Apr. 16-17, 1978 - Indonesia

Happy birthday to my sister, Joyce.  Sunday is the mail boat’s day off and for a fee they take anyone who wants around the island on an all-day sail.  We paid our $1.75 and were treated to a full day’s tour in the sun.  We left around 10am and returned at 8, tired, sunburned and happy.  On board they cooked lunch and dinner was over a charcoal fire.  We stopped at an old Batak village and swam in a hot spring – well swam isn’t exactly the word – put our toes in is more correct.  Then we swam in the lake where the hot spring, now a warm spring, joined it.  Sunset was memorable and the rain waited until we were snug in our rooms after dinner.

The next day our friends Ira and Rifka decided to stay on at Lake Toba for a few more days but we left by the early ferry to Parapat and caught the 750 rup. bus for Medan.   This bus trip was more uncomfortable than the one coming up, if possible, due to cramming as many people as possible in any empty space.  The police actually caught and fined the conductor who was riding on the roof – served him right.  Bryan actually had someone sitting on his lap part of the time.  

In Medan we were let off in front of the Garuda airlines office and we booked the next flight to Jakarta leaving at 4:30pm.  No problem and we landed in Jakarta at dark.

Friends had given us the name of the Bethel Hotel across from the Bali International and since the taxi driver didn’t know the first he took us to the second.  After some searching we located it at the back of a church – a lovely clean guest house and they had a room with a fan for $12.  That’s cheap for Jakarta and includes breakfast and all the ice water you can drink.

Garuda had given us a box dinner of fried rice so we just sluiced and went to bed.