Village Excitement

Day 4

Today we've said goodbye to the jungle to visit the village again.  We braved our crazy bridge one last time.  I must say it was getting easier to navigate each time but I do enjoy going places without crazy bridges.

us at school

We walked along the canals again and had a visit at an elementary school.  The company I traveled with seems to have a feel good aspect about trying to improve the places we visit.  So we left them with a gift of writing books.  Which they were incredibly grateful for.  But then later we found out it was a private school to a degree so maybe they were the only place okay with disrupting class to let the white people sit at a desk for 10 minutes.

They kept telling us that the kids were excited to see us but it was the teachers that were far more excited to see us.  They kept chatting with us all after our visit peppering us with questions about where we were from, and what have we seen and where are we going.

It was a Muslim school and it was fairly basic.  Just desks and chairs with a few desks for the teachers.  And a bit of decoration.  The class was a lot more disciplined than I remember our class ever being.  Our guide taught the kids a few phrases in English.  Although I think that they probably knew them already as English is taught in Indonesia at a young age.  The impression I get is that the better your English is the better job you can get.  As I had zero language barriers in the two weeks we were there.  Aside from our second guide not knowing some of the slang which I don't really count as a language barrier.

My favorite part of the school was the outside.  They had all these inspirational signs on the exterior.  Some were educational with anatomy pictures, or diagrams to do with science.  And then there were the inspirational signs.  My favorite was "don't be lazy and study at home".  Priceless.

canal in the village

I never did get a straight answer but I believe that some of the schools do 2 sessions of school a day as we saw a lot of school aged kids wandering around when the rest were in class.  They also go 6 days a week and get only Sundays off.  But this would make sense if they only go for 4 or 5 hours a day.  The new President has put a big focus on education and it seems that he has built many new schools in the past couple years helping more isolated areas have an education.

The village was far larger than I expected.  They live in far more modest homes than we have.  Most are just a simple square house with a covered patio out front.  Tin roofs are common and you also see some grass roofs as well, but more for outside spaces.  One trend we did notice is that a lot of people have a little shop out front on their patios.  One lady had a deep fryer and would sell snacks to anybody stopping by.  One lady was making the grass roof sections to sell.  It seems that most of the residents are farmers or in tourism.  Or realistically in both.

us on the tuk tuk

During our tour we saw a lot of fruit trees everywhere.  As well as just a lot of tropical plants which is still a novelty for me.  Cats seem to be big in the village.  The cats are a lot smaller than we have here at home.  And most seem to have a genetic defect with an oddly twisted short tail.  Most of the pets here just wander at will and come home at night.  There was also a lot of chickens wandering everywhere.  With it being more Muslim pork is a tricky one to find.  Although we did see a few pigs in yards.

Our village tour today included lunch at a home in the village.  Only they needed a space big enough to accommodate us all so we went out to a farm on the edge.  It was a bit of a distance away so all of a sudden we came upon a bigger road filled with tuktuks.  So we all went in a convoy of tuk tuks to the farm.  I've never ridden in one and it was fun.  A little terrifying on the dodgy access road to the farm but we all made it safely.

Dessert at the farm

We had a really good lunch.  It was a nice treat to eat somewhere other than the hotel restaurant with their small selection of dishes.  Ellie showed us how to make Sambal.  It's a very spicy topping made of tomato and spices.  Most of the restaurants in general wouldn't serve it unless we asked and seemed wary of giving it to us as it can be very spicy.  The lady of the home made us some lovely desserts.  They were mostly rice based, as much of the cuisine in Indonesia is, and not nearly as sweet as we are used to.  The guides all seemed excited that we didn't devour them as they grabbed up what was left once we were done.

And this is the point at which I was a bit confused.  All of our jungle guides and several of the guys who carried Terry down were all there for lunch.  And we were not in the jungle at all.  Poor Idris had to walk through the village with us carrying his trusty first aid kit.  I'm not entirely sure what their official job descriptions were but it must have included staying with us from start to finish.

Sultan's palace

We had more rice and copious amounts of fruit for dessert.  I miss all the delicious fruit.  Ours doesn't taste nearly as good.  And the one guide remembered that I really enjoyed the passionfruit so he grabbed a couple off the vines for me.  Yummy.  And these really good rice noodles with sauce.  It was a really good lunch.  The family seemed excited to see us there and it seems like they are set up to have groups fed here often.

Heading back from the farm to the bus was a bit interesting.  All of the tuk tuks except one had all left.  So we took motorbikes from the farm to the road.  It was a walkable distance.  And totally flat unlike the jungle.  But the bikes were much faster.  I was a bit nervous but realized it was Lili our jungle guide driving me so I figured I was in good hands.  Motorbikes are the main way to get around.  The roads are terrible and cars are expensive so they are just easier.  And despite the age restrictions they have in place you see a lot of young kids driving around that probably shouldn't be.  And in Sumatra they aren't really big on wearing helmets either.

Medan

It was a long drive back to Medan.  Despite only going 100km away it took us nearly 5 hours with the traffic and roads.  We did get a bit of a mini city tour.  We saw the Sultan's palace in Medan.  They are entirely figureheads now.  I'm not sure if they even have as much power as the royal family in the UK.  The traffic was nuts in the city with it being rush hour with the occasional train coming through to slow things down.  Our hotel was quite swanky.  But sadly we didn't get much of a chance to enjoy it as we had to leave at 330am the next morning to catch our flight.