Does anyone speak "honest" around here?!?

Seriously, I don't know what is wrong with Indonesian people. Having been screwed around, woken up, turned around and screwed once more you are really happy to be out of that country. Well, shouldn't be so harsh as I've only been to Sumatra, but especially in Medan you would probably be better off selling a kidney in the black market and having them to drop you off in some remote area of Malaysia than trying to arrange anything with the "help" of locals.

We arrived to Medan after a few relaxing days at Lake Toba and this time the direct bus for the whole route was 20k IDR each as compared to the 120k indirect route that we had the joy of having on our way there. Unable to put things down on paper as I am we took a cab that would most certainly take us to the guest house of our choosing. Sure, 40k is an OK price. Let's go.

After explaining the name of the hotel on a two-way radio to someone at the other end, I was already pretty certain that it wouldn't end well. But after 15 minutes more of random driving the driver hands me a cell phone and there is an English speaking person (by their definition at least) on the other end saying that because our destination is far away, the driver wants 100k. Quite bluntly I said that it's not okay and that a deal is a deal. And the deal was 40k to our hotel. So the conversation ended and we were driving on a good-for-nothing road at a slow speed and when the driver finally saw a hotel he took us there. Well, it wasn't exactly what we had planned but at least we were able to use the Internet there to acquire the full address of the place. And then the driver wanted to have 30k extra because he had already driven us there and now he would have to go to the other direction. We "packed our bags" and came to an understanding that he would take us there and we would pay the amount we had originally agreed on. Guess you need to sink to their level to be actually on par with them. Just have to be mindful that they will most likely still beat you with experience, but luckily he agreed to take us there without any advance payments (which we definitely wouldn't have paid anyway).

Arriving to the destination 40 minutes later, I just gave him 40k and exited the vehicle. It took him some time to count the money but surely he came after us. We checked out the room and he was waiting at the downstairs restaurant. We were discussing the matter with the hotel owner and he was quite understanding. After that we came down, just ignored him, checked in and went back to our room to wash up and change some fresh garments on. I guess his motivation ran out eventually as he wasn't there anymore an hour later and we were free to go to have some dinner and get some money from the ATM to pay for our ferry tickets to Penang.

And did everything go as planned in the morning? Sure, except that the guy disappeared for a while with our passports, the tuk-tuk driver apparently didn't take us to the right place or the arrangements were otherwise faulty as we still had to do some extra digging and nagging to actually get the free transportation to Belawan that was promised to us. The ferry left almost two hours late, but after finally having the Malaysian immigration stamps on our passports we could finally relax. Acceptable accommodation and great Indian food make a good foundation for good nights sleep.