Medan, Lake Toba

'Beca' or otherwise trishaw or pedicab is a common kind of transport or preferable choice of transport to get around within the city center of Medan. With minimum charge of Rp1,000 for a one way ride to Medan Plaza, we reckoned there was nothing to negotiate about the price.

The ride took us through the polluted (industrial) city of Medan. Apart from 'beca', Angkota bus (the yellow mini bus) is another alternative way of transport in Medan or if it rains.

The 3rd largest city in Indonesia after Jakarta and Surabaya. Like any other poor city in South East Asia, Medan City experiences problems with transportation, air pollution, traffic congestion and vehicular growth that keeps increasing year by year in accordance with the city's economic and population growth- that was what we were told.

In short it's a polluted, noisy and dirty city. The city where child labour is still widely used today.

The town on our way to Lake Toba.

Medan came about from a little village to a city today due to its vast potential for agriculture's volcanically enriched soil. During the Dutch colonial era, tea, coffee, tobacco and rubber were produced with imported Chinese labour, resulting in one of the largest populations of Chinese anywhere in Indonesia.

Then in 1960s due to the assimilation into the new order under President Suharto's (strong advocate for Chinese assimilation) government and as part of 1967's 'Basic Policy for the Solution of the Chinese Problem' and other measures, all but one Chinese-language papers were closed, all Chinese religious expressions had to be confined to their homes, Chinese-language schools were phased out, Chinese script in public places was banned, and Chinese were encouraged to take on Indonesian-sounding names.

We met a street vendor who spoke Hokkien fluently to us, he was telling us about how he got his Indonesian name although he's a Chinese. Speaking Chinese in public places was banned during the 1960s assimilation period, according to him.

We rented a mini bus and visited a small village on the outskirts of Medan before heading to the famous Lake Toba. It was the afternoon after the rain, the path that leads to our host's house in the village was muddy. We observed most villagers on the outskirts were truly in need of clean water which in this poor region, it was hard to come by.

Perhaps, to own a sow and boar is considered wealthy to the farmers to escape the cycle of poverty.

From the village, it took us few hours ride in the mini bus to the mountain village of Brastagi in the Karo highlands.

Then to a dip in hot volcanic springs.

The stunning view of Lake Toba.

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The Jong's Crocodile Farm My Niece and Nehpews Visited Recently

Sometime ago a 13yo niece of mine was telling me she would like to have a blog like mine one day or something more like an online scrapbook for photos she's taken and memorabilia.

My sister's family went to Sri Aman during the recent school holidays and made a trip to Jong's Crocodile Farm and Zoo with the children. I can only guess that my 6yo nephew was truly enthralled with animals by the way he described some of the animals he's seen at the zoo to me.

Eerr... what's this animal again? Wildboar?

I wasn't there with them, so I can't really tell how did he react towards animals he's seen for the first time, but as he would normally be enthralled with something new especially animals, I guess my guessing is based on children are often excited due to natural learning mechanisms in them :)

A porcupine. My niece took all the photos with her SE phone-cam.

Meet Mr. Bujang Senang. His crooked teeth give him an intimidating appearance.

A friendly baboon, I guess.

I think this is a peacock. But it looks a bit miserable.

Honey bear sleeping soundly and undisturbed.

More sleeping porcupines shot.

This one's interesting, I wonder what happened to this poor fella's tail. Crocodile with no tail?

Green.... carmeleon/monitor lizard? Whatever it is, it does look like a green monster. Wait, it's iguana!

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Poring Hot Springs

After an hour of walking up the hill and back down the hill, we were back at the hot springs where we were told the springs deemed to have healing properties to de-stress and soak away the sores and aches of muscles.

Most tour guides usually recommend the soaking in the hot sulfuric minerals of these wondrous springs after the canopy short trek or after descended from Mount Kinabalu. Isn't it amazing how the wonders of mother nature treat us!?

What amazed us was the place was crowded on that day probably it was due to public holiday (Keamatan) or school holiday. On our arrival, every park shelter and every public outdoor tub was taken, the public pool was full and every private bath house was booked. Leaving us wondered where to go...

We booked a private bath house nevertheless and it was not available until after an hour or two later.

So we thought of we might just take a walk at the butterfly farm just a short distance from the Poring area.

Again, there was a fee to enter the butterfly farm. I'd imagined it's got to be like Cameron Highlands' butterfly farm I visited years ago where I've got a picture taken bending down surrounded by butterflies.

We entered in the park, few meters in front of us located an exhibition building showcasing all kinds of insects, arthropods, butterflies and an educational information of insect life cycles and social habits.

"Did you know the butterflies male and female wing patterns are different from one another?" One of my nephews told me. The boys indeed had a great time of learning.

Next, after an educational tour inside the exhibition hall, we proceed on to the garden through plastic chain curtains all eager to see butterfliesssss.....

I started to imagine the boys would be excited with butterflies surrounding them. We found... poor butterfly what happened to it?

There were only few small butterflies around and some plants in the garden.

At last, on our way out a butterfly flew across in front of us.

We proceed to the Poring and checked out our booking and were led to a house with private hot sulphur bathtubs inside. There were two bathtubs, a bath or changing room and a bench to sit on.

Both tubs are fed by hot water piped in from the source springs and has to be mixed with cold water from the other pipe before climbing into the tubs to soak. For an hour, we paid RM15 for a soak in the hot sulfuric minerals water and came out feeling refreshed.

The children sulfuric public pool with slides is located on the other side of the Poring area. It was full as well, so the children didn't get the chance to slide although they've been longing to. Next to the pool site, a cafeteria was such an inviting especially after a walk, a soak and hungry tummies.

We dropped by to check out their menu. Smelled the tempting aromatic BBQ chicken wings and decided to have lunch somewhere else.

Plants along the way:

Roses are red my love, violets are blueee... this is not violet though.

Can you spot the bunnies!? Bunny plant.

Pussy tails!?

BIG spider!

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Poring Canopy Walkway

The 6yo nephew who was excited even before the vacation started had been telling about reaching the mountain summit to touch the clouds. When we reached Kinabalu Park, he saw the pictures of climbers to the peak of Mount Kinabalu at the park's exhibition centre and he's been inquisitive about, when are we going to climb the mountain over and over again.

We had one fulfilling breakfast at Mount Kinabalu Heritage before departing for Hot Poring Springs one of the tourism destination located in Ranau. Our tour guide reached the front door of the hotel exatly at the hour mentioned.

On our way to Hot Poring Springs, we passed by few villages, the views were as wonderful as was our ride from Kota Kinabalu to the foothill of Mount Kinabalu, Kundasang except for its winding mountain road.

We were briefed about the 825 meters jungle trekking to the canopy walkway by our tour guide to prepare us for the walk as we were taking mom with us.

It turned out that it was a jungle trekking up the hill all the way until we reached the starting point to the 41 meters high of 157 meters long walkway.

It was a stroll amidst the lush canopy of the Menggaris tree, king of the forest and a sweaty walk. As the walk required stamina, we were worried about mom half way through. Nonetheless, we all made it there.

Finally, we saw the canopy walkway....

A small amount of fee were required in order to take pictures of the nature, trees, plants and anything along the way. I paid RM5 for my efficient digicam.

It's a strictly prohibited to destroy any tree or protected plant in the park.

The Queen of all trees met us on our way through the walk.

Looking down from 41 meters high canopy walkway.

And finally, finally, we reached the exit point ending the 157 meters bouncing along the canopy walk. The rest of the walk was walking down the hill back to where we first started at the ticketing hut.

This is how they looked like after the 825 meters jungle trekking up the hill. Ah! so tired after a great experience of canopy walk up the 41 meters high in the tree tops :)

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Mount Kinabalu Heritage Resort

Along the way, the blue colored resort building stood proudly on the hilltop can be seen as we ride on for another 30 minutes more journey to the destination. The 6yo nephew kept asking, 'are we there yet?' over and over again. Now I understand what Johnny meant when he said, he has to stay calm when traveling with kids :)) I think we repeated over and over again to the 6yo nephew, 'very soon.' Despite the answer given, he still kept asking until we finally said, 'ok! we're here.' And we were actually there...

Village lies in the Kundasang Valley.

Formerly known as Perkasa Hotel and recently extended their new stilt chalets built amidst the pine trees only a walking distance away from the resort hotel across a few yards long pedestrian suspension bridge.

Located on top a hill with views over looking valleys, mountains and the majestic Mount Kinabalu, we reached Mount Kinabalu Heritage Resort and Spa way past lunch time.

Checked in our room immediately, we'd expected there will be no air-conds in the room as the natural mountain air atmosphere is enough to keep us in the cool breeze without an air-conditioning.

I was delighted the moment I pulled open the window curtains and saw the beautiful scenery views of the valley village surrounded by mountains and...

the mountain peak was just right outside the window towering above us...

the sound of wind blowing through trees, cold mountain air and beautiful sunset over silhouetted mountain.

At around 2pm after had settled all our luggage safely in the room, it was finally lunch time!

We were surprised to be served with plenty of food at the resort's restaurant. The waiters and waitresses in their Dusun costumes greeted us warmly upon arrival and led us to the table reserved for us by the tour agency where the lunch of seven course meal were served, so much so that we can hardly finish the food.

Unfortunately at lunch the annoying houseflies were everywhere buzzing around, most probably they were from the vegetable farms nearby using poultry-waste fertilisers farming. We were kept busy for a while chasing away flies while eating, until we requested for a candle at least the candle flame could help a little to scare away flies from coming near our food.

From our room looking down was a cottage-like house surrounded by pine trees. It was so cool!

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