Sunday, February 3, 2013

Horas North Sumatra (pt 2)

The next day after our arrival in North Sumatra would be energy spending, as we were all going on a full-day trip around Brastagi. I actually underestimated this town in the first place, but the visit proved me wrong. There was a lot to take a look in Brastagi. Anyway, our journey started with an early breakfast at the hotel, as usual. I had a plate of omelet and fried rice to kick off my day. My dad apparently already took off earlier in the morning for a stroll. The clear, unpolluted sky in the morning allowed him to take a snapshot of a nearby mountain which the hotel overlooked.

Once the breakfast was done, we set off on our first destination of the day. I was made curious with brief mentions from others that we were going to see some sort of a “golden temple”. A place like that in this pretty isolated hillside place almost sounds impossible. However, when the van started to enter a smaller road with rough surface, a glimpse of blinding gold color reflected by a tall object in the far distance caught my eye.








The van reached the parking lot of the golden temple tourist area: Lumbini Park. As soon as we got there, the golden object became clearer to us. It was much taller than I expected, with pointy golden, needle-like structures that scrapes the clear blue sky. No admission ticket was required. By just signing a guestbook and putting off our shoes, we were free to roam around!

Lumbini Park temple was seriously an interesting photography object. I mean, it's not everyday you get to see something that is pure gold and you can touch it immediately. Yes, tI'm talking about the whole building construction was almost polished with gold color with elaborate decoration and carvings. I was not convinced, though, that it was real gold. Not so much known about the park as we didn't take a guided tour. Meanwhile, some areas remained plain and smooth. The vast yard outside the temple had the smoothest and cleanest marble floor I've ever walked on.




Without further ado, we took a look around.
















The inside of the temple, which is a vast hall with barely any gold color, is decorated with red Oriental ornaments. The center of the hall is apparently a prayer spot with an altar of Buddha and offerings. 





We didn't spend a lot of time there that we decided to go out and stroll to the garden.







The garden, likely other spots in and around the temple, is unexceptionally beautiful, with elaborate flowers growing on each side that are still carefully preserved as well as statues of animal that really go together with the concept of nature. The temple also has a forest located in the lower ground that provides some sort of tracks for visitors to step into. However, to enter the forest, we had to go through a far, high stairs that go all the way down.

Definitely not an option for any acrophobics. Andros, however, decided to follow the track. Since he didn't come back, we all thought he might be missing somewhere in the forest. All of us that stayed in the entrance of the forest managed to identify any person spotted in the forest and see if it was him, but apparently he went out from the other exit.

Later on, after the visit was over, we went off to another destination, which is Gundaling. Gundaling is just another recreational place in Brastagi up on a hill, where visitors could take a glance of both two mountains that surrounded the areas (I forgot what the mountains were called). The place definitely offered an extraordinary scenery overlooking Brastagi town as well as the mountains mentioned.







Then, we descended down and settled in a small warung where the dads spent their time eating another round of durian. Inez went on horseriding while I followed afterwards (we could've done that at the same time, but my mom didn't allow me to ride a horse at first, until she finally changed her mind). I forgot the name of my horse, but she was literally a black beauty. I think she got a fancy name too, but really, I forgot.





So I rode her around the block of Gundaling hill. The hill definitely offered a much better, smoother surface for horseriding and not to mention, the scenery along the road is just astounding (it overlooks the scenery of Brastagi town from the heights). Midway, the horse trainer asked. “Do you want her to run?” I was like “But I've never been on a horse that runs.” He said. “Well, it's worth the try.” I told him to ask the horse to run a little slowly. It was a little shocking at first, not knowing that being on a running horse could actually make the rider bouncing up and down on her back. After getting more comfortable, I asked the trainer to make the horse run a little faster...and she did!!!

Boy it was one of the most adrenaline rushing moments I've ever been through. I was literally bouncing up and down while managing to maintain my balance at the same time, but luckily, I was gripping on the saddle grip instead of the normal reins. It was tense but fun at the same time. I felt like in some sort of a war movie where the warriors traveled from one place to another on a running horse. Not long afterwards, I reached the warung where I started and paid the trainer. The horseride today was much more fulfilling!

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Well, it was lunch time. The Tanu and Gunawan families wanted to have Karo's Roasted Pork for lunch. Since my family can't eat pork, we decided to go eat somewhere else.

After my family was done eating, we went to pick up the Tanu and Gunawan family, and they were all but intoxicated after eating pig's blood as a sauce (gross). They said it tasted good, but I could tell from their red faces that pig's blood is definitely not the safest option to eat while traveling.

Well, since apparently most people were too weakened by the pig's blood sauce, we decided to go home and take a nap. Then near dinner time, we went out to Restoran Asia for dinner again. Before going back to the hotel, the moms went to the adjacent stores to buy some snacks for tomorrow's roadtrip. We were going to another destination tomorrow, Prapat (Lake Toba). Mr. Deni notified us that en route to Prapat, we would most likely not to find any restaurants or stores, since we would pass mostly remote areas. So snacks to be eaten for lunch along the way should be highly considered.

We called it the day after dinner! Can't wait for the roadtrip tomorrow!



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