So... Sumatra

Deary deary me - I just can't stop moving these feet...

So last time I blogged I'd just bought a ticket to Padang, right? OK got the ticket, back to the hostel, egg-fried rice for dinner, slept like the dead.

OH BTW I have to squeeze a couple of things in here:
1) forgot to mention about the PARADISE that I found in the shopping mall in Bangkok: it was a food marketplace - kinda like Selfridges food hall, rolled into a foreign supermarket (with all the strange delights that brings), rolled into Waitrose, with a few street food stalls on the side. I could've spent the entire 3 days there. Heaven.
2) That guy who helped me in Jakarta - the one who paid for the taxi, took me to the travel agents etc - said he was a 'Catholic Jew'. Now this has been perplexing me: What exactly is a Catholic Jew? I thought Catholicism and Judaism were pretty exclusive religions - is there now a hybrid religion that I don't know about? Do you get the best and/or worst of both (do you get circumcised AND a lifelong guilt complex?). If anyone has any thoughts, pls feel free to leave a comment!
3) I've been checking out my site statistics and it seems there's about 40 regulars tuning into my blog! Thank you all so much for taking an interest - it's almost like I've got you all on the road with me (either that or I've got one stalker who just keeps logging in and logging in...)

Anyways Jakarta airport morning before last (I really have lost track of the day and date now - I thought my pill packet would be a pretty good guide, but girls you know that sometimes doesn't happen every day. Esp when there's no technical need for it. I digress). So I THINK it's Monday today, which would make my flight to Padang Sunday morning.

Flight: fine. Bus from airport - Padang: fine.

'Hotel'. Well, you make your mind up. This was a 'superior' room:

Loving the vile pink against the vile blue. Cold shower. I shouldn't complain, but at 8 quid/night it was pretty expensive!

Aaaaaaaaaanyways so by that time I was UTTERLY starved... checked out the only mall in town (in fact I think it counted as 'the' town) - Sunday saw every inhabitant of Padang there and, being the only white person, I was the veritable freak show. Eeurgh. The ONLY place to eat that was open was KFC and I wasn't even allowed to sit down in the restaurant - I HAD to take it away! I suppose eating in front of a million people who are not allowed to eat is probably quite rude

So lunch, quick snooze, shower and out to the seafront to read for a bit, watch the sunset and wait for those d&rned food stalls to open :o)

I'm currently reading a biography by an Indonesian writer who was a political detainee on one of the islands for about 15 years - absolutely fascinating... your typical communism: lock up anyone with half a brain or half a sense of independence in case they upset the status quo. Torture them. Forget about them. Only this wasn't in a POW camp or Gulag, it was pretty much on the equator on a tropical island, where they were forced to 'build' the island with their bare hands. In the intro it says that owning any book by (? forget his full name, but it's something like Prapawat [something]) in Indonesia is still a criminal offence!

Sooooooooooooooo finally the sun set - quite a good one at that. Hence the text to a few of you - it was not only to gloat but also to kinda share it with someone/anyone! One of those moments where it really would be nice to have a friend/boyf/whatever right there:

Dare say there will be a few more of those. I am a sucker for a sunset.

Absurdly by the time I was allowed to eat I wasn't hungry! So grabbed a litre of cold beer (for a quid) with some other white people who had materialised: a couple of the hottest Costa Rican surfers ever! They were staying in my hotel and had apparently been travelling for 2 months through New York, Finland, Moscow, Trans-Siberian (oooh so on my list!), then Bali and Padang. They were shortly off to some island called Mentawai which is apparently Surfer's Heaven: the greatest place to surf on earth and somewhere every surfer dreams of going. So now you know.

Anyways so the view improved dramatically for half an hour, then I pottered off to get me some prawns on a stick and a mango juice for my dinner, watching the absolute blackness punctuated by bright lights of ships, and enjoy the cool breeze from the Indian Ocean

Today I was up and out: nowt much else to Padang and Bukittinggi sounded so lovely: "the cool, quiet hill town...". Centre of Padang: couldn't find the bus terminal so was eventually bundled into an 'opelet' (like a small VW van), which took me to the outskirts of town and dumped me off on someone else. Was squashed into this slightly bigger and rather uncomfortable van for 3 hours... until I realised that we'd probably gone past Bukittinggi... so I jumped out and got into a tiny car/van thing to go back the way I came and THANK MOHAMMED (I think that's who I'm praising at the mo) there was an English teacher there, who helped me get yet another little van thingy and finally I got to the centre of town. She even paid for the second one as I had no money by this point! Ooooooh the kindness of strangers. They absolutely can't believe I'm travelling on my own here - I always say yup, just me... and they look v v confused. I say, well no boyfriend or husband, and friends couldn't come. Nearly 30 - I should've been married for about 13 years by now, have knocked out at least 5 kids and have a fat belly and hairy warts!

As much as I bemoan my singleness, I do also count my blessings that I live in England in the 21st century and that the above is not expected in any way, shape or form. Well not in London anyway - you get outside the M25 and it's a slightly different story............

DIGRESSING AGAIN. So checked out a few hotels and settled on an economy room @ the 'Hotel Orchid' - 3.50quid/night and, well, it's clean. I did a little video earlier but I'm gonna have to email that separately as it seems my blog doesn't accept my videos!

Initial impressions of Bukittinggi: OK, but the 'perched on the edge of the Sianok canyon... it's a charming place with a maze of paths, alleyways and stairways' doesn't seem to be in evidence. I had a Moroccon town in mind but, well, watch this space until I explore some more... There is a Fort de Kock (ha ha ha) which is apparently quite nice to watch sunset from, and there's a zoo, and some Japanese tunnels, so plenty of tourist things. And lots of cafes which seem to do food!

So that's where I'm up to... am probably leaving on a 14hour bus tomorrow evening for Lake Toba - in north Sumatra, this has been recommended to me by a friend (thanks Grant!) as somewhere genuinely tranquil, beautiful etc, so fingers crossed for getting some sleep and getting there. After there I'm powering straight up to see the orangutans!!! Can't wait - that has always been on the list

Will love you and leave you - hope you're all well, thanks again for keeping up with me - makes me kinda warm inside to know that people give a t*ss and, well, if I don't blog for a few days, my absence might be noticed!

Love you all, take care, have fun, big kisses xxxxx