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Saturday 23 augustus 1997

We left at 7 o'clock this morning. It was hard to get up. Our breakfast had toast and a boiled egg. The sky was still grey and after we went in the bus it started to rain. Our first stop was at a coconutpalm where a litte ape had to pick up the coconuts out of the tree. We all watched it under a wooden roof. It was raining very hard and that's why we couldn't see the herbgarden.

Our next stop was at a river where a golddigger was searching for gold. The man was in the river and had a special piece of wood where the gold sticks on. It was a beautiful view al the little pieces of gold. We had a toiletstop at a little coffeeshop where we bought water. We looked into the kitchen. Some pottery was above a fire and that was it. Very primitive.

At another cheap restaurant we ate ( oh yes) chickensoup with wite rice. We were sitting in the most beautiful room of the house and it still looked dirty. And the rain keeped going on. We made another stop just before the equator. We talked to three Indonesian girls, because they wanted to practice their English. It was a nice conversation. We made a picture of them and promised to send it to them. The people are very poor and the only way to get pictures themselves is to ask tourists to send them one.

At the village Bonjol we made a stop to cross the equator. That was very funny. We could buy t-shirts around there. The haggling boys didn't lower the price. At another place woman were screaming to sell their t-shirts to us. Ofcourse their price was better. We haggled and bought two t-shirts for the price of 14 Rupiah. After Bonjol we drove nonstop to Buketinggi. It still keeped raining, but the road was very very beautiful. Jungle, much green, crooked ways and lots of ravines. And we had to pas all those loadtrucks. Sometimes it was too scary to look at.

At 17.00 hours we arrived at the hotel and they gave us a very great room. We had a bathroom with BATH so you can gues what we did first. Bathing!! We ate togheter with al the group in the hotel, because no one wanted to further to eat something. Thomas and I had meat and french fries. Oh it tasted so good after all the rice we had the days before. We shared an ananas in the room of Ans and Piet. We made a mess of it, but it was very' cosy. We were chatting to eachother for a long time.

Sunday 24 augustus 1997

We had to get up at 7. ( And this was a holiday)We made a hike to the Kar bouwengat and we went to the silvervillage Kota Baru. First we went out of Bukettingi and we bought a piece of crepecake before the hike really started. We had a very nice guide. It was a modest boy and he told us everything about different plants. He picked up a flower and touched it with a sigaret. The flower was purple and became because of the nicotine blue.

After the suspensionbridge we had to climb much stairs to come at the point of view of the gap. Next we saw the silvervillage Kota-Baru. We drunk something at a silversmith. I bought a ring of filigensilver. Further we had to walk through the ricefield. Al field were full of water and pads between them were very small. Elly felt into a ricefield and her feet get wet and also her trousers. We went down through a bamboowood and saw a giant sow-bug.

We had to cross a river by jumping from stone to stone. It was very exciting. After a long beautifull path we had to cross another river. This time we had to shuffle over three bamboo-sticks. It was not easy to keep your balance.

A bus would bring us back to the hotel. When we saw a very old vehicle someone made the joke : See there is our bus. Everybody had to laugh about it, but everybody was very surprised when this old vehicle really turned out to be our means of transport. I went in to the bus with some other people of the group. Thomas and some other couragous people went on top of the bus. It was a very very exciting ride. The road was full of deep holes wich were full of water. All Indonesian people pointed laughing at the roof of the bus where all the tourists were sitting on. At 14.15 we were back at the hotel.

Walking through the sawa	crossing the river by stones	crossing the river by bamboo-sticks	bus to the hotel

We washed our clothes en went to the zoo. ( R 1000). A few Indonesian girls talked to us to practice their English. We talked about lots of things and we gave them our adresses. I'm curious if they really are going to write us. At the Wartel we made a phonecall to Holland. There was a heatwafe out there we found it very cruel.( Why is the weather in Holland so warm when we aren't there?) I also made a phonecall to Anna the wife of my uncle Rudi. It was a surprise we were able to speak to her on the phone the first time we tried. I told her that we were in Indonesia and we like to visit her and her family on the 8th of september. We had dinner with the whole group in the restaurant in front of the hotel. The food was very good and we had a pleasant time. Bedtime at 11.45.

Monday 25 august 1997

We had to get up at 8 for an excursion half the day. First we drove by bus to a point of view. We couldn't see a thing because the weather was very cloudy that day. We watched a place where they stamped coffee. Thomas bought a bag of that coffee. We also saw a palace. We went inside on bare foot. Some people had a little massage. The way back to the hotel was very long. At 14.00 we were back. Together with Tiny, Joke and Andries we had lunch. Jan also joined the group. After lunch Thomas and I went to the centre of Bukittingi to look for someone who could repair my little backpack. We met a boy that could speak a few words in dutch and he brought us to an old tailor. It took a while before the old man understood what we wanted. The boy wanted sigarettes for his translating, but asked Thomas to ask me if I agreed with it. In this place women are the boss!! The tailor asked R2000 for the repair, but we gave him R2500. The man was so happy with this amall amount of money that we feeled really ashamed. We are so rich and they are so poor. We bought postcards and had dinner together with the group. We didn't go to a dance performance that night. We stayed in the hotel and we took a bath.

Tuesday 26 august 1997

We had to get up at 5.00 and at 6.00 we were on our way. In the beginning the weather was nice, but after one hour the weather became cloudy. We had a stop at a lake and made some pictures. At lunch we had our famous white rice and chicken soup. The area was very flat and there lived less people. There were lot of woods, less palmtrees, because this area is very dry. Everywhere stretches of forest were burned by farmers. Probably to make the ground fertile to be able to grow products later. Constantly there was smoke and the sun turned orange because of the smoke.

We saw black fields and brown trees and it looked very strange. I made all our postcards a little bit smaller, so we had to put less stamps on it. The hotel looked good and we got a cup of tea and cake. The mosque was in the neighbourhood and that meant waking up at 5.00 because of the noise they make then. Thomas made a picture of all the sleeping people in the bus.

Wednesday 27 august 1997

We had to get up at 5.00 and we got chocolate at breakfast. At 6.00 we went to the trainingcentre of elephants at Lahat. The visit was no succes. We came to a point where we had to leave our bus and had to take two little busses. We had to pay Ron our travelguide R1500. It was a small bad road and it was very dusty everywhere. At the trainingcentre it was impossible to leave the bus because all the elephants and their leaders where round the busses. Everybody was screaming and pulled your arms

in the hope you would make a ride on a elephant. Al people of the group hate it. Only Thomas and Ans made a ride on the big animal. We had to get in the busses again to drive to the river to eat our lunch. We had a lunchbox of the hotel and it didn't look bad, but we were not very hungry. We gave most of it to the elephants. They were very good at begging for food. The way back to the big bus was very very bad. It still was very dusty and all people with contactlenses held their eyes closed. Back in the bus there was another commotion. We thought that people looked in our bags and suitcases. Everyone checked their baggage and luckily no one missed things. It was also very rotten that Ron, our travelguide said nothing about it to the drivers. They got 250 guilders from the tippot and we all found it too much.

The hotel in Palembang was very small. Little rooms with little windows. We had a room on the third floor and there were no emergency exits. Because we once had to deal with a hotelfire, we like to be near the exit of the hotel. We had to pay something extra to get another room which also had a shower. We had dinner in a shopping mall near the hotel.

Elephants in the river

Thursday 28 august 1997

Ofcourse we had to get up early. We had breakfast in the hotelroom. Everyone got two sweetbreads and a cup of tea ( in a plastic cup) and an egg. After breakfast the whole group went in a becak to the river. Thomas and I shared a becak. We just fitted in with the two of us. The biker had a lot to carry. All others of the group went in a becak alone, but we thought that we had to share becaks. It was a funny ride through Palembang. Everywhere were people waving at us. By the riverside we had to get in a boat. It was a very old boat.

Some parts were rotten. We hoped the best of it and tried not to think about it. We made a trip over the river the Musi.It is the longest river of Indonesia. There are a lot of poor people in Palembang and you can see and smell it by the houses on sticks. People do lots of things in the water and it seemed to be a very large garbage field. Again people were waving at us. We visited a Chinese Temple. Thomas had his future predicted and thought it was for free, but it wasn't. It was a long trip back to the harbour again. It was very hot and there was no wind.

Thomas in Becak	Boat	Rivier the Musi

We had to walk back to the hotel. It was warm, dusty and busy in town and we went into the shoppingmall. It was very cool in there and we first went to eat something in the K.F.C. French Fries, chicken, coke and orange juice. Because of all the dangers in the city of Palembang we decided to shop around together with nine people. We were: Joke, Andries, Tiny, Machiel, Elly, Hilda, Wup, Thomas and me. At the first shop we saw cheap shorts. (13 guilders). Everyone started to grab and fits the shorts. Thomas also bought such a short. All Indonesian people were staring at us. After shopping we drunk a glas of fruitjuice. Tasted good. At 17.00 we were in the hotelroom again and we started to stick the stamps on the postcards. We bought a bar of glue to paste. We had dinner also in the shoppingmall. In our room we had a watermelon. It was late when we got into bed.

Friday 29 august 1997

At 6.00 we had to get up and we went to the station at 7.15. Our train to Tajung Karang would leave at 8.45, but Ron our travelguide was very afraid to miss the train. We had to wait a long time before the train was leaving. It was a train with less windows. Not everone could sit besides a window. We made a deal with Ans and Piet to share our window with them. Every hour we changed places. When the train was standing in a station all kinds of people came in the train to sell their stuff. It was fun to see it. The trip with this train wasn't much fun. It took a long time before we reached Tajung Karang. At 15.00 we were at the station and we went with buses to our hotel. This hotel was good and had showers with HOT water. We loved it.

the station of Tajung Karang

At 19.00 at night we had dinner with the whole group. With buses we drove to a very big and luxury hotel. I didn't like it. It was a very expensive restaurant. Ron told us that they also had some cheap things, but that was not true. Yes a little pancake was R.5000, but we wanted a normal dinner. I was very stressed and I wanted to return to our hotel. We had ourselves brought back to our hotel and we tried to have dinner somewhere in the neighbourhood. We tried to get over the big road, but that didn't work out. Next to our hotel we found a very small restaurant. The food was very simple, but good. We had nasi goreng and mihoen goreng. It was a little burned but it was hot enough. We had to pay R5000 and we gave a R500 tip. Back in the hotel we had a conversation with two Indonesian boys. They also stayed in our hotel and they were on their way to Jakarta. They had a business in washing machines. They were born close to Lake Toba and were Batak people. It is not very smart to talk about religion in Indonesia, but these boys started to talk about it. They were christians and were very glad that we also were. We had to talk very soft because of all the moslim people on Sumatra.

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