Medan

Just some unconnected thoughts/observations from our 25 days in Indonesia:

- they drive on the left side although the main colonial influence was Dutch

- traffic rules are mere guidelines. For example red lights apparently do not apply to scooters, becaks or to anyone between midnight and 6 am. Then you just dart into the crossing honking and hope for the best.

- people are mostly really nice and helpful, although an overall feeling persists that everybody wants to sell you something. street merchants and taxi drivers generally leave you alone though once you made clear that you are not interested.

- Claire insists that papaya tastes like a kiwi, but sweeter. Karsten does not agree.

- men will let grow the nail of their thumb or pinkie. This shows that they don't have to do manual work

- you are terrible quizzers (except Nat). The 6 official religions are Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. In most of those, local beliefs and customs are woven into, especially into Islam who is - generally speaking - less strict.

- they have no problem printing something in English, even large ads, without having anybody proofread it. So on a menu you might find 3 different writings of scrambled or wrap for example.

- we were asked several times to take pictures with locals. Friendly curiosity and a beauty ideal of a white skin is what leads to those requests. So far we happily obliged.

- the food is overall pretty darn good although people say Indonesian cuisine is not among the best in southeast Asia. They are definitely not shy with garlic! Fried rice or noodles are the most popular dishes. Stuff that we particularly liked usually included water spinach.

- prices: in most places a double room in an acceptable hotel or guest house costs between 7 and 15 EUR per night, often including a small breakfast. Food is also pretty cheap, main indonesian dishes are between 80 cents and 3 euros. Western food is more expensive. We only had one shared pizza so far. The great, fresh fruit juices are around 1 EUR, tea 30 cents, coffee with the ground coffee just thrown in the cup is 60 cents. The only expensive thing is beer, easily around 2 euros for large bottle (630ml) even in a shop. So we basically stopped drinking. The same applies to Malaysia, so we have to wait till Vietnam for cheap beer.

- language: 1500 words of Dutch are incorporated into bahasa. And they are busy including English words aswell. For those, they just adjust the writing to the english pronunciation, like bas, teksi or imigresen. Then, everything is "finished". Whether the bus reached its final destination or you finished your meal.

- and a lot of other stuff which we forgot about right now...Read more