I'm running out of quips on Sumatra so this is my last puerile attempt. As this is the fourth installment I'm going to keep it shortish. This is the result of a day around the island mostly visiting Batak stuff and what's left of the volcanic activity. I have lost the plot on this so I will do some photos and hope you haven't seen this stuff before. In the mean time have a great New Year and I hope you had a fantastic Christmas. So we hired a car sans driver and weaved our way around the cultural high spots of the island. Introducing the Batak Ex factor contestants the shuffling Samosir dancers. These guys in a very hot arena shuffled around clapping their little hands together in a not all together enthusiastic manner. And who can blame them dressed like that in 30 plus degrees on white sand. Apparently there were several related stories but the steps were still shuffled and the tiny hands were still clapped. The building is apparently authentic and a work of art in itself. The final act introduces a rather reticent puppet and the obligatory tourist participation. The young fella on the left had a bit of trouble as the legs of the prop got stuck, the prop represents the last king apparently but more of this later. So after a few judicial wallops with feet and hands the limbs became free and the show continued. The final act was to come round with the hat to collect a bit of shuffle money and to be honest they deserved every sweaty bit. I may be wrong here but if I heard the driver right this is the last resting place of the last king of the Batak and some of his wives. The way people treat their dead is quite fascinating on Samosir they have family tombs and they seem to be scattered at random around the place. Presumably the more ornate and large ones are of the karked weathy and the more modest are the not so. Interesting is the christian symbols mixed up with animistic and other symbols. So we dropped in on the drivers Granny where she was working her fingers to the bone making stuff for tourists and the shuffle dancers. The foot belongs to a leg that is attached to one of the many cousins of the driver, he was either dead or totally fast asleep while granny made the money. It was quite interesting watching an artisan at work. We tried to walk to this place but going by car was much easier. This is another kings palace without the shufflemeisters. It has a bit of an air of decrepitude about it but that's probably because it needs a bit of maintenance and TLC. You certainly wouldn't want to come home from the pub nine sheets to the wind and then climb the rickety stair to nod land. You might even slip through the cracks in the floor, or bash the old melon on the low beams. Mind you it could produce an interesting bruise if you catch one of the carvings just right.
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This is for you Ian, mind you I think you may be the only one to read this drivel. So the really good thing about the Village Inn is that it is close to the village, it sits on the waters edge and it is quite open making birding relatively easy. There's not many places you can enjoy a cold beer while watching Little Egret, Asian Glossy Starling and three species of Munia/Mannikin going to roost after a hard day fishing and working the fields. Mind you the first bird I saw was a Brahminy Kite the second was White-breasted Waterhen. We also went on a cultural tour and saw Black Eagle and a few other nice things, there will be a brief list at the end. Now for the fuzzy photos. By the way Hol has pointed out that it is Batak for the people, batik is printing on cloth. Apart from those mentioned we also saw Scaly-breasted,Black-headed and White-headed Munias, Purple Heron, Dark-throated and Black-naped Oriole,Sunda Brush Cuckoo, Thick-billed Green Pig, Blue-banded and Sork-billed Kingfisher, Maroon Woodpecker and possibly maybe Plume-toed Swiftlet but that maybe wishful thinking. There were also some old friends like the Golden-headed Cisticola, White-bellied Sea Eagle and Spotted Turtle Dove.
,Where on earth can you hire a car with a driver for $70 for a five hour jolly through the Sumatran countryside. Well the answer is Medan, me dear. So we hauled our suitcases down the yellow brick road, had our last fruity breakfast and poured ourselves into the rather disheveled vehicle. It was to take us to a town on the shores of Lake Toba called something like pretty pretty as the town we were headed for, the surprisingly static Tuk Tuk, is actually on an island in the lake. Now the journey itself was an entertainment in itself. Again only having a rudimentary knowledge of the geography of Sumatra we were at a loss to know where we were going so the route was even more baffling when we took side roads, abandoning an apparently good main road, and even traversing a field of sweetcorn. And all this without a sat nav, road map or even a road sign. I guessed it was all done on sense of smell and the fact he had probably done it many times before. One thing the roads did have in common with the rest of the world is that where there are roadworks there are lots of people standing around doing sweet fanny adams, unless you count the never ending smoko as doing something. So we arrive eventually at Parapat, not pretty pretty as previously stated, the driver drops us at the port and says catch the green and white one. OK they all look green and white under the layers of grime and rust but as helpful as ever two complete strangers grab the cases chuck them on a boat and if we didn't move quick enough we would have followed. But it was a dignified boarding for Hol and a holding a hand, rather undignified boarding for me. The thing wasn't built for wheelchair access trust me. Now I have arrived at hotels before mostly by car, but also by bike, back in the day, motorcycle even on foot. Those were the days of Youth Hostelling but never by boat, but this one dropped us off at the hotel and once again the cases were whisked away and deposited .Thats enough waffle but we did see @#$%ing mornkeys just outside Parapat. Long-tailed Macaques I think, interestingly none seem to live on the island. One last thing Lake Toba is/was a super volcano apparently 10 times bigger than Krakatoa. Big bang theory or what and it is a very big hole filled with a lot of water. The old, the new and the sort of blue period middle aged housing on Lake Toba. Pretty specky front/back garden though the dust bowl needs attention. All or at least most houses round here seem to have a satelite dish, which may mean the free to air programes are similar to Australian ones or there isn't any free to air. Almost all of the people around here are Batik and this is where Batik people live. Not your average council house the carving alone would bankrupt your average county council. The dusting must be hell on a stick, just think of the height of the ladder needed to reach the spiders at the top, which I chopped off in the photo. Until a few weeks ago I had never heard of Medan but we were on our way to it, vanishing into FinnAir from Heathrow to Kuala Lumpar, via Helsinki naturally, then a little jump of an hour from KL to Medan with a budget budget airline of Air Asia. So we landed in a teeming city it was hot sweaty and very exciting. The hotel that Hol had booked was the Hotel Deli River just on the outskirts of the heaving mass, it seemed a simple job of catch a cab for the short ride. Getting a cab was easy the short ride turned into quite a long one. This was due to the huge amount of traffic, not surprising really, the state of the roads and the continual lack of signs to anywhere. This wasn't really a problem as we had no idea where we were going anyway. Eventually we, well the driver did, found the hotel and had the unsettling experience of our bags being whisked away by two total strangers. This we found was standard operating practice and we sank gratefully into an air-conditioned slumber. The following morning we were woken by the pleasant twittering of small dickie birds, that turned out to be Tree Sparrows in the main. However there were pleasant surprises in the shape of sunbirds, Leafbirds and Ioras. Also whizzing around were a couple of species of Kingfisher, including Collared an almost universal species. The highlight however was a Buffy Fish Owl optimistically trying for dinner in the hotel swimming pool. I have also come to be pretty suspicious of anybody that shouts out Asian Palm Swift or Black nest Swiftlet cos they all look the same except in these two cases one is bigger than the other. It is a funny thing that when you see something flying through the ait you assume that it is a bird, well one of the first things that I saw "flying" turned out to be a lizard and another one was a Plantation Squirell both very cute but at the time baffling. Sorry Ian no bird photos but I'm sure you will enjoy some of the ones I took. I had had thought that I could access the river but Medan turned out to be rather sprawling and if not intimidating then rather overwhelming. i followed the flight path really closely thinking it was a bird but all I found was a flying lizard, well technically it was a glider but it was rather perplexing. It also had the most vivid yellow throat flap which it would inflate when it landed, presumably a @#$# off this is my tree warning. In fact if you look myopically at the picture you can just see it, I did think it was a leaf at first but it ain't. I won't give a comprehensive list of birds but the highlights were obviously the owl firstly, then White-breasted Kingfisher,Sunda,Yellow-vented and Sooty-headed Bulbuls, Scarlet-backed and Orange-bellied Flowerpeckers, Ornate, Brown-throated and Van Hasselts Sunbirds, Asian Shikra and finally a Lesser Adjutant Stork flapped lazily over while we were on the way to breakfast. Only 18 species but it wasn't that sort of place and there were several that refused to appear, just sat and made exotic noises, or just whizzed through.
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January 2018
Authorlives in the northern burbs of Ballarat, Victoria. Love birding, BBQing and sport and of course the Aussie way of life. I have a fantastic partner two dogs and two fish. Categories |