Surviving Sumatra

Right the power is constantly going down so Im going to type with fingers of fury - sorry claire for the awful grammar.

I shouldnt really have named this 'surviving sumatra' as it is absolutely lovely and the earthquakes were only in the first week and there havent been any tsunamis or flash floods yet (we're now out of the flash flood zone - bukit lawang (jumping point for orang utan jungle trekking) - 4 years ago the entire village was washed out and 300 people died - not a very big village so a substantial portion of the population, they never received international help so a lot of people never rebuilt; and going into the tsunami zone up to Pulah weh off the coast of Banda Aceh - the place worst hit by the tsunami killing 250,000 people, a lot of whom died because the government refused any aid to enter aceh because of its very militant separtist movement, aceh is rich in oil and other natural resources and is exploited by the javanese central government and US (thankfully 3 days after the tsunami the aussies flew in without permission - love that aussie indominatable spirit). Ok so now that Ive loaded you up very quickly with facts, things I like/love about Sumatra

1. When people greet you they shake you by the hand and then put their hand to their heart, so sweet and welcoming. Sumtrans are all smiles and how can they help you. We got stuck after hiking out to a volcano, gunung sibayak, near berastagi - it looked a bit like there should be teradactyles flying and brontosauruses stomping, the volcano had a jagged crater top and rotten egg sulphurous fumes, coloured in flurescents billowing out, - and some guys in a pick up truck gave us a lift and wouldnt take any money for it, they picked up other locals on the way, who smoked next to open canisters of petrol which was a bit terrifying. But EVERYONE (every man - apparently women in asia are the only untapped market left for cigarette companies) smokes constantly - unfiltered fat cigarettes and they save the ends to make a new one. Some people smoke clove cigarettes which is such a lovely lovely smell and the cigarettes spark as they drag - if I was a kid it would definitely make smoking seem appealing to me.

2. Appreciation of natural blessings - Berastagi is surrounded by volcanoes and has really rich volcanic soil so its the garden of indonesia, they have a monument of a giant cabbage in the centre of town and in the next town along its ripening tomatoes. Not only are there enormous fruit and veg markets - selling smelly prickly giant durian - I met a lady who named her daughter after this ugly fruit, tamarillos, passionfruit, they also have nurseries selling blossoming flowers. Sumatrans are also pretty understanding of mother nature and her sometimes cruel hand, when we were in the jungle in bukit lawang we felt a tremor in the middle of the night, when we asked the guides they shirked it off and said only a little one, it wasnt until we encountered an aussie couple with a mobile - reception in the middle of primary rainforest??-that we found out there had been 3 earthquakes, one 7.9 on the richter scale and the effects had by felt as far afield as jakarta, in java, another island???!!

3. Yodelling - at the moment we're on lake toba, it sort of looks alpine but there are avocado trees outside our hotel, the island is batak (in the north people are acehnese and at the coasts most people are muslim, in the centre most people are christian and mainly batak - which is a little beer sanctuary in the middle of ramadan). We saw a traditional batak show at our hotel, little girls dancing - hands together pointing down and toe tapping, seemed really easy til I tried, the littlest girl was a bit of a nazi and kept shouting at me to correct my movements, 'all together!!!' at the same time!!!', but the band was AMAZING, they had a 2 part program with an mc, the first was all pipes and wind instruments and some bongo drumming but with sticks - the drummers break beat sounded a bit like phil collins in the air tonight but Im sure phil probably stole it from them, the second program was all boy band styley, 5 guys, 3 certainly over 50, 2 with guitars the others with sports jackets all sang and harmonised, a bit sort of four tops-ish, but with yodelling bits and the music sounded slightly hawaiian a bit spanish guitary and it was wicked, I bought the cd. Harry the drummer said there is batak blues, batak hip hop, Im gonna have to investigate.

4. All cats in indonesia have the same name, manis, or cuching manis - sweet cat, but often just sweet, a lot have crooked tails or stumps but Im assured that they arent broken they're just born that way

5. People here do eat dog, but they prefer black dog - something to do with power and virility. Nice change to the european preference for blondes. The bataks also keep them as pets, so its difficult to figure out which is for eating and which is for stroking

6. The sumatrans confuse the letter 'f' and 'p' in english, Araffin, our jungle guide said he learned english from the bbc worldservice and prided himself on his proper pronunciation - would say things like 'fardon' instead of pardon and the river is going rather 'rafidly' now.

7. Araffin, actually Araffin should be top of the list,

ok got to go thunder going off will finish later