Bayur

We asked the minibus driver about Beach Guesthouse, he grunted, pointed back and dropped us off. We asked around and some people did not know what we wanted. eventually one minibus driver took us back to Minanjao to the place. when we walked down this narrow track to the guesthouse, it was empty and not what we had expected. It turned out we wanted Beach Inn which was in Bayur so we caught another minibus to where we had been before! the driver wanted 10000 instead of 4000 for the two of us and with hindsight may be I should have paid him as it wa past 6 p.m. when their service technically stops, no point irritating the locals over $0.6. Bingo the manager initially said he was full but eventually conceded and gave us a room. the guesthouse was at the centre of some paragliding event as well as some election meetings so there were lots of people hanging around.

The manager

Bingo the guesthouse mananager is a nice guy and a little strange too. a lot of the times he does not have what we ask for food, such as not having jam as he would like to make it himself, or that he only goes to market for Happy Chicken on Fridays. He has no beer as his friends tend to drop in and help themselves to his drinks but offered to pick up some for us. We solved this problem by asking couple of Australian girls making beer runs into Minanjau to get some for us too. He also tends to appologise for everything and everybody including the habit some Sumatrans have for giving you wrong directions or information. Last night the place was being used for some kind of meeting and there were 4 people in the kitchen and he was not terribly forthcoming about our chances of getting food. we had a great chicken curry at a nearby place, 2 portions each actually as we were hungry and the portions tend to be meager by our expectations.

on the second day we had changed room and Ersan could not find his glasses so we enquired from Bingo. He was adamant that they had found nothing and that may be we did not trust him! later he was very appologetic as someone had handed in the glasses to one of his staff who had not informed him.

Day one and two chilling out on the benches in the reception overlooking the lake with a stream running behind which provides a soothing background.

Ersan has been talking about hiring a canoe and exploring the lake but we have been surfacing lateish so on the third day we hire a motorbike from the guesthouse and set out about 1.30. we followed the main road and enjoy the incredible scenery including white water rivers alongside the road.I notice a leisure complex including an outdoor swimming pool and water slides only meters from the river being used by some locals.

We stop at a nearby town which seemed quite large in comparison to where we stay. We buy some cakes and have coffee opposit where I notice the lady grating coconuts. It is an interesting machine, a little like a very large lemon juicer where the central grating part about the size of an small apple, is powered by a motor. The coconut is split in two and  the inside is held against the juicer (which vertically, a bit like a steering wheel of a car). The woman checks visually every so often to see which part needs to be more grated and inevitably there is a little bit of the shell is also included. The grated coconut is gatered in the drum like bowl surrounding the grater and scraped off. There was a customer waiting for hers and I understand that this is fried with some eggs as a local dish. Ersan also orders some as he want some on his pancake but as it turned out we left the very fresh grated coconut in the plastic bag overnight and it was very slightly sour and not as nice as it could have been despite the pineapple pieces that we added to it.


After buying some fresh fruit we head back to and explore one of the side tracks going up one of the mountains. it turns out to be very beautiful but at times treacherous due to lack of road surface. I am quite happy being the passanger today and have really enjoyed the ride but was not too happy going up very bad tracks and was concerned water, water in boat, I would not have chosthat it would get even worse, but it does not. We manage to come down a different route and get some wonderful sunset photos as well as having a dip in a very refreshing river where I manage to lose one of my flipflops. Ersan went into water naked downriver from me.

We join the main road again couple of kilometers back from where we had joined the track and within minutes we are in a downpour and take shelter and refreshments in a shop.

I had been surprisingly contacted by Liz the day before as she had also come to Minanjao, to catch up and have coffee so we go to her guesthouse for dinner. She has aggrevated an old knee injury while coming off Mount Mirape and is not very mobile or comfortable. She is heading to Kualampur tomorrow for her visa run as well as a checkup on her knee. We almost fell off the bike as we were getting to her guesthouse Cafe44 as Ersan lost control and pulled off into the gravel, luckily we did not fall off and I did not lose any skin despite lack of a flipflop.

day 4 about mid day we walked along the lakeside using the ridge between the rice paddies as track in order to find a canoe. It was nice but at times the ridge was quite overgrown and difficult to tell if there would be any support when you put your foot down. the guy with the canoe was praying so we waited and he lent us this blue canoe for free which was nice. The rowing was not however so easy. First the balancing was very hard as every slight weight shift by either of us threatened to tip the canoe over, I grazed my right knee in the canoe trying to keep a balance, and then with Ersan managing the larger of the oars at the back we had lots of fun. at one point we went round a circle (I know this because of a little dead fish floating nearby) three times. At times I gave up and let him carry on as greatest of efforts by me were easily countered by him due to where he sat and the size of the oar.  We took what felt like an hour to get to the middle of the lake as we had intended to go across, given the weather change later it was a good thing we did not. We decided to head back towards our own shore although a little down from the guesthouse for food and refreshments which by now we needed. This took some time to manage but we shored and left the boat and the oars near one guys cottage and walked onto the main road in search of food. as is the custom we were told nearst place was one to two kilometers in either direction and no food in this part! we continued a little way down and within a hundred meters we got some fried noodle and noodle soup (mie goreng and mie barus). I also grazed on whatever I could find on the tables (there are baskets and jars of crackers, cakes and drinks on tables so you can have what you want) out of hunger or the stress of the experience! I hadnt really enjoyed it so far with the heat of the sun, unstable boat and circular travel despite attempts to relax into it. When we got back the boat was there withoiut the oars and I had little hope of ever seeing them again and was wondering how we would handle this. fortunately the kids that had been playing in the water nearby eventually recovered them for us from somewhere on the island, quite willingly even though I had originally thought they had thrown them into the lake as a childing prank, I used to do worse as a child (no confessions here).  I saw another half dozen dead fish floating nearby while waiting for our oars to be returned, all their eyes missing and one partly eaten in the belly area. I am not sure what these fish have died of, there is a bad stench on the shore and on the lake but unsure if this was from the boat or the water. there was lots of vegatation rotting on the shore.

By now the clouds have gathered and water is choppier than I have every been in. I swap places with Ersan. we keep taking in water and I do my best to scoop it out only to get some more within seconds. If I had had the choice I would not have gone into the lake in this weather but being there in the circumstances it was in some ways enjoyable and although we zigzagged a bit due to the ripples and our struggle to row the boat we got back reasonably quickly even though we almost ran into couple of the fish farms on the way. The fisherman declined money and declared the coconut I had brought back as no good and proved it by breaking it open. The coconut milk had turned into a white sponge which if you sucked got a taste of the milk, the flesh was rather tasteless. The fisherman then sat down and played with this really clean and good looking kitten which seemed almost pedigree and quite playful. He also offered us a smoke which Ersan accepted, very high tar content of 39 mg compared to about 13 that is usual in the West. a little later Ersan headed onto the main road and came back with a pack of smokes for the guy who by now had begun his next set of prayers. The fisher man seemed very wirey, smaller than I am but very fit and muscular although not bulky, skin colour of coffee beans and missing/twisted front teeth.

There are lots of fish ponds here for fish farming (as well as cages on the lake itself) alongside rice paddies. there is also a lots of water irrigation channels which seem to feed all of these systems and eventually ending in the lake.
some of the ponds dont look too fresh with greenish or shallow water.

On day two I noticed something floating on the lake which on first glance looked like a piece of wood but it was travelling purposefully rather than drifting. I discoverred this to be a lizard and looked closer to investigate. as I walked to the lakeside there was a disturbance in the water within meters of me as I had startled another lizard which headed into the vegetation for cover. I was very lucky to see it so close, Over a meter long including the body which was about 20 cm in diameter, it was so exciting. The lizard which had caught my attention earlier submerged and soon emerged about 4 meters to my left to disappear into the same vegetation, it was similar size to the first may be a little longer. they tend to have quite long tails. there are also smaller ones I have seen (as well as the litte , gekoes, that are found on most walls hunting insects) some very pretty with golden backs. I was told couple of days later that lizards feed on dead fish from the lake.

21st May
we leave on a semi-private car to Pedang for a few days and plan to fly to Kualanpur or somewhere else to do a visa run.
we are a little late getting out of the guesthouse and the driver is driving really fast at times doing 120 kmh through some villages. I do my best to relax into the situation as we drive through most of the places we did on the scooter few days ago. we have a driver change who although drives more slowly is probably more dangerous than the first as he hesitates in some awkward situations.

we spend a little time in Pedang looking for a place to stay, it is a hot day and the cheapest place is 200000 for the two of us but it is near the beach. Charlie from one guesthouse is very helpful and tells us about Bungus, about an hour away with nice beaches and cheap guesthouses including Tin Tin. we grab a taxi and head there. Ersan realises he is hungry, we had time to eat at Pedang but did not consider it as we thought we will be staying anyway. We also ran into an Austaralin man I had met in Toba on the day I was leaving and was not in a good mood and found him a little rude so had ignored him. He suggested where he was staying in Pedan to us but having visited it while Ersan stayed with the luggage found it too expensive.

TinTin is very basic, shower from a bucket but the room is 10 meters from the seafront and the scenery is pretty good.