Sumatra: any angry land with unheralded friendliness, no food but too much water...oh and did I mention completely gorgeous

Ok, so it has been quite a while since I had a chance to update the blog due to lack of internet access and being too busy in areas with it, so I will do my best to get back up to speed as a lot has happened.

Way back when, took the bus from Dumai to Bukkit Tingghi in west sumatra province. Paid the big bucks for eksekutif class with air con to avoid the cigarette smoke, but apparently on this bus they could smoke, so you can imagine what an aircon bus without open windows and full of chain smokers looks like on the inside. But at least the seats were very comfortable and I was able to sleep after I put on my H1N1 mask to help keep out some of the smoke. Arrived at bukkit tingghi early early in the morning and it was freezing way up there. That night on the bus there had been a pretty big earthquake during the ride, but I couldn't tell b/c the roads in sumatra are so bumpy and pothole filled that the bus is in a constant shake anyways. Caught the first bus down to Maninjau town and lake maninjau. A deliciously smoke free bus (it's ramadan now and they are not allowed to smoke during fasting hours of 4:30am to 6:30pm) full of fresh mountain air. It was a gorgeous day with clear blue skies and sun shining. The bus goes up over a little pass between to volcanoes and surrounded by lush rice fields and terraces before decending 44 hairpin curves down to the bottom of an old crater where the crater lake of maninjau rests. It was one gorgeous ride for sure. While looking around for a guesthouse, I ran into a guide named Juni who was going on an overnight jungle trek that night with a british couple (Zara and Simon) and the price was so cheap (and he promised seeing rafflesia flowers, something I had been looking for) that I gave up the search for a guesthouse and decided to join them that afternoon. I had originally planned to bike the 70km around the lake that day, but when you're by yourself in a place that is fairly dead for tourists, it's often wise to take a shared tour when you can as there is usually a minimum of 2 or 3 required. So the rest of the morning I kind of walked around the maninjau and bayur area taking in the beautiful views of the crater lake with the steep and lush crater walls all around and the rice terraces-- filled with indonesians in the typical asian hats leading water buffalo in the fields--that came down all the way to the lake. But it was just a gorgeous lake...very serene and peaceful and reflecting the clear blue sky and the green crater walls. And I had an extra bounce in my step b/c the air felt so good. We were up at nearly 2000ft of altitude so the air was cool and crisp, felt drier, and was nice and clean. It felt just like an early summer morning in grand lake.
After lunch (ok after lunch time as I was unable to find lunch due to ramadan fasting), we met up and first went by motorbike to an area on the lake that had thousands of flying foxes sleeping up in the trees and then flying around after Juni started whistling and yelling. After that we headed to a different part of the lake for the trek. We first hiked to a nice waterfall for a very cold and refreshing dip before continuing up over halfway up to the rim of the crater to an amazing guesthouse in the middle of the forest with great views of the lake and wonderful breezes coming up the crater. There was a great view of the lake and you could even see through a small break in the crater rim down all the way to the ocean. As the sun set, we watched a rainstorm come over the lake and then eventually come towards us, which was quite cool.
On this trek Juni was a great guide. He knew SO much about all the plants and wild fruits and trees (including the amazing smelling cinammon tree) and what they were used for or how they were beneficial. He was good at pointing out red monkeys and baboons and macaques. Despite wearing long pants as protection, Zara, Simon, and I all got attacked by one of the 7 species of stinging nettle. It's a terrible burning and stining senstation, which depending on the plant can result in "no sleep for 8 days). We quickly put on some antihistimine cream, but when juni saw us doing it, he found a stinging nettle plant removed the root, and rubbed the root on us which remarkably made the stinging go away. The next day we just walked back down the hill to get back to maninjau and have cinammon tea at his mother's house. We were supposed to go to a viewpoint and then to look for rafflesia that afternoon, but Juni said he was too tired from the fasting but would take me at a different time. Juni was also the first of many muslim guides I had had (they had all been in thailand or malaysia or kalimantan) that actually stopped several times during the day to face mecca and pray, regardless of whether he was in the jungle or on the road. You can tell indonesian is much more of a faithful muslim country b/c you see lots of people doing this all the time and sometimes when you are waiting in line at a store to buy like water you may have to wait a few minutes for the cashier to finish his or her prayers.
So about august 21st, ramadan started. In sumatra, they are quite strict and conservative muslims, so they follow it to a T, which means no eating, no drinking (not even water), and no smoking from 4:30am until 6:30pm. To me, the fasting of the food is not a huge deal b/c they can eat at night, but not having any water all day, especially if you were in a really hot area of indonesia and working out in the sun would be tough. But basically what the people here do is just kind of switch their schedule around. At 6:30pm they break the fast (hmm...never had thought about where the word breakfast came from before) and have a huge meal and then move on to smoking about a pack of cigarettes in one sitting. They then eat another huge meal sometime around midnight and then again at 4:00 am. They then tend to just lounge around and sleep all day. As the whole village is just resting, it made the whole area even quieter than it already was. It used to be a big tourist destination, but now is rather dead, even though there are lots of guesthouses around. I think tourism in sumatra has taken a dive in recent years b/c of all the natural disasters they have been getting like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc (a truly angry land) and unrest in banda aceh and of course the terror associated with indonesia from jakarta and bali. So it was definitely a nice and quiet and relaxing retreat. In the whole town there were probably about 10 tourists and room for over 300. While the indonesians were fasting, it meant that I was fasting even more than them. See they were getting 3 huge meals throughout the day, but I was getting just 1 (but at least I had water). In sumatra it is illegal to have your restaurant or food selling stall open during the day, which means I can't find food during the day, and if I forget to buy some crackers that night when the stores open, then I have not even any snacks throughout the day. So I would have my traditional big dinner at around 7 or 8, but then when I wake up around 6 or 7, there is no more food to be had all day until 6:30 again b/c i'm not about to wake up at 4 am to go walk to a restaurant at that time in the morning. There was one tourist place that did serve lunch and breakfast with a big sign that said for tourists only, but it was rather out of the way. So if anyone wants to lose weight, then I suggest you come to sumatra during ramadan b/c not only will you be majorly fasting, but you will also most likely be active hiking mountains and volcanoes or walking several miles to find a place to eat. But it just all made it part of the fun and part of the intrigue of being in a new culture. So Zara and simon and I got a kind of kick out of how we were actually fasting more than the muslims were during ramadan. And in areas like sumatra where it is much more conservative (as compared to like java or yogyakarta), if you do have food or water, as a tourist, you have to eat and drink in hiding and not let anyone see you. We were also discussing sumatran (and indonesian in general) transport and deciding which mode you should take. They all are notoriously dangerous. I was telling them that I was going to be flying a bit more now after what happened with the nasty long and terrible bus rides in kalimantan, but of course they brought up the indonesian airline track records of being far more crash prone than others. But of course the busses often wreck to, or are taken out by landslides, and then of course are just incredibly long (the book lists the trip from padang to jakarta by bus at 28 to 38 hours...never a good sign when the predicted time has such a wide margin of error, while the flight time is just 2). And of course the indo ships, just like the filipino ones are natorious for being overcrowded and sinking as well. So basically its a pick your poison, but really it's still not that bad as the accidents are still a small percentage, but it's just not as safe as like thailand or malaysia. The brits told me the story of when they were landing in padang to get to bukkit tinggi, as they approached the landing they heard the landing gear go down, but it made a terrible noise and screech and then just seconds before landing, the plane suddenly pulled straight up and didn't land. Of course the pilots went on to explain what happened in indonesian, but they had no idea, and were figuring that the landing gear was stuck and they'd have to do a crash belly landing. But a half hour later they landed safely on wheels. They asked later and found at that just as the plane was about to touch down a huge earthquake hit (it was a 7.8 on the neighboring mentawi islands) and they were unable to land on the shaky land.

After getting back from the hike around 2, I had plans to go for a paddle in the lake, but then it started to pour, so I just hung out at my guesthouse with a book, a cup of hot tea, and watched the rain. My guesthouse, as most there, was incredibly cheap and was right on the water with a great view of the lake. The rain slowed up a bit that evening and I ventured out to get some food. I met a very nice dutch couple working for a non profit in bukkit tinggi. They were quite fun and enthusiastic and wouldn't let me pay for my beers.

The next day it rained and rained all day. I was a bit depressed about it b/c people were saying that the rain season had come early, just shrugging their shoulders and suggeting climate change. The rain wasn't supposed to come until october, and when it came then it was just supposed to be hard for a couple of hours and then clear up, so this was disappointing to me b/c I had definitely carefully planned not to come on the sumatran rainy season. I had wanted to bike around the lake this day, but didn't feel like it was worth it in the rain, plus I later heard that on the other side of the lake, a huge landslide had covered the road anyways. I just sat and read most of the day with no tourists really around and no one to talk to. The rain wouldn't be so bad if you had a good friend with you to just kind of shoot the breeze or do whatever, but it gets kind of boring when you're by yourself. Sometime in the afternoon, the rain let up a bit and I rented a canoe to take on the lake. It was a local dugout canoe and by far the most difficult floating thing to keep upright I had ever been on. So I decided not to attempt crossing the big lake especially with the storms around, but I had a good paddle, managed not to tip over (not that it would have mattered as I was soon drenched in a downpour).

The next day it was cloudy...but not rain! I had juni take me to the viewpoint and to see the rafflesia b/c I had no inentions of letting him get away with not a full tour even if it was ramadan. We went by motorbike and it was a great ride and tour for sure. First climbing up the 44 switchbacks to get a nice view down to the lake, even if it was a bit cloudy, and then just driving around a lot on cool backroads in the volcanic highlands seeing very rural villages, farmers, and beautifully green rice terraces. A gorgeous area no doubt. We got to the rafflesia reserve and took a walk with a ranger into the forest. The rafflesia is the largest flower in the world measuring up to and over 4 feet in diameter and smelling of rotting flesh to attract flies. I had been wanting to find one as they can be found in s. thailand, malaysia, and borneo. But they only bloom for less than a week. Rangers always keep close tabs on them and you only go to look for them if they are known to be blooming. Well, juni guarenteed they were blooming when he sold me the tour, so I was excited. Turns out there were two that were just the buds and one that was black and dead (this should have been one of my first clues as to not trusting juni as well as the being too tired to finish a tour, but I guess I was fooled by his great english and knowledge). I did end up spotting a different species of the family rafflesia that was much smaller, though apparently very rare, and the ranger was quite happy I had found it. As the day was so nice (no rain and thin clouds) and I was feeling good I paid a bit extra to go have a tour of bukkit tinggi and the harau valley, b/c why not use such a nice day to the fullest. In bukkit tinghii we had good views of the 3 volcanoes surrounding it (merapi, semalang, and one other)--the city is crazily just built right at the base of all these volcanoes. Also checked out the huge canyon cutting through town created by mud flows and floods coming down from the volcanoe as well as a huge network of caves and tunnels built into the mountainside that the japanese built during WWII. After bukkit tingghi we drove along a flat and fertile volcanic rice field plain with good views of the volcanoes to get to harau valley, of course stopping several times along the way to pray and rest, but of course not eat. Harau valley is more of a canyon, ,and a beautiful one at that, with soaring cliffs, gleaming rice fields in the bottom and 5 huge cascading waterfalls coming down the canyone walls. After that it was back to maninjau where we arrived after dark, but not before thankfully breaking the fast on the way at 6:30. One of the other nice things about the motorcycle trip was seeing all the traditional houses. The people of the region, the minangkabaus, have built houses with a very unique roof shape. This matriarchal society of west sumatra continues to use the same architectural style even today so in the cities it is quite cool to see the fancy banks and malls have those roofs. But yes, the tour was great to do on motorbike with a guy the new the area and all the backroads b/c I felt like I got a very good glimpse into west sumatran life as we went through lots of rural areas that a bus wouldn't go and of course could stop whenever and enjoy the amazing mountain and volcanic scenery with rice terraces tucked up valleys in the mountains