Its been some weeks since the last post, as it turned out that Sumatra has really poor acces to the internet, which means either no or terrible slow dial up internet connections.
Since the last update we travelled from Yogayakarta to
Mount Bromo, one of the countries most active vulcanoes in East Java and from there we hit the road again to return to Jakarta, which was about 24 h on bus and train. From there we took a flight to Bengkulu Province in the Southwest of Sumatra.
ADAM Air, our carrier for that flight has a really interesting logo, an Ikarus - better stop thinking about that...
Once in
Bengkulu, where our old friend
Sir Stamford Raffles used to be the governor for a while, we really felt to be in South East Asias backwaters. From there we enjoyed another 20 hour busride to the small mountain village of Bukitingi in the heart of the
Minangkabau land. From there we took a jungle trek to nearby
Lake Maninjau where chilled out for a couple of days. From there we went to Padang, the capital of West Sumatra from where we finally enjoyed another 20 hour busride (superexecutive, but nevertheless full of vomit after some hours ride on the curvy so-called Trans-Sumatran Highway) to the famous
Lake Toba, home of the
Batak people. Thats where we stay now, but tomorrow we will had toward Medan via the small mountain city of Berastagi. Unfortunatly our visa runs out in 4 days, so that we have to skip Bandah Aceh...
All in all, Sumatras nature is really wild and beautiful, but travelling appears harder here than for example in Vietnam, due to the incredible long distances and partly really bad roads.
The collapse of tourism after the Bali Bombs, Tsunamis, Earthquakes and Birdflue, to me seems more visible here than on Java. Especially the small peninsula of Tuk Tuk where we stay, appears as an abandoned ghost-town where once tourists used to be. For sure also the bad Visa Situation, with unextendable 30 days on arrival is part of this tourism crisis...
Enough for now. Enjoy some new pix!
Sumatra is origin and victim at the same time of the so called phenomenon of haze, a layer of smoke caused by forestfires mainly in Sumatra and Borneo. Here two pics that clearly show the effect of (not really severe) haze...
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