Christmas update

Oh cool, a month already since my last post. I've been on the road for a while, visiting Phuket, Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta with a friend and now we've arrived in Lake Toba. And what a journey it was.

First of all we got pretty cheap flights on two days notice from Phuket to Medan and thusly our journey here started with a wake-up at 6am to make sure we catch the ferry from Koh Lanta to Phuket. There were no problems with that and even the airport transportation worked flawlessly. Not minding the surprising running away of the cashier before giving back our change but apparently she just needed to change the large note to some smaller ones. Letting us know beforehand about her plan would have been a bit more settling and would have probably saved the dumbstruck look in our faces when we were just left there ticketless and without our money. But we got to the airport on time and the flight departed pretty much as planned. And getting the visas on arrival was no problem either as experienced from the last time we had US Dollars with us. But gradually the things started going downhill from that point on. The local minivan/bus to the Amplas bus station went smoothly but apparently there weren't any public buses (26k IDR) going to Parapat anymore so we had to settle for a more expensive option of paying almost four times as much for "luxury VIP AC transportation straight to the ferry terminal" by our dearly beloved Mr. Reagan who you should probably avoid at all costs if you ever happen to run in to him late at an Indonesian bus station. Well, still we are talking about sums that are less than a return ticket to Helsinki Airport from the city centre so it was not really about the money that got us a bit frustrated when after a few hours of driving on the wrong lane, death-ridiculing overtakes, occasional refilling of the tires and series of emergency brakings later we were told that the van won't go any further and that we would have to pay some extra for the last leg of our journey. And mind you it was already almost 1am at this point without any proper sleep so the tiredness and being screwed up from both ways combined with the low sugar levels really made you reach for your imaginary shotgun. So eventually we had to pay 40k IDR extra for the change of transportation and we finally arrived on an unmarked bus station in Parapat at 3am. We had figured that since we got delayed about three hours from our scheduled arrival time, it wouldn't be much of use to find a guest house for a few hours and we might as well just struggle through the night and take the first ferry to Tuk Tuk. Well, it didn't depart as scheduled either so finally at 8:30 am we were on the last leg of our route. And arriving in the guest house to find out that the room we can have is still being cleaned so we had to wait extra 15 minutes that honestly felt like two hours at that state of tiredness. But after 27 hours of being awake we were finally laying down and after sleeping until early evening, we were slowly starting to get ready to feel the Christmas spirit as it was after all December 24th. Celebrating the occation with a single man's choice of christmas feast (beer and pizza) we finally got back to our room and I believe it was around eight'o'clock when were sleeping again.

So definitely an unforgettable Christmas, away from friends and family. And the normal day rhythm might actually be possible already today... We'll see.