Monthly Archives: February 2024

Our 30-day Indonesian visa is about to expire and we have no further plans. If you’ve been following along for any length of time you know this is nothing new for the Escapees. We’re terrible at planning ahead.

We don’t want to return to our campervan in Northern Ireland until it warms up a bit, and the mechanic we’ve lined up can’t schedule us until the end of April so there’s no rush to be back.

The one thing we meant to do while in Asia is get our eyes examined and order new glasses. Also, I lost a filling while we were in Sumatra, so we need an optometrist and a dentist. We had a return flight to Kuala Lumpur but the longer I looked online for convenient eye and dental clinics in KL, the more I wished we were going to Penang instead. Penang is smaller, easier to navigate and because we’ve spent so much time there, familiar. Jack agreed so we decided to abandon our return flight to KL and fly instead to Penang.

We took the 8:30 ferry back to the mainland, then a shared taxi for our final trauma-inducing Sumatra road trip. Yes, I got queasy. I’m better now.

It took awhile, as Asian travel often does, but we got to Georgetown the next day and checked in to a familiar convenient hotel right in the middle of our favorite neighborhood. We got down to business immediately, eating at our favorite joints.

We’re spoiled for choice on optometrists and I eschewed the big eye clinics and Family Vision Centers and picked instead a one man shop nearby. Dr. Beh was UK trained, has a great personality, and gave us all the time we needed for full eye exams and refractions. We both ordered two new pairs of glasses, for reading and distance.

It’s funny how quickly we settle into life in Penang, wandering the alleyways looking for street art we haven’t seen before, shopping, eating bagels and pastries, but mostly avoiding thinking about what to do next.

Early one evening we heard drumming out in the street and raced downstairs to find a long parade celebrating the end of Chinese New Year. To be honest, I hadn’t realized it goes on until the next full moon. We were in Christian Northern Sumatra for the actual Lunar New Year and there was no celebration, so we were happy to be here in Chinatown for this exuberant parade.

As the sun set and the moon rose we retired to the rooftop bar to enjoy the rest of the parade and the fireworks afterwards.

The days went by and we still hadn’t decided where to go next. I got my tooth filled and we had a long anticipated meetup with Mark and Sarah of Field Trip, cruiser friends we met more than a decade ago when we first started sailing.

Jack and I finally exercised a little self discipline, put our heads together and whittled down the list of potential destinations. It’s clear that wherever we go, we first have to fly back to Kuala Lumpur.

We kicked the can down the road and booked the flight.

We put off repacking for as long as we responsibly could. There’s an unimproved nearly vertical ramp not six feet from our bungalow door where Yours Truly was soon dragging our recalcitrant rolling duffle up to Tuktuk’s ring road. Eventually we realized there are very few cars on this island so we took to the street for smoother rolling. Why is it always uphill? I was assured that our new place couldn’t be much further. We stopped for a breather and asked a local who told us we were standing right in front of the Romlan Guesthouse.

There was no sign. All I could see was a rough patchwork of concrete haphazardly plopped down on an impossibly steep slope. Even being charitable you couldn’t call it a driveway. We began to cautiously edge our way down the slippery gravel surface as our wheeled duffle threatened to run me over. When we reached the bottom it was hard to believe we were in the right place until we noticed a high stone wall up another steep slope with block letters spelling ROMLAN.

I dragged the duffle up the uneven path that lead us behind a busy kitchen and around the corner towards the water.

Suddenly we were at a lakeside paradise and we collapsed at Romlan’s lovely guesthouse restaurant where we would spend almost every mealtime for the next 2-1/2 weeks.

The grounds are a garden oasis and our traditional Batak bungalow was the last on the lakefront with a magnificent view from the balcony.

Virtually everyone arrives via ferry at Romlan’s private pier which explains the rather uninviting landside entrance. We had arrived at the municipal pier down the road because we weren’t booked into Romlan until today.

When I say traditional bungalow I mean this is how you enter. Even getting into our bathroom required the same maneuver. We both had multiple lumps on our heads that first week from nighttime trips to the loo.

Every morning we woke up to this man fishing with a small net.

At our first dinner we met a tiny kitten I called Spanky who we learned was dumped at Romlan just a few days ago, motherless, and had already charmed everyone. Add me to the list.

Nearly every day we took long hikes along the serpentine roads of the peninsula, marveling at the unique Batak architecture and distinctive intricate designs.

Sometimes we walked over the rough mountain roads where we discovered cacao orchards and elaborate tombs.

We were often approached by groups of schoolchildren wanting to practice English or who have an assignment to speak to tourists. We were even serenaded by one group.

A few days into our weeklong booking we decided to stay longer but our charming traditional bungalow was already booked. The manager did her best to accommodate us but every few days we had to change rooms. We didn’t mind and she told us we’re now the Romlan nomads. Spanky usually found us regardless of where we were.

The guesthouse definitely has the look of old returnees coming back year after year.

We spent most of our days enjoying the lake, reading, napping, trading travel tales and tips with the other guests.

When it was time to go Spanky helped us pack. I’m going to miss that little kitty.

Once again we are happy to report we didn’t suffer longterm damage from the arduous volcano climb, and after a very rainy evening in Berastagi the next day dawned dry and sunny.

There’s not a whole lot more to do here but to walk up Gundaling Hill for the view of the two nearby volcanos.

The hill is steep but the road to the top slopes gently with long shallow switchbacks, so different from the brutal climb up Mount Sibayak. It was so gentle, in fact, that when we spotted a possible shortcut to the top we took it. I guess we’re getting impatient in our old age.

Near the top we found a good view of Mount Sinabung to the west, a 2475 meter volcano that last erupted in 2014. It’s still considered active and several alerts have been issued more recently. The villages surrounding the volcano have been abandoned. We are, I remind you, in the middle of the Ring of Fire.

To the north is Mount Sibayak, the one we climbed the day before, but we had difficulty finding an unobstructed view.

Jack found an abandoned cafe with a cantilevered patio marginally supported by a liberal use of very long bamboo poles. By leaning way out over the steep slope we could just about get a clear shot of the cleft in the volcano we’d climbed in the dark. My palms sweat even typing this. It’s a height thing.

The top of Gundaling hill is an odd place with three or four vignettes we presumed are for Instagramming your selfies, and dozens of small platforms of various individual designs.

I’m not really sure what it was all about and there were only a couple of other people around. We expected a cafe with a view or an ice cream vendor at the very least but there was none of that. After a few minutes we started back down again, this time taking the long switchback road all the way.

We left Berastagi with Uncle Mike, our driver for the volcano climb, his new car all cleaned up again. The private transport people try to make your drive into a “tour” but we were just interested in getting to our next destination as quickly as possible. The total journey takes most of a day anyway and we didn’t want to prolong it. We did stop for a quick photo op at Sipisopiso Waterfall, a 120-meter single drop and one of Indonesia’s tallest.

The 4-hour drive took us through the mountains, up and down again and again. My stomach flipflopped all day even though I’d taken a Dramamine before we left. I believe I suffered more motion sickness on Sumatra’s roads than I did on ocean passages on the boat.

Finally we got a glimpse of Lake Toba, the largest volcanic lake in the world and a welcome sight after a long and uncomfortable drive. The lake is 100 km long, 30 km wide and up to 500 m deep. We’re headed for Samosir Island, which means we’ll be on an island in a lake on an island, or what’s called a recursive island. It’s a thing and you can read more about that here.

It still took a long time to descend from the mountains that ring the lake to the shoreline and the ferry that will take us to the island. The lake is so big that the ferry ride is about 45 minutes to the town of Tuktuk, a tiny peninsula jutting into the lake from the very large Samosir Island.

We couldn’t book our preferred lodging for that night so we grabbed what we could, a rundown, slightly dirty place set back a bit from the lakeshore, but good enough for a long night’s sleep to recover from the journey.