on the bus so that by the time you reach the destination not only do you know every Indonesian song going, you're also skint!!!! Welcome to Indonesia!!!

For obvious reasons there are no pictures of this event. Had an encounter with Aceh militants yesterday traveling from Ketambe to Berstagi in southern Aceh. The Labi-Labi, a sort of a miniature cattle truck with a roof used as a hop on hop off taxi, was flagged down by the first aggressive faces I've seen Indonesia. It was pretty obvious who these large angry men where when they started slapping the driver around. The money ...

A rather uneventful day after the pleasant stay at Berastagi. It took three bus rides to get to Prapat, stopping at one town for a simple but tasty lunch of mee goreng. On the third leg of the trip, I talked to "Roy" who owns a restaurant on Samosir. He thinks the unemployed Indonesians (I've met a lot of them) are lazy and stupid - the typical attitude of a successful businessman. I may go to his ...