Life in Sumatra!!

Got transfered to take care of business in Sumatra starting aug 08. So thats my official first transfer in my job. sumatra is probably the largest island in Indonesia. Im based out of the third largest city of Indonesia - Medan (North Sumatra), and travel often to Bandar Lampung (south Sumatra) and Padang (west Sumatra).

Medan has a lot of Indian population (not indians but indonesians) who probably came here as plantation workers or escaped from Andaman islands. So no problem for indian food not being available in indonesia.

After taking over in sumatra - i traveled to ACEH, NIAS and other areas in north and wet Sumatra..... ideally shud have traveled a lot more but had to stay put in Medan cos of season, settling down in new place etc....

two weeks back i traveled to an island called NIAS in the western coast of Sumatra as we found out that this island grows lots of cocoa.. we drove down to the international airort of Medan - Polonia and were awaiting for the flight to take off... after a long wait (which is normal in indonesia, u spend more time in the airport than in the flight itself) we were asked to board a bus which will take us to the flight.... we knew that the flight is a 20 seater and were betting on every small plane that we saw in the airport that this would be our plane..... I have heard of lots of scary stories about these box planes and what with the rainy weather nowadys in Sumatra, but the flight wasn't scary at all.... and the landing was just perfect.....

"an idle mind + a 2mp camera = dark arbit photographs"

the bus ride in the airport was a long one....wait they were not taking us to the normal place....but they took us to a special parking lot of small carriers.... looked like a parking lot which can hold about 50 cars....there were 10 small carriers parked there....we boarded our flight.... all u have to do is...climb one step and u are inside the plane.....


there were two air hostesses...pretty...


Reached Nias in the afternoon....our agenda was to meet one guy and thats it.....no other work..... and our return flight was next day afternoon.... Thot that there will be lots of time to explore gunung Sitoli (capital of Nias)...alas...it was raining the whole day....so we had to stay put in our sea side hotel with a pack of ciggies...thats it...