Last Days in Indonesia

Wednesday, July 25, 2007--Lake Toba to Medan

I got the boat from my hotel pier at 8 a.m. Then I was in Medan and back in the hotel where I stayed the last night I was here by 2 p.m. It was an uneventful trip on a boat, a bus, and a mini-bus other than the fact that the mini-bus didn't take me all the way to the hotel. He went to the street I wanted, but only to the end of it. I had to walk about 20 minutes further to get to my hotel.

I got the same kind of over-priced room at the hotel that I had before. It is comfortable, though. And this time, I cannot hear the noise of the nearby mosque that was blasting directly toward my windows in the old room.

Jansen, one of my Internet friends who has written to me for several months, came by the hotel in the afternoon to visit. He's a teacher, too--geography and English at the middle school level. He has a sister working on a Ph.D. in mathematics at a university in Vancouver. Jansen is a Christian, and he was telling me that there definitely is discrimination against Christians here in this mostly Muslim nation. He said Christians can only get high-level jobs in areas that are predominantly Christian. His sister had to go all the wall to Papua (on the island of New Guinea) to get a university position because she was Christian. They are paying for her to do her doctorate, and she has agreed to return there for 15 years as repayment. So she will be living 3 time zones away from her family with no hope of a job in this area, apparently. We talked about all kinds of things like that for about 4 hours. It was nice to talk to someone for so long.

It took me 1 1/2 hours at the cyber cafe to update the blog for all the days I had been offline and to go through my mail. It was so late that the food stalls were closing when I left to return to my room. I hadn't eaten all day. I had to settle for a granola bar that I had in my suitcase.

Thursday, July 26, 2007--Medan

I went to the travel office to arrange to take the ferry to Penang in Malaysia tomorrow only to find out that the ferry doesn't run on Fridays (because of this being a Muslim nation, I guess). Anyway, thank goodness for Indonesian low-cost airlines. Although I thought I had finished having to worry about their safety records, I bought another ticket on Lion Air (one of the better ones) to get me to Penang tomorrow. Actually, everyone had been asking me why I was taking the ferry rather than flying. The low-cost airlines here are so cheap that the air ticket I got for a one-hour flight was the same cost as the ferry ticket would have been for about an 8-hour trip (including buses on either end)!

I did a test walk to the airport to see how long it would take me. I was right in my guess. It is about a 35-40-minute walk from my hotel. Tomorrow morning, I will walk there rather than take a ride in a trishaw or taxi, I think. My money seems to be running down just at the right level for departure. I'll know better whether I have enough for a trishaw after eating dinner tonight.

From the airport, I walked through a very nice housing area to the nicest mall in town. I just thought I would explore the area on my way back to the hotel. While in the mall, however, it came a flood. I couldn't believe how much rain was falling. The clouds were barely moving. The biggest problem related to that is that I had washed a pair of pants and a shirt and left them hanging on the railing of my balcony. So the rain was soaking them again. Hope I can get them dry before packing for the flight tomorrow.

Note: I will be in Georgetown, the capital city of Penang Island in Malaysia, for the next 3 nights after I leave here tomorrow. I've been there before, so I know the city. I don't know how easy it will be to find a cyber cafe, but I imagine it won't be a problem. I fly to Bangkok on Monday to end the itinerary for ATW VII. I will buy my ticket and start ATW VIII while there in Bangkok for 6 days next week.