bukittinggi (11/5/08 - 11/7/08)

hello! i know you missed us! (and mom, i'm the one who writes in lowercase, Joe uses proper Capitalization). i think joe's updating our trip to northern sumatra - bukit lawang. i'll chronicle our journey to western sumatra.

first off. yay obama! yay! yay! yay! oh. my. so happy! wheeee!!!!!!!!

on wednesay, november 5th, we took a car with a couple new friends from sweden (hi louisa and oscar! hope you found a flight to jakarta okay!) to the medan (http://redirx.com/?0iuz) airport. our flight was sort of delayed. there was no announcement or update on the boards saying so, but we boarded about an hour after we were supposed to. oh well! the flight was fine and we made it to padang (http://redirx.com/?0iut) just fine. we had another adventure taking a bus to what we thought was another terminal, but wasn't, so took a really expensive taxi ride for like 3 minutes to the next terminal. once there we found the right bus, but had to wait until it was full.

in the meantime, we enjoyed our first real padang meal at a typical roadside restaurant (well, it's on the road, and they set up the temporary restaurant each night. it's quite amazing what they can do with a generator and some plastic tables and chairs). it was the first time we've had to eat with our hands in indonesia and luckily we both read the guide book and had a clue what to do. we had a tasty combo of rice, tempeh and tofu. by the way, the tempeh in this country is amazing. i've been getting it every chance i can get. it puts our packaged/plastic/preserved version to shame! so fresh and so completely tasty totally on its own.

anyways, the bus finally left and we made it to bukittinggi (http://redirx.com/?0iu5). we opted to skip padang on the way up (we'll hit it on saturday). we took this awesome, totally tricked out opelet (minibus the size of a vw van), full with huge speakers and a subwoofer, blue neon lights. it was blaring techno so loud that it took us a while to understand the driver was asking us for a $1 bill. funny! we made it to our hotel and were a little sad the raging party was over.

so, yesterday (11/6/08) started off with a tasty indonesian breakfast of fried rice, noodles with all sorts of tasty spices and super sweet tea. we headed off to explore the city - the market, the clocktower (the clock was made around the same time as big ben and a gift from the queen of holland), the panoramic view over ngarai sianok (a beautiful canyon). we met a parlimentary official from a town south of jakarta (the capital city on the island of java). we've been noticing that a lot of people are not afraid to strike up conversation. we've never had so many random conversation. well, i should say joe, not so much me. this is a very muslim country and the men usually begin talking with joe. i do chime in and they are totally cool with that, so it's been fun!

the best part about the panoramic overlook was the monkeys. tons of macaques, all ages and sizes, being their mischevious little selves. if an unknowing passerby walked by with a plastic bag and wasn't paying attention, the monkeys would try to steal it! it was crazy. we saw a couple kids get scared at almost being attacked by animals about half their size. no one got hurt, though. we had a fantastic vantage point from the tower overlook we were sitting in (about 2 stories high). we sat there for a good long while watching people feed the monkeys peanuts as well as watching the juvenile monkeys horse around with each other.

it was a pretty awesome day. we finished it up with some dinner at another street shop and played on the super slow internet for a short while.

today (11/7/08) was another fun day of relaxing and exploring. we opted not to take a super packed crazy all day tour (120 km) of many sights and villages outside the town. instead we found our way towards the bottom of the canyon, walked across a rickety bridge to the other side to koto gadang. it was a sleepy mountain town that i'm sure at one time had been a great tourist destination to watch fine silver jewlery made. a nice elderly gentleman came up to us and began chatting. we just happened to be walking in the same direction, and he told us the names of his english teachers from the 50's! great memory! i hope i'm that sharp when i'm his age. we enjoyed some tea and snacks (not really sure what we were eating, but they were tasty!) at a cute little shop. i ended up buying earrings from the man who both ran the shop and made the jewlery. the stuff was so intricate, so beautiful!

we wandered around town a little more, bought some gifts and had the best time hanging out with the elementary school kids who just finished up school. they loved talking to us and we got a great picture with them. we were sad that we didn't bring anything with us to give out - they were asking for pens. we had no idea we'd get such an opportunity and will try to be more prepared next time. it was so awesome hearing their giggles and laughter as well as seeing their smiles and shocked faces when we spoke to them in indonesian (thanks to our trusty lonely planet phrasebook!). it was such a special afternoon.

we made our back back across the canyon and back up to the tower overlook for some more monkey gazing. it was a slow afternoon for the furry cuties, but still fun to watch. we grabbed some dinner and then back to the overlook to watch the sunset. believe it or not, i was cold! we're about 980 meters above sea level, so it gets nice and cool at night. last night we were walking around with our fleeces on. yay! a little taste of fall in indonesia. phew!

we tried to find the local dance performance, but only came upon a run-down theater. we managed to find the movie theater we were looking for yesterday, but the movie was in indonesian only, so we opted to wander the market instead. joe tried on a couple nice looking fez hats. we'll probably head back tomorrow to see if the price can come down a bit. joe's become quite the good bargainer! i need to take a few more lessons...

and here we are on the internets! hope all of you are well - please make comments or send us email. we love hearing from home!

tomorrow we'll spend the morning/early afternoon here and then head to padang. we fly out early sunday morning to kuala lumpur, malaysia and then another flight to siem reap, cambodia, on monday morning. i'm sad to leave indonesia, as we've had such an amazing time here. on the other hand, i'm really excited for what cambodia has to offer! whee!