The Fire Dragon and the Volcano

TODAY'S POST IS DEDICATED TO THE BIRTHDAY BOY, JAMES! HAVE A GREAT ONE AND A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM ME - WE'LL HAVE A BANANA SHAKE TO TOAST YOU WITH TONIGHT - HAVE A TRULY VOLCANIC DAY LOVELY xxx

This is Berastagi's larger volcano, Sinabung - we climbed her little sister, Sibayak, which took us about 7 hours all in, Sinabung can take up to 10 just for the climb up and down!

Forgot to give a big thank you to Kate yesterday for letting me use her pictures of Bukit Lawang - she is the real photographer amongst us and has been good enough to share her pics with me wherever we go. My little camera is great for video and sound though, and I took loads of videos in the jungle so an evening of slide shows for you all when I get home, methinks, you lucky, lucky peeps!

Although we were sorry to say goodbye to Bukit Lawang and to the new family we had found there, we were excited to embark on our trip to Berastagi. Although you can charter buses from almost anywhere to almost anywhere in Indonesia, the public bus system is much, much cheaper and, it turned out to be far more of an experience.....

Our bus from Bukit Lawang took us back to Medan. It was just a small mini bus, a 14 seater and it started out with just us on it. To get more customers, the drivers toot the horn approximately every 30 seconds to make sure everyone knows they are coming. Before long the bus was full. Or so we thought. Actually, in Indonesia there is no such thing as a full bus. The bus is never full. At its most packed we counted 19 people squeezed into the bus, it was hiliarious and at one point there were five people sat up front with the driver, crammed into only two seats!

The bus to Medan seemed to take no time at all, and we were the last people off. When we stopped, the driver ushered us from our minibus onto a much larger, full size public bus or coach. We were slightly bemused as to why the driver insisted we sit up front with him and thought it might be the novelty factor of western women again, until we saw the amount of people they can squeeze into a public bus and then we realised the driver had done us a favour. In return, we shared a packet of fags with him, which is a big bonding thing amongst men here. Anton had explained to us in Bukit Lawang that in Indonesia if you place your fags where everyone can see them, as the guides did with us, it's an invitation to share and that this is often the way to strike up conversations and to put people at ease. Indra had told us the same and thought the price of English cigarettes hilarious and horrific in equal measure.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed in his best Mary Poppins cockney, "It costs what I earn in a month for one pack of your fags, innit Princess!?"

The Catholic church of St Francis of Assisi, Berastagi, where we meet Ray and Benjamin. The building is a modern re-interpretation of the traditional Batak Karo longhouses here, many of which are now in ruins, which is a great shame as they are beautiful and traditionally built entirely without nails.....!!

Not that we really needed to get closer to our driver, the three of us were crammed into two seats and the gear stick was between Angie's legs, so I think she was a bit closer to him than she ever wanted to be.....

The journey itself was as hair raising as we have come to expect, with random over-taking in the face of oncoming traffic. This time, though, we weren't quite so concerned as we were the biggest thing on the road and everyone was racing to get out of our way! The best part was when we started to climb the hills and mountain sides to Berastagi though, this takes you round some hairpin bends that I never thought you could get a bus round and we passed a couple of mini buses by the side of the road that looked like they had conked out from the gradient alone! The bus driver was so laconic about the journey that I reassured myself - as I looked down a mountainside hundreds of feet below, only feet away from us - that he must have done it a million times!

The countryside was so stunning, it was impossible to be consumed by or even to notice the fear of heights after a while, which is quite impressive as Dad and Amy will tell you from our experience of similar terrain in San Francisco, when I curled up in the back seat like a whimpering kitten. The journey from Medan to Berastagi only took a few hours and although we had all lost the ability to feel our buttocks at all, we were excited to be there.

A traditional longhouse, this one long abandoned and starting to fall down. You can get inside across a small bridge, which spans a kind of square moat that holds no water now, but falls some 35 feet below.

Berastagi is a city with a huge personality, and when you first arrive, the force of it is really quite overwhelming. It is first and foremost a tourist resort, founded by the Dutch who were seeking a cooler climate in the highlands. The temperature was noticably cooler than the jungles of Bukit Lawang, especially at night when it was even slightly cold for the first time on our travels. We had a bit of a nightmare experience on arrival when we failed to do our research and got ripped off at the Tourist Information Centre for a trip up the volcano Sibayak the following day. He charged us 400,000 Rupiah for the three of us, and we paid him 300,000 up front before heading out to an ATM. None of the ATMs were working and one had a power failure halfway through my transaction, and I only just managed to get my card back, making me worry that it was a fake ATM that had just stolen my card details. I texted Mum to let her know there might be a problem and to get her to check my accounts, then we headed back to the TIC to get our deposit back so we could get food and accommodation.

A close up of the longhouse mural, which Kate and Ang say reminds them greatly of the Maori designs they saw in many parts of New Zealand.

When we got there, however, the place was shut up and a guide outside with excellent English told us that we had definitely paid too much. A little pissed off at ourselves and the guy who had taken our money we headed for Wisma Sunrise, our guest house. The owner was really understanding and helpful and stated that we should make up a story that one of us was sick the following day and demand our money back.

"If he refuses," he advised us, "You get really angry and demand the money back, he will give it to you. Shout at him."

So the next day, Ang and Kate headed down leaving me at the guest house and did exactly this. Our money was returned and we began to like Berastagi again. The ATM had been refilled overnight and we got some more money, organised a tour for Monday morning and set off to explore Berastagi itself.

A bit of a dark photo of the climb to Sibayak once you leave the main path, but the overcast weather kept us from boiling to death on the climb! Seen from below, as here, it seems insurmountable, but it's just one foot in front of another....

After Bukit Lawang, Berastagi felt really hectic. We were the only Westerners we saw there for the first couple of days and we were highly visible. Everywhere we went we heard calls of "Hallo Meesta!! Hallo Meesta! Where you from? What's your name?" We learnt quite quickly that it is impossible to stop and talk to everyone, but we always kept friendly smiles on our faces as we called back answers while we walked on by. Berastagi has a great market, and we picked up some presents and souvenirs, planning to send them back to England from the local post office. Unfortunately, we learnt on visiting the post office that to send the goods back would cost almost five times what we paid for them, and so we're toting them around with us now until we return to Malaysia, where we have found postage much cheaper. We are also now jewelleried up to the max, I am currently wearing four necklaces and three bracelets......

The cafes and roadside stalls selling food in Berastagi are amazing and we tried as many places as we could in the days we were there. Our favourites were Eropa, the best Chinese restaurant in Berastagi (where the women were fascinated by our pale skin and strangely coloured hair, and I was very shyly told by our waitress that I was "very beautiful" so she's now got a friend for life), Raymonds Cafe (which has a personality all of its own, sells books and was the only place in Indonesia we've ever seen local women smoking) and we became addicted to the roadside stalls selling corn on the cob smothered in chilli sauce - it blows your mouth off, but tastes so good it's even worth the three hours you spend picking corn from your teeth after.

The crater at Sibayak, where visitors leave messages spelled out in rocks, and where Kate left her own surreal marking of 'Pea'......

The streets of Berastagi are lined with horse and carts, which tote locals and tourists alike to any destination you like. The people are seventy five percent Batak Karo, as in Bukit Lawang and there are many local longhouses - original Batak houses which are beautiful - although with the rise of tourism and the huge hotels in Berastagi, many of these are falling into disrepair, which is a real pity. We loved loitering around the town streets and visited a local longhouse that has been converted into a Catholic church, where we received a warm welcome on Sunday after the service. The place was packed with children and young people who remain at the church after Sunday service to clean up and then to play games and sports, sing and socialise. As well as being a beautiful place to visit, the atmosphere was lovely and we spent some time talking to a local lad, Ray, who was only 15 and has lived in Berastagi all his life. As his father left his mother when she was three months pregnant with Ray, he has never attended school, but has worked since he was a child, and is working hard to learn English in order to secure a better job. He was overwhelmingly delighted to have the opportunity to practise his English on some real English people, and chatted to us about life in Berastagi.

Poverty is a huge issue here. Less and less tourists have taken to venturing to Sumatra since the earthquakes, flash floods and tsunami over past years, and it has taken a heavy toll on the local economy, with locals competing with one another for work. Although you are touted a lot here, the people are not pushy and are equally as happy for a chance to sit and practise their English with you and to proudly show you their town and culture. There is a real sense of welcome here. The local economy is a mix of urban tourism, with people earning their living as tourist guides and running shops, guest houses and restaurants and agri-business, growing coffee, cocoa and palm trees. Many locals work a mixture of jobs and we met a young man called David who works three jobs in cafes, shops and guesthouses - Glenn, his cafe is called The Chelsea Cafe after the Blues, everyone loves football here - and earns only 340 000 Rp a month.

David, our guide to Gundaling Hill, happily relaxing with his drink at The Chelsea Cafe (I think you know why we stopped here, Glenn....). As a thank you, we went with him to the market, where he impressed a local woman he is in love with by showing her his English was good enough to have befriended three English people - Good luck with her David!

"I worry that it is hard for me to ever find a wife, because I do not earn enough and my English is not good enough yet to guide. I try to learn English every day, and listen to your music and watch films. I repeat what the actors say and see what it means on the words underneath," he told us.

David was kind enough to take us to the top of Gundaling Hill to see the sunset, which was beautiful, and humbled us with his delight when we bought him a drink at the Chelsea Cafe close to the top. He even walked us back to our guest house as it was dark. The difference in treatment from the local people (especially the men!) when we had just one male with us was remarkable. No one called out to us when David was with us at all - the representation of Western women in the media and movies that we ship out to Indonesia and the rest of the world has a lot of men thinking that western women will drop their pants at the word hello, it seems. However, after a few days, everyone seemed to recognise us in the town and this calmed down a lot as they realised we weren't exotic dancers or Britney wannabes!

I think the genuine interest we take in the people we meet and the places we go also helps. We have lost count of the number of times we have been told how friendly we are in comparison to many of the westerners who visit and who are often experienced as rude and arrogant by local people, one of those cultural gaps. We took time to explain many times that back home, people do not greet strangers on the street, and that England is not quite as welcoming as Indonesia......

The fire dragon on the volcano - can you believe it? In the background you can see the sulphur vents, which hiss loudly and are incredibly beautiful in a smelly, bad egg sort of way. I'm quite impressed with how serious I look in this shot, it's my new philosophical look....

The next day we met our guide, Karim, who was to escort us to the top of Sibayak. I was quite nervous about this, as I had seen the size of the bloody volcano and was worried that I might not be fit enough. I decided to employ an old strategy of Steve Hender's to help me through the day, The Positivity Diet, where you are not allowed to have any negative thoughts and if you do, you have to instantly reframe them as positive. The climb was hard work, and Kate and Ang are more accustomed to consistent climbs than I am, so Karim and I walked behind a little ways for a lot of the climb and I took the opportunity to ask him all about his life in Kabanjahe, the nearby city he is from, to distract me from the gruelling journey. Like Indra in the jungle, Karim was very mindful of us and regarded our wellbeing as his firm responsibility and he often took my arm at the steeper parts, talking to me the whole time.

"My name is a Muslim name," he told me, "It means 'later'. I don't know why my father chose this name, as we are Christian, but perhaps he meant that I would be a success later in my life...."

A view of Berastagi from Gundaling Hill, not far from our Guest House, Wisma Sunrise. This picture shows perfectly the mix of urban life and a dependence on agriculture that is typical of Sumatra.

Karim told me that, like many local guides, when there are no tourists, he makes his money working in the fields as a labourer. As many as 500 men gather each morning in the market at Berastagi waiting for labouring work in this way and many go home unrewarded.

"There is no money from the government here, so when there is no work, there is no food, there is nowhere to live. It is hard for many of the young ones here now. So many children living on the street, no work, no place to go. Indonesia has a big problem with mental health," he told me, frowning, "People go mad, with no money, no home. It is hard."

You certainly get the sense that underneath the friendly smile and chattering voice of Berastagi is a real desperation to survive, but the city has a gritty strength that reminded me of Portsmouth, and which makes me think it will always find a way through. In addition the local churches - most of the Batak Karo are Christian, a smaller amount Moslem and less followers of traditional Karo religion, which worships spirits, ancestors and animals - play a huge role in the local community, providing a place of relief and respite to many. We met Benjamin at the Catholic church who has returned to his hometown of Berastagi after thirty years in Jakarta, to start a Caro Development Centre in his old family home, which tries to raise the skills and aspirations of local Karo people in agriculture, languages and business so that they might make an independent living more easily.

The fields and plantations where many local people make their living, growing coffee, rice, corn and even chocolate, hmmmmmm.......

The main path up the volcano was a tarmacked road, and increasing in gradient as we neared the top. At the end of the road, it is time to scramble up a small bank. The lush vegetation begins to dissipate, yielding to hard stone and scree. We walk a gravel like path up and up the volcano side. We turn a corner, and there it is - the top of the volcano!

I have no idea, looking at it how we possibly get there, it looks insurmountable, in every possible way. Before this thought can hold my attention and work on my confidence and positivity though, I notice the sulphur vents, and the sharp smell of sour eggs in the air. Around the vents are yellow stains as the sulphur leaks through.

“People collect the sulphur from here to use as compost in the fields,” Karim explains, and we are stunned to think that anyone can do what for us is a one off trek, sometimes several times a day.

Although it is impossible from a distance to see a way up the side of the volcano, as we draw nearer, footholds reveal themselves and I see that the path is walkable. I have a Forrest Gump moment where it seems to me that life is like walking the volcano in many ways.

When you look at the future, it seems insurmountable sometimes to think how you will ever get there, but as one moment becomes the next, each step reveals itself and you draw closer and closer to your goal. It is that simple, which is of course, not to say that it is easy. Climbing is not something that comes naturally to me, as it does to say, a mountain goat, but it is really just the trick of taking each moment as it comes and putting one foot in front of the other.

Before long we have reached the sulphur vent that only moments before seemed so far away. Karim picks up a stick of bamboo and reaches into the vent, which billows large clouds of steam into the air and deposits bright yellow sulphur onto the sides of the vent. Someone has placed a large canvas sack here, that seems to be collecting the sulphur as it emerges. Karim scrambles back down, bringing us the stick of bamboo with a large pile of sulphur powder in the end. I touch it and am surprised by its softness, like talcum powder, but with a very different smell to it.

“Now we will got to the crater, I think?” he asks. We nod eagerly and begin to climb the scree once more, passing several more vents along the way. Before long, we reach a small peak and as we come over the top, a steep, sheer grey wall of stone rises high above us. There are more sulphur events here, but in a sharp drop beneath the wall and dead ahead of us is a large crater, almost circular. I laugh with delight as we draw near.

Another dark photo, but I'm posting it because off in the distance on the right you can just see the top of Sibayak, the volcano we climbed. This is the view from our guest house, Wisma Sunrise, and you can see Berastagi unfolding into the distance.

At the base of the crater, the floor of which seems almost sandlike, visitors to the volcano have spelled out hundreds of messages written in rocks: names, hearts with initials and messages of peace or welcome. I find this touch of utter human quirkiness and foible strangely touching, an impermanent graffiti using small pieces of the volcano itself. Kate scrambled down to write 'Peace' but Ang and I stop her at 'Pea' as we think it is a much more surreal message to leave behind....

From the crater, we climb again to the very top of the volcano and the view down to the jungle that covers the other side is absolutely stunning. We can hardly believe we will be climbing down there. We spend a couple of hours at the top of the volcano, chatting with Karim, singing and sharing our energy food of biscuits, bananas and crisps. I am delighted that my positive thinking diet has made even the difficult parts of the experience a real achievement, and I am surprised to realise the obvious - the bigger the difficulty of an experience, the greater the achievement when you make it!

A huge millipede we saw on our way up, the fag packet gives you some idea of its size, but Karim assured us it was completely harmless and picked it up to show us. This, of course, only made us scream like the girls we are and run away.

The journey down is through the jungle and on a much, much steeper gradient and we almost come a cropper a couple of times (ok, to be honest, I slid down on my arse once and nearly ripped my hip out of its socket, but it's impossible to dwell on the pain when you're laughing so much and Kate and Ang are hopping around you screaming "Man Down!! Man Down!!"), but the sheer exhilaration of the speed at which you are forced to move makes the experience amazing. Karim told us that on his own, he can run down the side, but I would be dead within seconds if I attempted it, so settled at a jaunty hop and jog for much of it, taking time and care at the difficult bits, mum, honest!

When we reached the bottom, we were hot, sweaty and happily exhausted, but the icing on the cake was about to come. As if climbing a volcano for a day isn't enough, when you get to the bottom there is a hot spring - and they mean hot! So, it was into our cossies and into the spring, which, unlike the jungle trek, completely stopped any of our muscles aching. We spent a couple of hours lounging in and out of the spring, which was sheer bliss.

"Could anyone else do with a glass of champagne right now?" I asked. If only we had thought to bring some....

A bus journey back to Berastagi found us back in Raymonds for the duration of the evening and time to plan our trip to Danau Toba, one of Indonesia's biggest lakes, and the island of Samosir, that sits at the lake's centre, formed from a volcano thousands of years ago. We found a local guest house that chartered buses, as it is a very long journey on public transport and we had decided to compromise on this small luxury as we will be getting a public bus back from Toba to Medan.

Our guide, Karim, collecting sulphur to show us at the vents.

As I write this, we have already been in Lake Toba for a few days, and it is indeed an island paradise, but with a darker side that I will tell you all about in the next thrilling installment of our Indonesian adventure.....! Stay tuned!

Ms Berry - loving your comments, sorry I missed you from the messages on the last one, I'm rubbish! How did the interview go? xx