Leaving Weh was tough. Seldom have we found a place that we both felt we could stay put indefinitely. The beach life, double-time downtempo owing to Ramadhan, suited us just perfectly, even though only two of the six restaurants were open, and then only illicitly. We had to place orders the night before, or in the morning for the evening, and pay in the evening. In this way we neatly sidestepped the Imams' edict that no food was to be sold to tourists during daylight hours. Of course, other than evening, we had to take meals back to the dive centre or our rooms, but this was only a minor inconvenience. And amidst this intercultural dance the muslim divemasters were eating three meals a day inside the dive centre, and the the famous Mama Donut was in plain site pushing her irresistible coconut cakes, spring rolls and, yes, donuts on starved divers freshly returned from the reef. Industry and Religion make strange bedfellows at times.
From Weh we backtracked via taxi, ferry, flight, and minibus via build-up fall-down Medan, the overwhelming capital of Sumatra, to Bukit Lawang, a small frontier town that borders on the enormous Gunung Leuser National Park. A bit touristy, but once we were in the jungle staring at the magnificent Orang Utans, this didn't seem to matter that much. The experience is authentic, and humbling. Watching the great apes swing and tumble gracefully through the trees, quick-slow and quiet. Overshadowed by the hugest trees I have ever seen, jungle tracks as much walking as using lianas and trees ourselves to climb upslope and down, in between tangles of ferns and roots. Peace.
We are now in Lake Toba, having decided almost on the spur of the moment to brave the madness of the Trans-Sumatran highway and make tracks for what was once the Koh Pangang of Sumatra. The island of Samosir, situated in the middle of massive Toba, is wall to wall with jaded tourist infrastructure, but no tourists. The locals live their (fascinating) lives but from a visitors' perspective, this place is ideal, and a little weird. A resort ghost town. Like the Bandas, and Goa, the parties started, peaked and then moved on. The death knell was the Bali bombings, and the lake fell back into slumber, belying its catastrophic origin 100 000 years ago when the greatest volcanic explosion on Earth nearly put an end to life on earth.
Sumatra is a land of extremes - we are cold here at Toba and loving the thick rain, oily on the pancake top of steel blue Danau Toba, when we baked on cloudless Weh. The violent origin of Toba is obvious to the eye, and leaving Bukit Lawang we were reminded of the terrible floods of 2003 which destroyed most of the town and killed over 300. Weh itself is still recovering from the tsunami of 2004; the rebuilding is a slow process. And leaving pristine jungle we passed through 6 hours of palm oil plantation to reach Toba, distracted fortunately (for us) by the traffic, which can not be recommended to beginners. We were to stay in Toba for only a couple of days, but it seems we will be here until next week....
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