Horas North Sumatra! (pt 1)

Finally, North Sumatra trip post is up! At least only the first part of it. Last winter break, as you might have known, I went back to Indonesia to take care of some things. One of the events that took place during my almost-a-month holiday includes a trip to North Sumatra. I have to say I really anticipated for it, considering that I've never stepped a foot onto one of the most renowned major islands in Indonesia, Sumatra. Such a shame I've never been there.

On December 27, 2012, two days after Christmas (6 days after "the apocalypse"), I woke up early in the morning, around 6 am. I couldn't believe our flight was actually at 9 am and at that moment, I doubted if we'd make it on time for the flight. However, since it was going to be a domestic flight, so I assumed the check-in process and everything would take shorter time than the international one.

My family and I hitched on a cab to the airport, where we soon met with The Gunawan family and The Tanu family. So there were around 9 people in our trip:




My family:

• Me 
• My dad 
• My mom 

The Tanu Family:

• Oom Kawi 
• Tante Jenny 
• Inez 

The Gunawan Family

• Oom Robert 
• Tante Indri 
• Andros 

After checking-in and what not, we went to the gate and took off to Medan!

Touchdown in Medan, after claiming the baggages, we all soon met up with Mr. Denny (I guess that's his name), who was going to drive us all around for six days in North Sumatra. He came with a large van that we rented for the trip. When I talked about the van, I really mean a HUGE van. No, not as huge as a bus, but it was big enough for 9 of us to fit in. That even includes extra spaces especially in the back seats.

Anyway, we weren't going to stay in Medan that day. In fact, we were scheduled to be en route to Brastagi on the first day, but not before passing one of the most popular durian parlor in Medan.

Yup. Ucok Durian is definitely a must-visit for durian lovers who happen to be in Medan. Prior to the trip, I actually asked a friend of mine who resides in Medan for any food recommendation around the city. She mentioned Ucok Durian in the first place, so I guess this parlor should be promising.

The parlor only serves durian, meaning that you only sit down, pick some durians to eat, and seat in one of the tables while gorging on the heaven-and-hell fruit as you like. My friend said that even if you got a bad durian, the staff would quickly replace you with another one - a better one, of course.

The durian feast lasted immediately. I only munched two to three slices of them, since you can get intoxicated if you eat too much of them. Well, I wonder what getting intoxicated by a fruit feels like, but I've had enough just to get drunk by an alcoholic drink.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The sun was high when we continued our journey to Brastagi. Since it had passed 1 pm (lunch time), we stopped by at a nearby Padang restaurant. I was a little surprised at first to find out that we came all the way to North Sumatra to get a taste of West Sumatra, but apparently all places and provinces in Sumatra have similar cuisine with each other. Hm, that explains why. So, that makes Padang food available practically in North Sumatra, as well as other places in Sumatra, but the name Padang is surely the one that takes the popularity.

Any Sumatran here? Probably this theory wrong. I'm not from that area, so...correct me if I'm wrong!

Well, apparently my mom's been to Brastagi a couple of times for business trips, so she said this restaurant is no strange for her. She let us know what's good to eat.

After lunch, we hit the road again. The journey to Brastagi from Medan took about 2 hours. Before reaching Brastagi (around a couple of miles before the city border), we stopped by at a small warung at a cliffside. Some of us decided to have a roasted corn for after-lunch snack.

Andros, Inez, my dad, and I decided to take pictures of the scenery seen from the warung. Quite breathtaking.

Before getting to the hotel, we dropped by at a nearby, under construction hotel just to get a glimpse of the captive flamingos near the hotel pond. If it weren't for Mr. Denny, our chauffeur, we wouldn't be able to see them! He's super knowledgable about the areas we were in, and we were going to.

Basically, Brastagi is a small town in the highlands somewhere in Bukit Barisan, so the air was pretty chilly. It was a decision for me to wear a sweater when the fact is, I didn't know it was going to be that cold. After stopping for so many times, we finally reached the hotel we were going to stay for two nights in Brastagi - Grand Mutiara. Much to my surprise, the hotel is actually one big building that stands among other smaller buildings along the road, and it's quite fancy too. I have anticipated to see a small three-four star hotel seeing that all buildings in the area are considerably small.

They have a large sized hall for the lobby with a couple of huge chandeliers hanging above it. Hm, someone who booked this hotel must have had a good taste, but on the other hand, it must be one pricey hotel. I think that was the fanciest hotel I've ever seen in the area.

But isn't it a good thing to get a hotel better than I expected?

Okay, enough blabbering about the hotel. Since we came all the way from Jakarta, Medan, then took a two-hour long road trip to Brastagi, we all decided to take a nap for an hour. I stayed in my room, watching cable TV channels as well as a reading a novel I bought for the trip the day before.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At around four, we met up in the lobby, ready for our first destination in Brastagi. We headed towards the marketplace, a good place for sightseeing and probably one of the most popular tourist destination in Brastagi. When we got there, Inez and I spotted some horses at the marketplace's parking lot. After a bit of an argument with my mom, who generally hates horses because of their smell, Inez and I went for a horseriding while the others decided to stroll around the marketplace.

All horses used for riding are all females because they are less aggressive than the males, as I learned from the trainer/owner of the brown-colored horse I rode on. The one that I was a riding at that moment is called Saskia. That's a fancy name for a horse, I thought. Meanwhile, Inez got a more attractive looking horse that resembles a palomino breed. We went horseriding side by side, surrounding the marketplace. At some points when Inez was behind, Saskia just stopped and waited for her (more of Inez's horse). Then when Inez's horse approached, Saskia just sniffed right at her. Apparently Saskia's trainer mentioned that Inez's unnamed horse and Saskia were kept in the same stable, making them close to one another.

At one point when I was on the way back to the marketplace, we passed an intersection where Inez was no longer seen, but then I thought Inez must be ahead of me and she had probably arrived in the parking lot. However, when I reached the parking lot when we all started our horseride, Inez was not even there. My dad – who said he'd wait there until Inez and I went back – was not even there either. My mom basically took my bag and camera before I started horseriding. So I had no money to pay for the ride at that point. I got off the ride, telling Saskia's trainer to wait there while I was off to look for my dad or Inez. He told me not to worry and that he'd wait there.

Rain started to fall, to make matters worse. Of course, I didn't have an umbrella with me. Inez arrived shortly after me, and I figured she must have taken a different route on the way back to the marketplace. Then we went off inside the marketplace to search our parents and the rest as well while the rain was pouring. In the mean time, seeing the place was literally packed with people, Inez suggested that we should probably scream out our parents' names. Probably she was joking as there was no way we could do that there.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
After strolling for a few minutes, we returned to the parking lot to find everyone there, about to get into the van. Apparently they were in a different spot of the marketplace, which made it hard for Inez and me to find.

Well, the trip continued. It was around 6 pm and we decided to have an early dinner at Restoran Asia, a Chinese restaurant near the marketplace. Apparently, the restaurant opened for dinner around that time and we were the first customers. When I saw bunch of foreign tourists coming in, it hit me that it must be a popular restaurant in the area.

We also ordered Martabak Mesir (Egyptian stuffed pancake) from a smaller restaurant next to Restoran Asia.

Later on, we went back to the hotel around 7.30 ish. All the guys in our tour decided to go to a nearby hotspring. I was tempted to go as well, but apparently no ladies were down for this plan. It would surely be awkward if I was the only girl there, so I decided to just stay in the hotel and rest, even though it was too early to call it the night.

I watched Evan Almighty in the hotel room, but later, when the movie had ended, I went to Inez's room, which was located right next to mine. I borrowed her power bank while we were watching The Muppets on HBO. Tante Indri was also in the room, chatting with Inez's mom, Tante Jenny. Then, after the movie, I caught up with their conversation and they asked how I'm doing in the States.

After the guys came back from the hotspring, I returned to my room and watched War of the Worlds. Then we finally called it the night after such a long day! Brastagi tour to be continued the next day...