VACATION VACATION VACATION!!!

so starting on friday i had a 10 day holiday. ah, sweet sweet holiday.

on saturday and sunday i lounged around in medan, went for sushi, went christmas shopping and ate indian food.

monday morning i headed out to bukit lawang, THE JUNGLE. Claudis this swiss guy, who is my friends boyfriend decided to come with me for 2 days. we left at about 8 am and couldnt get a bus until noon, that is a public bus, which is only 10 000 so we opted for the mini bus which costs 50 000. shit. it took about 3 hours to get there and once we got there we got some rooms at garden inn, a great fantastic place owned by some really cool dudes. I got my own room and was so scared to be sleeping in it by myself but i wanted to do things out of my comfort zone. so step 1, completed. That day we just set up our trek and walked around town. town being a few shops and a river. it was so damn beautiful, i couldnt believe it and i will never be able to explain it.

on tuesday morning, MY BIRTHDAY, i was apparently late for the trek, but nobody told me we were starting an hour early. i got there and met the people i was going to be sleeping in the jungle with, Sarah, a german girl, who is beyond cool. Lindsay, a 33 year old Scottish girl, who is a little bit crazy, lied about her age and had a panic attack and KEPT appologizing for it. Andrew, thats totally not his name, it wont come to mind right now though, he was a 21 year old American, who was a dive master and also lindsays boyfriend, a bit weird, but they were both nice enough.

We trekked for 8 hours, up and down, up and down, very tiring. Almost immediately we saw long tailed macans?, and punk monkeys. they were so friggen cute. About 30 minutes later we saw about 6 orangutans, 2 moms and some babies, but no papas. at first they were super close to us, but quickly got frightened off. We watched them for about 30 minutes, playing in their nests, swinging about, they LOVE to show off and pose. We left with our group and saw one orangutan within reaching distance from us. she was so cute, and huge. we stayed and watched her for 45 mins and she just loved being close to us. she didnt back off once. that was the last orangutan we saw. the rest of the trek we saw more long tailed ones with little babies that came right up to our feet. and one HUGE grasshopper and two weird turtles. we stopped for lunch along the river and got to camp around 5pm. About 10 minutes from camp was a big long hill full of rocks, and mud. of course being the clumsy person i am, i fell right on my upper thigh and cut my hand on a rock. i have a gigantic bruise but i look so bad ass. after that i fell about 4 more times down this hill, but sarah and i were laughing so hard it didnt hurt at all. i havent laughed so hard with someone in a very long time. we got to camp, went swimming in the river/waterfall, played some cards and ate dinner cooked on a fire. at night it started raining and we had to stay under our tarp, which was our sleeping grounds. yes, just a tarp. they told me scary stories before i went to bed, so i had a little trouble falling asleep, but eventually i did, but tossed and turned the whole night. the jungle is quite loud.

in the morning we set off for another day, it was much more difficult than the first day, i had sweat literally dripping off of my face like rain. i have never sweat so damn hard in my life. we only saw gibbons and large centipedes that day. then we tubed( a bunch of tubes roped together ), and we went over big rapids and it was friggen hilarious. the view was amazing, to have the jungle so high on both sides of you was completely stunning. i really honestly will never be able to express how beautiful it was. english major, please go here and describe. when we got back we were starving and ate some dinner and showered. We all met up for dinner later and then brave thing number 3, i walked back to my guesthouse in the pitch dark by myself. it was about a 15 minute walk on a dirt, wooden, rocky path. after about 5 minutes i realized the stars(bintang) were out and in full fucking force, so i calmed down and was totally fine. oh my, the stars, if you know me, you know i love the stars, and i have never ever seen the stars like this in my life, truly amazing.

i learned more indonesian this week, like so much. it was great.

uh then after lots of drinks and a relaxed morning sarah and i head out to medan. we went to medan for one night, before heading to lake toba(biggest volcano crater lake in the WORLD) so on friday we took the 5 hour bus ride there and got our arms tanned on the way. you have to go to parapat and then take a ferry to tuk tuk, an island in the middle of the lake. it was so weird because they had pine trees and stuff there which in a tropical climate i found very strange, its a little colder in toba but i didnt think cold enough for those trees. Beer, food and bathroom were immediate things to do when we got there. After that i had a HOT shower, holy shit i forgot how nice that was. I went back up to the lodge and talked to my friends that were there and they told me they had ate a dog the day before. SO not only did they eat it, they went and chose it, watched it get killed and then ate it, after being told, "oh that was a family dog" I cried. alot. I am so disappointed in them, i really cant get over it. that night sarah and i got drunk and went to our other friends room to drink with them, they had a little puppy and big dog and they were so damn cute. the big dog walked me and sarah to our door when we left. we met about 7 finnish people, of which 6 had blonde hair. SO WEIRD.

the next day my friends left and me and sarah rented a motorycle and switched guesthouses so we were closer to town. that day we walked around and shopped, i did christmas shopping, I am almost done!!! At night it was raining which sucked because we were going to go to this open mic thing, we ended up staying in and sleeping. The next day we rented a motorcycle and drove around the island. i tried riding and haha, at first i was alright then i got off the bike and was turning it around when i put the gas on too much and it flew into the ditch. it was quite the sight. we took it out and sarah drove the rest of the day, that is until we realized our tire had popped. the next auto place was 2 km away so we pushed the bike all the way there to get it fixed. we had lunch and started driving back when it started to pour, GREAT. we stopped in a little restuarant and let it pass. that night we went bar hopping, ran into the people we trekked with and ate some mushrooms, THEY WERE ALL OVER THE PLACE. there was a sign that said laundry and magic mushrooms, it was really weird. they didnt do anything, so we just drank.

the next day was my day of departure so we moved sarah to a different guesthouse and took the boat to parapat.

THAT WAS MY VACATION. i didnt like lake toba that much, i would have been hella bored without sarah, who was my friendly hilarious sidekick. I dont even know if i would go back to be honest, its really cool and i swan in a volcano crater which is cool, and there are mountains all around which are beautiful its just kind of annoying with all the touristy stuff. I would much prefer bukit anyday.

This vacation made me want to stay in Indo. I will be back, that is for DAMN sure.