We woke up early this morning and got all of our gear packed up and ready for the trip north to the rain forest. We had a nice breakfast (potato omelette because it’s delicious) and waited with Ratman for the ferry. It arrived close to 8:30 and we were the first people on the boat. It was a great way to say goodbye to Lake Toba and Romlan. The weather was beautiful, there was a nice breeze (I keep mentioning breezes because it was so hot and humid without at least some airflow), and even though the boat started filling up with other people leaving Samosir, April and I kept our own bench and spent the trip talking about what was to come.
Ricky, from Raja Taxi, met us at the ferry landing to walk us and another couple past the other taxi companies. Raja Taxi also owns a little cafe, so we sat down to wait while Ricky tried to drum up some additional customers. The other company, Scott and Steph, were also heading to Bukit Lawang but only for three days, not the ten we had scheduled. They had been traveling for two months and had two months left before they head home to England. I had been unsure what I would do on the 8 hour car ride up to Bukit Lawang but ended up talking to Scott for most of it.
We didn’t leave Parapat until close to 11 but the driver was very focused on making up for lost time. He had no problem passing cars in the oncoming lane while going around blind curves as we wound our way up and out of the volcano. About 15 minutes in to the trip we passed an enormous cargo truck that had, sometime in the last hour, driven off the side of the road and slid down the steep hill. It had drawn locals who were standing about in the way of traffic talking and eating. We whipped around them with a loud blast of our horn and kept climbing.
The next six hours were tense as our driver passed pedestrians, scooters, cars, trucks, and even an ambulance with its lights on (we actually passed the ambulance while it was also swinging into oncoming traffic to pass another car, making it one of two daring double overtakes). As we neared Medan, there began to be stretches of boulevarded road which, in my naivete, meant we would not be swinging into oncoming traffic to pass regular drivers. How wrong I was. Our driver violently swerved through a gap in the boulevard, laid on the horn, and floored it. Oncoming cars moved over to drive half on the tiny shoulder for the 30 to 45 seconds we were stranded on the wrong side of the road. At the next big gap, we slammed back into our own lane and our driver just assumed everyone would make room. They did. If I never have to ride in another car in Indonesia, I will die a happy man.
After six hours in the death van, we pulled into a gas station and were told that we would be switching vehicles for the last two hours. A man from the guesthouse Scott and Steph were staying at was in the van to escort them from the van to the guesthouse. He tried to sell us on staying at his place but we told him that we had already booked a place. He called Green Hills, our guesthouse, and then let us know that someone from there would be waiting for the van when we arrived. I guess backpackers walking through Bukit Lawang get propositioned constantly by other guesthouses, so this is how they protect their sale during the slow season. The drive to Bukit was much more sedate in terms of speed but for a good portion of the trip there was also no pavement. If you have ever seen Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, we were moving as much as Jim Carrey in his Land Rover except that we were pretending.
When we reached Bukit Lawang, we said goodbye to Scott and Steph, thanked the calm driver, and were met by Ando from Green Hills. We had to walk about 20 minutes from the shuttle stop to the hotel and that entire time was spent walking down a concrete path crowded with guesthouses and souvenir shops. I was already sweating quite a bit by the time we reached Green Hills because it was hot and humid but there was absolutely no breeze. We sat in the open cafe at Green Hills while Ando went over what we had booked and I mopped my brow constantly. And then things went sideways. So as not to pollute this post with the negativity that is coming, I’ll end it here. We left beautiful, amazing Lake Toba and managed to make it to Bukit Lawang after a harrowing van ride. Things could only go up from here, right?