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We wisely skipped breakfast before our Old Delhi food tour. This is a first for us. We don’t do tours in general but despite my love of markets and familiarity with lots of Indian food there are so many street foods that we haven’t tried, and having a guide to navigate us through the famously chaotic Chandni Chowk market seemed like a good idea.

While we waited for our guide we saw this man making samosas exactly as I’ve been making them for almost 40 years, and as Ericka and Drew make them now too. It’s nice to confirm that we’re doing it right.

We met our guide and our fellow tasters, an English couple and two women from Greece, and headed into the market.

We started with jalebi, a crispy sweet coated in a sugar-honey syrup. We all loved it.

Before going any further we made a stop at a Sikh temple. I remind you that houses of worship are not Jack’s favorite thing, mostly because he doesn’t like to take his shoes off. But he promised before we committed to the tour that he would participate in everything and here’s the proof that he did. We had to cover our heads like pirates and remove our shoes then walk down the street and through some areas that may not have been entirely sanitary. But Jack was game, and so were the rest of us.

This temple is a refuge for the poor and needy and volunteers prepare meals for 30-40,000 hungry people a day.

The people eat in shifts. They file in to this room to be served. When they finish the next group moves in. It’s very calm and organized.

After touring the kitchen and serving area we sat in the temple for a few minutes, then we were reunited with our shoes to continue the food tour.

The market area is nuts. This is one time I wished I had a GoPro and could shoot continuous video of wending our way through narrow alleys and dodging tuktuks and rickshaws across noisy streets. Still photos just can’t capture the madness. I loved it. I haven’t been this excited in a market since Palermo in the 80s.

I can’t even attempt to describe — or even name — all of the foods we ate, some familiar, others new to us. We knew to avoid that green stuff. It’s fire in the mouth.

Most of what we ate was street food but we did sit down twice. This was a paratha place, in business for over 150 years and six generations. There wasn’t a scrap left on anyone’s plate. Except the green stuff.

I must have 100 photos of various stalls and vendors. I always ask permission to photograph in markets and no one ever says no. (Well, except for a cranky German woman at the Turkish market in Berlin back in 2004 who yelled at me for taking a picture of her wares. They weren’t even that special.)

Deep in the narrow lanes of the market our group paused to enjoy another dish when seconds later we were almost run over by a fully loaded rickshaw trying to make the corner with a wheelbase not suitable for the width of the alley.

This is not a pedestrian only area. At any moment a vehicle of some sort will force everyone to the edge and squeeze past. It’s like the dimension-defying night bus in the Harry Potter books, ten pounds of pedestrian and vehicular traffic in a five pound alley. Somehow no one gets hurt, but it’s hard to believe it.

Full props to me for tasting everything (it was all vegetarian.) Jack passed on two, and this was one of them. It’s called pani puri and it’s a crispy little dough sphere filled with either a spicy or a sweet liquid mixture. You have to pop the whole thing in your mouth at once, and when you bite down it explodes in your mouth with intense flavor. I tried them both. The spicy wasn’t too hot for me, and the sweet one was delicious. It’s just a lot to have swirling around in your mouth at once. Most of our crew tried to bite into it daintily, which only resulted in squirts and dribbles on faces and clothing.

The constant din becomes a brown noise background and after a while I found my brain just tuned it out.

I think Jack’s favorite was a lemon soda in a unique reusable bottle. The seal is formed by a captive marble inside that’s sucked up to the top when the bottle is cleaned and refilled. You open it by pushing the marble down into the bottle, breaking the seal.

After more tasting we plunged into the spice market where so much spice was floating in the air that Jack and I donned our facemasks. The rest of our crew braved the thick atmosphere and sneezed and coughed their way around.

If I had a kitchen or space in my luggage I’d have filled up a tote with all the fresh spices, most grown all over India.

Our other favorite beverage was masala chai served in single-use clay cups.

Our final sitdown stop was a tandoor oven where we enjoyed fresh naan and masala paneer. Notice the sink nearby for handwashing before and after eating. There are sinks and other fresh water sources all over the market. When you eat with your hands you appreciate being able to clean up afterwards.

Jack’s last tasting was a sweet fluffy concoction whose name I forget. It’s a wonder I remembered as much as I did.

There was one last treat offered us, sweet paan, a betel leaf wrapped like a cigar around spices and who-knows-what else. Only three of us tried it. One of the Greek women spit it out immediately. The English woman gagged but managed to eat it. I ate the whole thing, and let me tell you, it was a Tim Burton movie of competing flavors and textures. The leaf itself was as tough as a garden hedge and after a journey from sweet to sour to flowery herbal I was left with a strong menthol aftertaste that for hours afterward burped back up again.

And then we were back where we started with full bellies, some new favorites and definitely a couple of never-agains. We will absolutely do more food tours in the future. It was the most fun we’ve had in one day in a long time.

As far as Yours Truly is concerned everything was S.O.P. until we hit the ground. Let me explain. There was none of this floating down the runway hoping to grease down into a barely felt landing. First there was a proper hard crunch, one of those get-it-down-now landings, after which the beast bounded back up into the air and I knew we were in for another coming together with the tarmac. I haven’t felt anything like that in a long time but then again we were only a half hour late on a flight where they practically promise you to expect an hour or more delay. You know, I recall the plane had painted over logos, no markings, as if it was a rental. Still, the middle of the night is the middle of the night and we still managed to walk up the jetway.

S.O.P. means dealing with India’s strange visa requirements, ATM for a pocket full of Rupiahs, and lastly we play the sim card game and of course India has added a few new wrinkles. It seems one needs the phone number of one of your Indian friends willing to vouch for you, and a photo. We’re tourists, we don’t know anyone in India.

Normally you have to sift through many cleverly worded packages but here they only have one deal. Marce didn’t like the deal but strangely, there were no other phone companies at the airport. I went outside to find better competition but there was none to be found. On my way back in I heard someone shout, but you must never make eye contact with Tuktuk drivers or they glom on to you like a pickpocket in Barcelona. Suddenly someone had my arm firmly in his grasp and I decided to follow. He had a nice purple turban, an upturned mustache, and a well used assault weapon slung over his shoulder. I’m not good with Hindi but I understood that I was not going back inside with Marce.

By this time another flight must have landed and through a large window I could see quite a large crowd had gathered at the beleaguered Airtel booth. It was not going well. I was outside with the luggage watching a keystone cops silent movie featuring a half dozen airtel employees having great difficulty photographing dozens of impatient potential customers, and one pissed off Marce who naturally had my phone. I had to stop her from coming out to get me a couple of times. There are no signs and she didn’t know about the guy with the gun. Finally the manager came out but he didn’t know about the guy with the gun and he had to talk his way back inside. Eventually one of his crew came out to photograph me. First he held the camera up about a foot from my face and wiggled his head side to side like Peter Sellers in “The Party” and said, “blink.” I could not keep a straight face. Apparently it’s an app that triggers the camera shutter after you blink, but there was no amount of blinking that would get the thing to work. Blink…no BLINK. Twenty five minutes and countless blinks later I think they just gave up.

At least now we can call an Uber. There’s only one thing more terrifying than New Delhi traffic, and that’s middle of the night Delhi traffic. Eventually we wound our way through dark back alleyways running into gated streets that blocked our way. Sometimes we had to stop to push aside wires hanging down from somewhere above us all the way to the pavement, just to get past. Our driver would ask us if this was the way but naturally we’d never been here before.

Lit up like Christmas on the darkest of nights, I could see ahead the last building in the narrowest of alleyways and prayed that it would be our hotel. Not exactly S.O.P. but we made it just the same.

We understandably slept in a little but who can sleep when there is all of India to see. Five feet from our front door we ran into this.

I wonder if its purpose might be to keep people out, or is it to keep us in? The hanging wires are not so intimidating in the daylight.

We’re told that the Metro station can’t be missed and all we have to do is cross a dusty abandoned field and Bob’s your uncle.

A fellow field trekker showed us the way and Marce sussed out the ticket machine. We found the Metro clean with reasonably well maintained Metro cars, nuts-to-butts with people of all shapes, sizes, and shades.

It was a long ride and a bit of a hike to the famous Red Fort from the next to last metro stop. Without a clue where we might find the entrance to this massive fort, we headed toward where the most people were coming from. S.O.P. for us Escapees.

After a mile or two, walking along the fort wall, we ran into Deirdre and Rose, two Irish lasses who were touring India.

The consensus on the inside of the fort is meh, the juice is not worth the squeeze. What you want is the Amber Fort! Now that’s a fort!

We walked the wall a bit further and then struck out towards two huge towers that look like I.C.B.M.s.

Turns out it’s a massive mosque with a half kilometer of crazy outdoor market to wade through just to reach the bottom of way too many stairs up to the mosque entrance where I’m pretty sure I’ll have to take off my shoes, walk barefoot, and wrap some anonymous ladies ridiculous moo moo around me. No photos please.

I rarely go inside mosques. They’re basically empty but I’m told this one has a tower where you can climb up a claustrophobic spiral staircase and take photos of Delhi. I’m in. Jama mosque is one of India’s largest and was built in 1644. Let me tell you they did things differently back in 1644. Quite posh with three domes and a courtyard that can hold 25,000 worshippers.

Just as I was about to climb the tower, of all things, they closed it for prayer.

Next up is a long hike to something called a Step Well, built in the 14th century.

Marce says you might consider wearing a hat at this step well. She moved to the side to avoid the sun and a pidgeon hit the target dead on.

Is it just me or does this well look Roman?

After another long slog we made it to the India Gate. I suppose it’s more of a memorial than anything else.

It’s big!

Mercifully the call for an Uber was made and we found a safe place to sit and wait.

I don’t know why it was so hard for us to decide on India. I guess we were daunted. Through the years we’ve been traveling, and especially these last few years of land travel, we’ve been advised either “You must go!” or “Don’t even think about it!” We assumed it would be difficult on our own and we can neither afford, nor mostly tolerate, tours. In the end Youtube convinced us we could do it. Shoutout to all the YouTubers who share up to date real world experiences and offer a pretty good idea of what to expect.

From Kuala Lumpur every single affordable flight arrives late at night. We chose the least objectionable budget airline and arrived only slightly delayed to Delhi.

Our first task is always to get cash at an ATM and just like Indonesia, the maximum withdrawal is pitifully small for a country that mostly runs on cash.

Next up is SIM cards for the phones. We had one choice and I knew it wouldn’t be enough data for us but that’s all we could get at the airport. The process took forever, made even longer because Jack went outside to look for another vendor then wasn’t allowed to re-enter the terminal. He passed me his phone and passport under the watchful eye of the guard at the door, and the SIM vendor had to go outside to take Jack’s photo, a requirement to sign up for a phone card. The vendor was allowed back in. Jack wasn’t.

We took an Uber to our guesthouse, an impossible to find homestay down an alley parked so tight with cars that we inched along with millimeters to spare under a fine example of Asian wiring.

The next day we successfully navigated the excellent Metro system for a full day of sightseeing in New Delhi. Old Delhi will wait for another day— it’s a huge city and in a couple of days we’ll only get a taste.

It’s been difficult to decide on an itinerary for our month in India, and while we have a rough idea of the areas we want to visit for this initial trip, we haven’t booked more than the first few days of lodging or transportation. We know from experience that we may get suggestions from other travelers or guesthouse hosts and we like to be spontaneous. We’ll see how that works out.

We spend the majority of our time away from urban centers so city life is fun for us. We eat the foods we miss when we’re in more remote areas, we shop in huge international stores to replace or supplement our traveling gear and clothing, and we can take care of any medical needs. Penang is great for all of that, but the airport has no direct flights to the places on our list so it makes sense to spend a few days in Kuala Lumpur before moving on.

We returned to the hotel where we stayed before Sumatra. It’s clean and modern and with a pool at a very reasonable price, right in the middle of the shopping district. This time we had a peekaboo view of the Petronas towers. Well, one of them. If you look between the Park Royal and the black building you can see a sliver of one of the towers.

It took another day for us to finally make a decision on our next destination. It requires a visa, and nothing online assured us that we could make that happen within the week. Monday night found me laboring over the online evisa application which, for the first time ever, required information on our parents, and for the first time since French Polynesia, questions about our criminal history. (Spoiler alert: we have none.)

That done, we thought we should wait before booking a flight until our visa applications were approved. Meanwhile it was off to the nearby Pavilion mall. For the first time in our many trips here the main court was completely empty of decorations. A few days later they were all ready for Ramadan which begins the day we leave.

Of course we walked over to the Petronas Towers. We didn’t go to the top again (we did in 2018) and I’m kind of sorry we didn’t. We never know when we’ll be back in a favorite place again.

Jack of course had to admire the Formula 1 car in the lobby.

We always enjoy modern big city architecture.

Two days after submitting our visa applications we got our approvals. That put the gears in motion. We booked a flight and hotels for the first few nights. The rest we’ll do as we go along. I contacted a nearby clinic for vaccination requirements and we made two trips around the corner for shots because they can’t administer both on the same day. They also gave us recommendations on medications to take with us, so we stocked up at a nearby pharmacy.

The rest of our time we spent reorganizing our packing, watching YouTube videos for destination ideas and tips. And of course, eating.

And now it’s time to go. We’re excited, apprehensive, eager to throw ourselves into deep end of the pool and experience the rush of popping back up again.

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.

It’s 0400. Yes, that’s four o’clock AM and we’re meant to be meeting someone named Uncle Mike, the driver, and the ever patient mountain guide, Juan (pronounced Joo-Ahn, “I’m not Spanish”) in a flash new black 4-wheel drive. I wonder why we’d need a 4X4 just to drive up to a parking lot. The map shows that 2,200-meter Mt. Sibayak isn’t far but with the condition of the roads in Berastagi everything takes several times longer than it should. I do know why we’re doing this in total darkness though. It was presented to me as “a quiet walk on a forested mountain path up to a large volcanic caldera for a romantic sunrise with a view over the beautiful village nestled in the valley below.” Sounds nice but my legs have barely stopped shaking from the orangutan jungle trek thing.

It’s 4:30 and we’re off. Do we have flashlights? Oh, of course it’s going to be pitch black the whole way up but all we have is a tiny usb rechargeable. Juan offered us a loaner. In the car bounding over the broken, potholed pavement my head had occasion to intercept Uncle Mike’s doorframe which was on its own crazy random orbit. Shaken and rudely stirred we crept up to the car park and gladly escaped Uncle Mike’s brand new black torture machine which I suspect won’t look so new for long. We’re glad, that is, until we could fully appreciate the steepness of the grade, one lane of crumbling macadam pitched up at 20 degrees or more. I pulled hard till we hit the first switchback, turned, legs quivering, to admire our progress. Really?

So dear reader, picture three faint circles of light, barely illuminating six shoes on the dark side of the moon, accompanied by an unearthly gasping sound. I think that was Marce. Might’ve been me.

We paid money for this.

It got very quiet in between the gasping. There are no photographs for obvious reasons so you’ll just have to imagine us plodding up and up the short steep switchbacks in total darkness. Cue the Volga Boat Song.

That’s when things turned for the worse. Just when I thought this can’t go on much longer Juan stopped and said, “Ok, we’re about half way up” — (met with disbelief) — “and we have to be careful because now we climb the trail.”

Wait a gosh darn minute, this is not as advertised! Sure enough, now we found ourselves doing age-adjusted clambering up and over boulders and rocks with a delightful little stream running over the middle of it making it slippery in spots. Evidence of past attempts to build concrete paths or steps lie in crumbled ruin, making the footing all the more difficult. Sibayak mountain is a volcano, after all.

Finally false dawn began to lighten the frigid thick fog. Juan said he expected the wind to blow the fog off the summit. It didn’t look good.

We sensed a slacking of the relentless climbing and off in the distance we could imagine a foggy smear of color of a few tents. There are people camping here?!

We were suddenly hit with the stench of sulfur and the hiss of hot steam vents. I’m pretty sure I saw Marce glance over at me suspiciously.

We stopped to add our puffy jackets to the mix even though we’re less than three degrees from the equator, then carefully picked our way through the rocky debris field.

Suddenly over a sharp rim we were staring down into the caldera. The wind was fierce, and biting cold.

We took shelter from the wind behind a couple of large boulders to await the dawn which we knew we’d never really see due to the thick clouds scudding over the summit.

Juan, ever patient, lobbied for an assault on the summit which would mean another half hour of stumbling around in the clouds. Given the low visibility we knew there’d be no romantic sunrise view, so we were just not interested. I know we disappointed him.

On a clear day, sure. But this day had a stark bleak beauty all its own, with the wind shredding clouds over the summit peak, hissing yellow sulfur deposits smeared here and there, the moon a faint smear above, and the bubbling caldera just below us. It was otherworldly and almost intimidating.

There was nothing left for it but to start back down.

If anything it was more frightening seeing the terrible terrain we had just traversed in the dark.

By this point my legs were not giving a proportional response which is unfortunate considering the situation.

Gaining the car park Juan pointed out the butcher bill for hiking Sibayak area. It was a list of hikers lost on the mountain. Most found dead.

Sobering. I don’t know, maybe they should show the sign of lost souls before you go up. Uncle Mike informed us that the exit road was so bad that we would have to walk down to a safer place while he inched his now not-so-shiny new car down without the added weight.

Bad timing but at least we spotted this creepy foot long centipede.

I was so exhausted I forgot that we were to enjoy a sulfury hot water spa courtesy of Sibayak Volcano. We spent almost an hour soaking our weary bones in progressively hotter pools in full view of the mountain we’d just climbed until it was time to return to the guesthouse and breakfast.

On the way home I found my head intersecting Uncle Mike’s door frame more often. I can only assume that I lacked the core strength to care.

New Rule. #4: No More Sunrise Treks. This time I mean it.

Travelers tip: Sulfur does bad things to silver.

We stayed in Bukit Lawang another couple of days to enjoy the comings and goings of travelers from all over the world who come to see the orangutans. Most of the younger ones go on two or three day treks; older folks opt for one day, as we did. Regardless of the time spent in the jungle, we felt a kinship with all the other travelers. Bukit Lawang is not easy to get to, and the jungle is hot and challenging. But we can now count ourselves among the intrepid few for whom the rewards are worth the effort.

I had the same feeling when we dropped anchor in Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas in 2015. There were 18 other boats in the bay when we arrived after weeks at sea and I knew that every one of them had also crossed the Pacific Ocean in their own boats.

The other reason to stay a little longer in the jungle was to assess the damage after what was, for us, a difficult physical effort. We were fine, we discovered. Not even a little sore. Just tired.

I planned another adventure that I assured Jack would be a walk in the park by comparison, at least judging by the reviews I read online. And so we were off to Berastagi, a small town even closer to the equator but much higher in elevation. We looked forward to cooler weather and a break in humidity.

We again booked a car and driver, and after schlepping the kilometer back to the road we embarked on our second bone-jarring, stomach-churning, nerve-jangling Sumatra road trip into the mountains.

We’re always sad to see the miles and miles of palm oil plantations. I know it’s a profitable cash crop for many tropical countries but it’s also the reason orangutans and other species are critically endangered. I don’t know how you reconcile poor countries’ need for development with the first world’s commitment to protecting wild places, especially when the parts of the planet we want to protect are often the places other people are dependent on for their livelihood. It’s a dilemma.

We arrived in Berastagi under threat of rain but we quickly learned that here in the mountains the clouds roll over the peaks and through the valley all day long. It might rain, it might not. Wait an hour and the clouds are gone.

We got settled in to our guesthouse and walked into town to reload our wallets at an ATM.

Berastagi is a town of about 50,000, with a majority Christian population because of the history of Dutch settlers.

I was keen to visit the famous fruit market and it did not disappoint.

This is snakefruit, a new one on us. I’m not a fan.

We were both starving for fruit. Unlike Thailand, Indonesian restaurant food doesn’t include much fruit and we bought mango, passionfruit, mangosteen and tamarillo. We had a nice chat with our chosen vendor who kept adding more fruit to our bag. She also slipped us a box cutter so we could slice the giant mango.

On our way back to our digs we were approached by a group of high school girls who asked if we had a few minutes to speak with them for a class assignment. They were adorable and very shy and they “interviewed” us to practice their English. We experienced this the last time we were in Indonesia, and it would happen again and again during the rest of our time in Sumatra.

We finally got a good look at our coming challenge. This is Mount Sibayak, a 2200 meter stratovolcano. We’ll be climbing to the top.