Sumatra July 1990
I arrived at the steamy airport in Medan, capital of North Sumatra, at about 10.30 in the morning. I changed $100 at the airport bank and stuffed the wad of notes I'd received into my money belt as quickly as possible. On leaving the airport building, I approached a taxi driver and negotiated the fare for the trip to Lake Toba, and about four hours later the taxi dropped me off beside a beautiful lake in the crater of an extinct volcano. In the middle of this lake lay my destination for then next ten days - the island of Samosir, a short boat trip away.
The trip originated in a conversation with John, one of my best friends, in a bar in PDO club in Oman. "What's the best place to go when on holiday in Asia?", I asked. The place John mentioned was where I had just arrived.
As usual, one of the first things to do was find a place to stay and a boy I met as I got off the boat offered a room near the village of Tuk Tuk, where we had landed. I followed him to just outside the village, where a house like none I'd ever seen before met my eyes. It looked like a cross*1 between an African lakeside house on stilts and a Swedish chalet. The ground floor had no floor, just the pillars supporting the house above. This area, like an above ground cellar, was where the Indonesians kept their livestock - mostly water buffalo, but sometimes pigs. Indonesia has the largest Moslem population in the world, and in Moslem countries, pork is prohibited - so how come the pigs? It turned out that this little island had one of the few Christian communities in Indonesia. Above the pillars, reached by a wooden staircase, were the living quarters, built under the long sloping roofs common in Scandinavia, but these concave and typical of the Batak people. The room I'd rented was small and simple, no mod cons, so I realised that I would need was some anti-mosquito incense. The first thing I did was to try to sort out the money situation. I removed the wad of notes from my belt and started trying to work out what the pile of paper was worth. After counting what I had, a smile hovered over my lips - "My God! I'm a millionaire!!" Next came the calculations 1m rupiahs = $100, 500,000 = $50, RP250,000 = $25, RP130,000 = $13 - "Ah, this is easy - just knock four zeros off! :-))
The next day I went out to explore, walking around the village, and climbing up to the top of the hill above it. I realised that the island was too big to explore on foot, so I'd need some transport. I found it in the form of an ancient BSA motorbike, which had long since stopped being produced in Britain, but would suit my purposes perfectly. I hired it for two days. The first thing I wanted to do was see what the island had to offer and as there was no road following the coast all the way round, firstly I set off through the centre of the island and reached the opposite shore after about 20 minutes. The road was mostly dirt track, but the bike seemed to be used to it; the sun was shining and the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair as I wound my way around the pot holes and sped up when the road allowed (no one offered me a crash helmet and I didn't think about asking for one) was of total freedom. Then I drove back to Tuk Tuk along a road which more or less followed the coast and when I got back I parked the bike outside my strange house.
John had mentioned some psychedelic mushroom tea he'd had while there, so I thought - well, that sounds like an interesting thing to do. I set off on the bike after dark and followed the road through the village and out the other side. Five minutes later I found a small run down bar, which although closed, showed a light glowing through cracks in the door. Why I thought they served magic mushroom tea I've no recollection, but I knocked on the door and when invited in, managed to make my request understood in spite of the fact that they didn't seem to speak English. I drank down the earthy tasting brew, paid the bill and set off on the motorbike to see what I could find. Several kilometres further along the road that I'd taken for the first time that evening, I arrived at a large modern hotel, with a big party in full swing! Of course I joined the party, had a few beers and drove back to my weird horned hut on stilts at about 2.30am. I'd only been sleeping for an hour or so when I woke up and thought "Oh dear, I need to go to the toilet badly!". The toilet was on the ground floor tacked on to the outside of the buffalo pen. After using the facilities, I had just shut the loo door when PAM! I'd fainted and slowly came around on the ground with my head still spinning*2 a bit. I struggled back to my room, but I knew that I'd got a serious problem, because I remembered the feeling from the dead sheep episode in the Dovey Forest in North Wales. Dysentery is potentially very very dangerous if you can't rehydrate. Luckily, I'd got plenty of water and water purification tablets with me, as well as salt and sugar in my rucksack. The next 24 hours would be critical - drinking as much purified water with salt and sugar as possible and going to the toilet every hour or so, until my body had managed to expel the bacteria which had been introduced into it, probably by the water used in the mushroom tea not having been boiled properly. The worst thing about dysentery (apart from having to go to the loo, and feeling horrible) is the cramps. Sometimes it felt like my toes would curl up in a knot, and the muscles in my legs and stomach would also send shooting*3 pains every so often. That's just uncomfortable, not particularly dangerous, but it so happens that your heart is just a big muscle, and when that starts to cramp - you're fucked! I didn't sleep that night, and the next day I stayed in bed (and the toilet) until finally the worst was over. The next morning, I limped down to the cafe which had been my restaurant while on the island, and managed to force down bacon and eggs with lots of coffee. Then I caught the boat back to the lips of the volcano, and got a taxi to Medan, where I checked into a five star hotel - I felt like pampering myself a bit after the recent events on Lake Toba! After a fabulous steaming hot shower with lots of soap and a delicious meal ordered through room service, I was browsing through the hotel brochure when my eye caught the word 'massage'. "Ah that's what I need", I said to myself, then, after ringing reception to request the service, lewd thoughts started running through my mind, mostly involving beautiful sexy Indonesian girls giving me a full body massage in my hotel room. Five minutes later the doorbell rang and with my whole body tingling with excitement and expectancy, I opened the door. The woman who stood in front of me with a towel over one arm must have been about 60 years old! I tried not to let the disappointment show, and followed her instructions for an excellent massage which left me totally relaxed and ready to catch up on all the lost sleep in the previous 48 hours. The next day I flew from Medan to Kuala Lumpur.
*1 Noun - Def. 9
*2 v.intr. - Def. 3 & 4
*3 v.tr - Def. 6a
