Medan–Lake Toba–Singapore 12/1/11-17/1/11

If you were in Kuching you would have known that KIA (Kuching International Airport) was closed down for almost 24 hours on 11th Jan 2011 due to an AirAsia plane skidded off the runway. Heard it was due to the heavy rain, but then, if the weather was really that bad, why did the pilot landed at all?? Okay, mayb accidents do happen, but y did they need 24 hours to clear the runway??? 24 hours, do you know how many flights were delayed? and KIA claims to be an international airport, can’t imagine how bad the situation could be if we really had any international flights. Alright, I think I should stop complaining about no International flights in KIA, I’m not sure if KIA could really handle it……

This took 24hours!

Well, if I wasn’t taking a flight on 12th Jan I probably won’t haven been so concerned. Talking about my flight on 12th, it was already retimed to start with, originally I was suppose to have a few hours between my flight from kch-sg and sg-medan, but due to the retime, I have only 1.5 hour between my flights, and the incident may cause even more delay than it already has! I was worried the whole day, and also very sick, nonetheless I packed my bags and hoped for the best.

I took half day leave the next day, and went to airport 2 hours b4 my flight so that I can get the front seat. I need to get off the plane fast so I dun get caught up in the queue during immigration clearance, then, mayb I could still catch the bus and dun hav to take a cab.

gate 9 super far @@

rain was getting smaller

It was my first time taking tiger so I wasn’t sure if they would help me arrange my seat, but thank god I was really lucky! Pauline was at the counter that day, so I checked in with her and ask if she could help me arrange my seat to the front rows. Come to think of it, I was really LUCKY, the plane skidding incident was the day b4 and din really effect my flight, got the front row seat as i wanted, the plane reach KIA on time, and landed at changi ahead schedule! I rushed to the immigration, even overtaking some of the passengers on the flight b4 us, and the immigration counter was clear! The bus to terminal 2 was already there when i went out the arrival hall, safely checked in the flight and even got time to have some food b4 getting on the plane~ law of attraction! YEAH!

snacks b4 the flight

My first JetStar Flight too

We reached Medan at around 8pm local time (Medan is 1 hour behind Msia), Dyna’s brother-in-law was already there, and i mean really THERE, inside the arrival hall, not outside, apparently he knows some ppl inside, and he can settle immigration clearance for us, we basically skipped the queue n walked rite out, amazing!

It was also raining in Medan, we went to the famous hawker street for dinner, I left my bag in the car so I din bring the camera with me, missed out on the photos of the food >____< The food was not bad actually, mostly fried stuff, and they have very different food, like fried frogs, soft shell turtle soup, lizard meat, etc, but I was sick so i din dare to eat too much. After dinner we went to check in our hotel. The hotel was My Dreams Hotel, but when we reach we juz saw My Hotel and wondered if we went to the correct hotel, only when we look closely we saw the “Dream”, haha.

"Dream” so small, lol

The lobby

computer for you to online

looking up

broachers

Ding at the reception

After checking in we went to our rooms at 9th floor

The room is not bad

first time see hotel slipper so good quality @@

they even provide you with a book to read, and it’s chinese!

I’m speechless, the hotel is juz too good! and it cost juz around RM108 per nite, really value for money!

After putting down our things we went to dyna’s house to visit her niece for a while b4 we go bek to the hotel again. I found that they also had satellite receiver on many of their houses, n the hotel too, a lot of tv channels, not like malaysia hotel :-p

The next day we checked out at around 9am and waited for Dyna to come fetch us.

Morning view

fresh flowers everywhere!

interesting~

Gaik fb-ing while waiting

Ding too~

Me snapping stuff

Irene too!

photo taking is the best way to kill time

Then it’s off to breakfast!

must be very famous

they have tis in Medan too!

it’s home made barley inside, creative!

group photo~

keuh tiaw with many ingredient!

crab meat!!

Dyna’s very cute niece

we all love her

but she doesn’t seem to love us as much ><

After breakfast we start the journey~ It’s approximately 4 hours drive from Medan to Lake Toba, but later we found tat it wasn’t as easy as we thought, the road connecting Medan and Lake Toba is busy and small, it’s almost impossible to reach in 4 hours…

Journey begins~

Pump petrol first, at Petronas!

Then it’s driving all the way, to me Medan seems like an endless city, all the way we still see a lot of shops n houses beside the road, unlike here, after 1 hour, no matter which direction ur driving, ur gonna see some tree n forest already. After few hours of driving, we stopped to have lunch.

KFC!

Hungry~

These are rice, not burger

Mocha float

After lunch it’s bek to the open road again. After a few more hours we finally can see the lake!

hi lake toba!

funny truck

the banner welcoming us

We reach the ferry terminal at Ajibata, the tiket counter was not opened yet, so we walked around while waiting for the counter to open.

time table

the fare

When the counter opens we quickly went to get the tickets, and after a while the ferry reached

When we were waiting for the ferry to arrive, there was some kids there asking money from us. I remember reading somewhere that giving money to kids will give them the wrong idea about money and don’t want to go school or work hard anymore. But while we were waiting for the cars to be unloaded from the ferry, a car stopped in front of us n a lady came out from the car, walked straight to the other side of the terminal, without noticing she dropped some money on the floor. We were juz standing there, thinking wat to do. The people next to us seems like noticed the money on the floor too, n it juz seems a pity if we let them take the money. So finally Dyna took the money and gave them to the children tat were asking money from us earlier, she even changed the money to smaller notes so they could divide among them, but they were still arguing when we were leaving.

Then, when our cars were in the ferry, some half naked boys came to us n ask us to throw coins into the water, say they would jump into the water n pick it up. We did threw our coins into the water n they jumped off the ferry to pick them up, but it juz felt kinda weird. It’s a weekday, why aren’t these children in school or anywhere studying, or learning, n waited in a jetty, asking money from tourist? I know tis happens everywhere, even in Malaysia, but I’m still heavy hearted thinking about it.

kids jumping off the ferry to pick up the coins

some even very young, n i feel he can barely swim…

Well, let’s not get too emotional here, when the ferry started to move the unrelated people went off, or rather, jumped off the ferry, and the 1 hour journey to samosir island began. nothing much to do, so we juz went out the car n take photos

The tuk tuk peninsular, our destination for the nite

When we finally reach Tomok the sky were getting dark, we proceeded to tuk tuk where most of the resorts are, we did make a booking but we decided to try our luck and see if we could find a better deal. From our readings before, a lot of people stayed at Samosir villa, so we decide to go take a look.

The place is really beautiful, we really like it a lot, so after some discussion and negotiation on the price, we settled down in the best rooms they had, VIP room, with incredible lake view, mini garden in front of the room, private living room, and bath tub, IDR380,000, which is about RM131 for 2, and including breakfast, pretty good deal for me. I felt as if I’m in Bali again, but rooms at that price range would not be as good.

siting area in front of the room

private living room

the bed

garden in front of the room (cant see the late yet)

After leaving out stuff in the room we went to the restaurant to get dinner. The seating area in front of the pool is really nice!

And dinner is served!

juice terung belanda

Nasi Campur (i think)

After dinner we were suppose to go bek to our rooms, take bath n sleep, but then, we all tot the nite is too good to be slept away, so we went bak to the seating area where we had dinner, and chatted while irene went around taking photos. Listening to the nice music they’re playing from the restaurant, enjoying the night breeze, now tat’s life, haha~

The onli bad thing was there’s a crowd of people next to us drinking and smoking, but still, I enjoyed my time ^^

Irene did mentioned something about watching sun rise the next morning, but I was coughing badly, so i totally ignored it :-p

The next day I woke up at about 7am local time, and took pictures of the surroundings, the view is great~

In front of our rooms

I wonder if anyone actually uses it @@

lake water is so clear!!

our room, front view

some of me~

and Ding~

Imagine walking down these stairs on ur wedding ^^

And we went to the same place again for breakfast, after breakfast we continued the photo taking while waiting for everyone to get ready, the place is juz too nice!

Finally we’re ready to go!

We decide to take the hotel staff's advise and start from the right side, no specific destination, juz planning to stop over whenever we see a nice view and take photos

the buffalo enjoying his mud bath

would hav been nice without the half naked man washing his motor :-p

And we stopped at the batak museum

They’ve got description in many languages

The performance area, but noone was around at the time

and of coz we took many photos here

After tat we continued the journey

The little stream on the far away hill

Coz we forgot to fill up the petrol before coming to the island, we don’t dare to go too far, so we headed bak to Tomok to do some shopping, but first, lunch ^^

teh botal, special tea in indonesia, not bad

indo mee with eggs, tomato, chili

fresh fish from the lake, taste good, doesn’t have the ‘mud taste’

And then it was shopping time! there were more stalls than i tot

the bracelets we bought, about 10k (RM3.5)

And each of us bought a t-shirt, i think it cost IDR20k,about RM7, a souvenir for the trip ^^

After shopping we decided to go bak to the hotel, change our clothes, and take a walk around, and on our way I spotted something very interesting

I remember at Bali some suspicious looking guy came n ask me weather I wanna buy mushroom too, he juz sounded very suspicious so i think it’s probably not something very good. I googled it and apparently it’s some kind of drug tat gives you hallucination, guess at places like this they’re not too strict on it??

Anyway, we rented a couple of motorbikes to explore the island, onli irene n ding can ride the motorbike, so dyna got a bicycle instead.

It was fun at first, but the road was too hilly for the bicycle, so dyna rode bek half way, and we spotted a fish farm tat we passed by earlier in the morning, so we went down to take some photos~

After tat we went bek to the hotel to get ready for dinner

such a pity we din get to swim in the pool coz we din bring any extra clothes, but still, we went in n take photo, haha

After the photo taking we went to the restaurant next door to have our dinner

We waited for very long for the food to arrive, was starving >___<

Kari Fish

some vege

The dishes were too salty, like most of the food we had in Medan, so after dinner we went bek to the hotel n ordered ourselves some dessert

And we enjoyed our last nite at lake toba, though, the table next to us was rather noisy >___< We turned in early coz we need to wake up early the next morning, need to catch the first ferry going over to Ajibata, so we asked the hotel people to help us prepare our breakfast at 6am, so we could catch the ferry at 7am.

The next morning we all woke up and got ready about the same time, Irene was feeling very sick so we rearranged the seat n let her sit beside the window, n i sat at the back. We manage to catch the first ferry to Ajibata, n on our way there, enjoy the nice sunrise

After that I basically sleep all the way through the journey, except of coz, when it was time for lunch ^^

We had nasi padang for lunch, how they operate is, they give u a dish of everything, n whatever dish that you don’t want, you juz put it aside, very different huh.

At around 12pm we finally reached Dyna’s house at Medan. We were planning to go for massage that afternoon and she already helped us booked a place at 2pm. So we just rested at her place and played with her cute niece. Then at around 130pm she took us to the massage centre.

There were a lot of people there, really a lot! The service there was not bad and it’s pretty cheap, for 2 hours of aromatic massage it cost around IDR145k, juz around RM50.

After massage Dyna brought us to buy the famous ambon and kuih lapis from Medan. Well, Kuching is very famous for kuih lapis too so I tot it’s pretty funny to buy kuih lapis bek to kuching, but the kuih lapis in Medan is salty instead of sweet, so it’s very different from kuching, n it taste pretty good, so i bought some kuih lapis and also some ambon bek. The tauke was very generous, when we say we wanna try, he juz took out a freshly baked ambon n kuih lapis, n cut it for us to try, even after each of us had 1 piece, he asked us to take more, n even more unbelievable, after we bought the cakes and paid, he asked us to take bek the “samples” we ate juz now, n there was basically at least half whole cake left! wah, first time see tauke so generous!

tis one tis one, dun go to wrong shop ya!

Ambon

worker making the ambon

After we bought our souvenirs (the cakes), dyna dropped us at a shopping centre near by while she send gaik to the airport and picks up her sister. So we went in and went straight to the supermarket!

Time spent in the shopping centre juz somehow passed much faster, before we know it it was time to go, dyna picked us up and we went to somewhere near the airport for dinner, according to her it’s batanist food.

"che it” “che ji” “lantai 2”, lol~

the red color source is a mixture of pig blood!

Finally it was time to leave Medan, at the Medan airport there will be people asking if you need services, you can give them your passport and check in details, and they will settle everything for you. The airport tax at Medan is IDR75k, much cheaper than Bali. If I’m coming alone I probably would rather queue coz I dun feel safe handing my passport to someone else, but since Dyna is here, I guess it’s ok. After he helped us settle everything we gave him IDR20k as tips. Then we juz walked in for custom clearance and it’s bye bye Medan~

don’t think i’ve seen a hand written boarding pass b4

And hello singapore! It’s already late when we reach sg, and we’re all tired, so we took a cab back to ang mo kio. I was going to spend the next day in sg n bek to kuching on Monday, ding will also be going to india on Monday, din really had anything planed the next day, so juz go with the flow~

The next morning we slept till late, by the time we wake up we were going for lunch rather than breakfast XD

Dated Irene for lunch together and ding took us to the famous chicken rice in sg, the queue was rather long, we waited outside for about half an hour

Food was good, worth the wait ^^

After dinner both ding n irene need to get bak to the office, so she dropped me at the newest shopping centre

juz walked around for a bit, after tat i headed to Marina bay sands. Haven’t been in sg for a while, so gonna take a look at the new landmarks. In case some of u wondering how to get there, juz take the circle line and get off at Promenade station, there’s a shuttle bus to the sands, or, u could walk there like me. Actually i din wanted to walk, i got lost and end up walking to the sands >___<

u know what is tis? tis is the parking spaces available in all the major buildings, when will msia hav tis??

There’s a shopping centre next to the hotel building but it’s not quite finished yet, still, i’m pretty impressed

the skating rink

some wishing well?

nice~

juz went in to take a look

risking my life taking tis photo eh

Need to go snap the big globe at universal studio, else it doesn’t look like i came singapore rite, hehe. By the time I reach vivo city it was already pass 5pm, gonna meet ding n the rest at 6pm, so i need to be fast. The train to sentosa located at 3rd floor, the ticket cost SGD3.

When I was leaving they were giving away free stuff, so i queued up and see was was inside the gift, some very good quality calenders and red packets, not bad. Wish i had more time to explore the place, but I’m already running late, so I rush to the MRT and took the train to commonwealth station to meet ding.

Albert n KK joined us for dinner, can’t recall y din i snap the food, probably was too hungry :-p

After dinner we went to chinatown, the lights were already up!

and we took a walk round the market, many ppl selling cny food, unlimited food testing~ had lots of fun

We said good bye to the guys after tis n ding n i went to holland village for some drinks

Had some german beer at overtime

Then went to the bar opposite for budwiser and victoria bitter

We had a good time chatting, would have been better if I wasn’t coughing all the while >___< din stayed for too long, both of us need to pack our bags.

Next day ding went to work for a while b4 going to the airport, n I slept till it’s almost time to go. Tumpang ding’s taxi to airport, hoho, how lucky am I. n also thanks to ding’s boss for treating us lunch ^^

Finally it was time to say good bye, ding say she’s gonna come kuching tis year and pay me a visit, well, i do hope so, hehe. Anyway, it was a great trip, although i was coughing all the way, but the best part was spending time with the gals. Let’s do it again ^^