Night in Medan
Posted by marshall Fri, 25 Mar 2005 22:00:00 GMT
I'm glad we have a driver. They drive on the left side of the street here, but that seems to be about the only widely recognized rule of driving. Like in Ecuador (and perhaps worse than Ecuador) the signs and lines are largely ignored, and the horn is used as the universal "ready or not, here I come" communicator.
When we arrived at the hotel, Karen gave me my room key and changed some money for me into Indonesian rupiah. The key is attached to a large plastic card that has to be placed in a box on the wall to get any kind of electricity in the room. So while I'm out, the air conditioning won't be running and my laptop won't charge. The room has a normal toilet and shower -- probably the last I'll get for several weeks. There's a couch, a desk, a TV, and a fridge in the room with some drinks in it that I can have: bottled water, Coke, and a drink called "Tehbotol Sosro: Milik Sosro". I tried the last item thinking it would be something like Fanta, but it wasn't carbonated and it had kind of a strange aftertaste. I couldn't quite place it, but then at dinner Karen explained that it was a very sweet tea.
I went to dinner with Karen and a few guys from Samaritan's Purse who are also staying at the hotel. We walked over to a rather nice restaurant. I had a "filet mignon in red wine sauce" meal, which included vegetables. It was good, but not exactly what one would expect from filet mignon in the US. I got red bean juice to drink, which was interesting. Very thick and almost chewy, but tasty. For dessert I got a "black cherry flambe", which ended up being a tiny scoop of ice cream surrounded by black cherries with a bit of caramel. The guy who ordered the banana split seemed to get the best deal.
As I was getting dressed on Friday morning, I noticed some music coming from outside that sounded oddly familiar. I listened for a bit and realized it was "My Redeemer Lives", but in a foreign language. It sounded like there was a Christian church service going on downstairs. As I headed downstairs to meet Karen, I talked to Don, one of the SP guys I had dinner with the previous night. He said there are 5 or 6 church services every Sunday at the hotel. The owner of the hotel is apparently a Christian, and sometimes pipes Christian music through the hotel's sound system. Don says that Medan is about 60% Christian and 40% Muslim, which was very surprising to me considering the strong Muslim bent of Indonesia as a whole.
Karen and I walked over to Sun Plaza, which took about 5 minutes. Sun Plaza is an impressive six-story mall that just amazed me. As Karen put it, "you're in culture shock because you expected culture shock and aren't finding it." There was a Pizza Hut, KFC, and A&W on the lower floor, an ACE Hardware on the third, and high-tech shops throughout. The Pizza Hut was similar to American ones in that it had the same logo and it served pizza, but apart from those two factors it was very different. This Pizza Hut seemed downright nice. It had a wealth of fruit drinks, including ones with ice cream. It had dishes like beef & rice tortilla bowls, and it had things like banana splits for dessert. I really wanted to eat there but didn't have time. :-)
We went to an office supplies store in the mall to get some A4 paper, as the Internet Cafe in Banda Aceh had run out. The store also sold cell phone supplies, although the girl who ran that counter wasn't in yet. I saw a Sony Ericsson S700i for 4,500,000 rupiah, which is less than $500. I expected it to be a lot more expensive here...I think the S710a in the US is going for about that much without a plan. We got 3 packages of paper, then went to a dedicated phone store to get some refills for the prepaid PACTEC cell phones. While I was there I got a SIM card for Telkomsel, one of the Indonesian providers, along with some refill cards. So now I have cell service here on my Treo, and it supports text messaging to the US (which I don't think is any more expensive than messaging locally). We also picked up some generic blank DVD-Rs from a store there for about 60 cents apiece, then headed back to the hotel.
The flight to Banda Aceh was on Garuda Indonesia, which is the "luxury" airline for Indonesia. It was about 45 minutes on a 737, and I had a row to myself (although not in an exit row). They served a small snack (some bread and water) and various juices. When I arrived, I managed to get my luggage without being hassled too much by the Green Shirt Guys. I showed my baggage claim ticket to the security on the way out so that they could confirm my luggage was mine, and as I got into the main area of the airport I was met by Jeremy and our driver. We loaded my bags into an SUV and headed out for the Internet Cafe.
