I am in a murder house. Don’t worry mom and dad, I’m not likely to be killed tonight in my sleep, but if I were looking for a quiet place to smother someone with a pillow and have no one notice, it would be here. Now, you may accuse me of being melodramatic or expecting too much from a room for three costing $7.50, but this is particularly unpleasant. The guidebook said, “clean, the whitewashed walls make it appear even more so.” I would like to believe that this was written in 1960. Then I could blame the intervening half-century for the mildew, the rust, the broken toilet, the cockroaches (I was fine with it until he showed up) and the couch that looks like it’s seen its share of triple homicides. But I bore you with my complaints. I have no Internet now, so when I post this in the morning before my flight, I will have survived (hopefully) and all will be forgotten.
Of course, that is my most fervent hope for everything regarding this city. This is my third time in Medan in a week and my first night spent here. The grates in the sidewalk to keep you from falling in human sized holes that lead to the sewer are all gone. Walking along the sidewalk in Medan at night or on a bike would lead to death or serious injury. I certainly wouldn’t issue health insurance to someone living here. Even the tomb of the Sultan, who died in 1998, had one side of its marble rim broken off and in the trash heap behind the cemetery. All this in the Grand Mosque next door which I had to pay 5,000 Rupiah to see. I cannot wait for my Batavia Air puddle jumper to wing me away from this mosquito bitten, cockroach infested city of millions.
Not that the trip here was fantastic either. After the joy of finding ourselves in a private car from Bukit Lawang to Lake Toba, I think we got a bit spoiled. Although we managed to end up in a bus with as many people as seats, the driver inflicted the agony of Indonesian music on us. This music, which I’ve heard (and been able to escape) virtually everywhere defies categorization into my catalogue of music genres. So, I’ve come up with a new one: electro-ballads. We listened to four and a half hours of raspy crooners accompanied by keyboards, key-tars, and what may have been a key-saxophone. All just a few decibels too loud to be ignored…
One positive, though, was that the bus driver was determined to stick the three foreigners in the back with the lack of leg room while the four Indonesians got the spacious middle and front seats. However, we rebelled and simply pretended that our politeness dictated that we let our fellow passengers in first, only to be herded past the folded up seat into the back. The driver did his best, saying what I’m sure was “no! no! you go in the back!” But we just smiled and insisted they lead. Foreigners 1, Locals 0. Well, that’s not quite right… Let’s try again: Foreigners 1, Locals 7. Shucks…
Funniest part of the whole trip: the woman in front had live chickens in a cardboard box on her lap. First amusing bit was realizing about halfway through the trip that there actually WERE live, clucking chickens in a cardboard box on the bus. The second was when we hit a particularly rough patch on the road and I saw the top of the cardboard box lift repeatedly as the poor chickens inside were slammed repeatedly into the top of the box. Priceless. I fear my humor has become less sophisticated in my absence…
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