Medan, a town of Indonesia, separated just merely by Strait of Malacca is forth most populated city of Indonesia. Consist of mixture of local Indonesian, Chinese and the batak tribe, Medan is a unique blend of culture, heritage and natural wonder.
Our flight took off on time. Thanks to AirAsia again for the zero fare offer, we manage to get a return air ticket for RM 88 per person for the tax, fuel surcharge and other relevant surcharge. Well worth the money consider it will took hours or maybe days if I were to swim across the Strait of Malacca.
Main attraction of Medan is non other than Lake Toba, which I would elaborate more in the next few posting.
Upon arriving to Kuala Namu International Airport, a brand new airport of Medan, we faster clear ourselves off the immigration and custom clearance and look out for our driver. In Medan they were call pak Supir. Out first destination is to a restaurant in Medan town for breakfast and meet up with our local friend, David.
David treats us a good breakfast of Nasi Bamboo and fried meehoon.
We then left for Maimoon palace. Entrance fees is merely 3000rp which is about a ringgit. There is nothing much to see inside except some portrait of the kings and queen and the royal seat. The building is build using wood but was very well maintained. Next we stop at Masjid Raya or the grand mosque. Well, Malaysia have many grandeur mosque compare to medan and it wasn’t anything to shout about about the Masjid Raya. However we do stop by for some photography.
Done with Islamic culture, we head to Cemara Asri, South East Asia biggest Buddhist Monastery. Beside the temple is a small lake with lots of tree. Surprisingly there is many Chinese crane bird and other migrating bird around. Cemara Asri is situated in Cemara Square, a richly and well planned township. Most of the residence here are Chinese, some migrating from Acheh after the racism and racial killing back in 1990s.
We bid farewell to David as we need to pardon ourselves to Berastagi, medan version of Cameron Highland. Road to Berastagi is hilly and narrow but our superb driver make it as seem as eating a peanut.
We stop at Velangkani Church, a church with Indian temple architectural. This church situated at some isolated village on the way to Berastagi. Totally to my surprise that there is such a magnificent building in the middle of nowhere.
The journey to berastagi take 3 hours and it was lunch time by time we left Velangkani Church. There is nothing much around for us to eat. We have no choice but to endure some hunger during the journey.
We were then taken to Taman Lumbini, a few kilometer away from Berastagi town. It was again magnificent to see another great architectural in the middle of farm! The journey into this wat requires our minivan to pass through dirt road with tomato and strawberry plantation on both side of the dirt road. We are so hungry by the time we arrive there and we saw a big banner bearing ‘Vegetarian food set lunch for 15,000rp’. OMG is so cheap and we are so hungry thus we headed to the wat and make some offering. The rain started to pour down as if the end of the world. It was so heavy and cold since we are at the highland and we have no choice but to abort our intention for vegetarian food and skip our lunch.
Pak supir wanted us to check into the hotel since it was raining and Gundaling hill seem not possible at this hour as the cloud is so thick that it close the 2 volcano. However, I instructed the driver to send us to the fruit market instead and buy some fruit. The market itself is worth visiting as it offer wide range of fruits with multicolors. I personally love to see how fresh and nice is the carrot. We bought passion fruit, persimmon, mango, limau manis and raspberry. We spend 100,000rp for fruit but is definitely worth the money invested.
We check into Mikie Holiday Hotel, which will be posted in another posting. At the cold weather, I decided to dip into the swimming pool as there is many people there. I regretted. I catches a cold not long after that. Dinner was at the hotel restaurant as we are lazy to walk to town and do not want to ask the driver to send us to the town. The food is worth the money paid for though it is consider expensive back in Malaysia.
At night we hang out at the hotel area and walk a little bit nearby the hotel. This is when my macho behavior (giving away my jacket to another friend who don’t have it)….and cost me a fever and flu for the next 2 days!!!
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