Dumai
The Ferry across to sumatra was about as exciting as an episode of live at 3, we were cooked up in a pretty ordinary ferry not allowed to step outside so had to peer out through dirty windows out at a pretty boring calm sea. The whole journey lasted about 2 and a half hours most of which was spent on my part faking sleep so adolf wouldn’t continue his pleas regarding how un insane he was. We were both unsuccessful. The poor fella though, he had such a helpless idiot look about him, he was carrying 8 bags with him, I felt really bad about not giving him a hand to carry some of them for him but when it comes to crossing borders, especially between two countries where it is the death penalty for traffiking even the smallest amount of drugs if he was a sweet, blind, lame, deaf and dumb nun of 99 years of age I would still have left her there with her load. The risks are just not worth it. There was some staff there anyways so should be up to them.
Passing thru the border was little hassle, the usual admin stuff followed by an invitation into an office where the border official asked me about where I intended to visit on my time in sumatra, I rattled off about 6 places and parted with the requisite cash to get my visa. They only give you 1 months visa for this massive country which is totally retarded, its as if they don’t want any tourists in this place. I grabbed a cab into the middle of dumai.
When you get off the boat you are have to pass through a fairly modest looking customs building. Jail like fencing extended far on either side so there was no chance, if one had the inkling, of sneaking into the country without anyone noticing. The fence in any case was patroled by some army dudes and on the other side some curious taxi men hung out for a look at their potential fare.
The vast majority of the people on the boat were indonesian so they all walked straight through with just a flash of their Passport enough to get them in. Sticking out like a sore thumb I was brought down a different route. Ushered into an untidy office there was one lady there asking about my purpose in the country, she was standing next to a desk where this angry looking uniformed dude was on the phone, shouting something rather forcibly to the person on the other end. The sweat was pouring off his brow, he paused for a second to give me a look, a look of judgement and then burst into another rant at the person on the phone. It was like a movie scene…
Not offered a seat I threw down my bag and answered what questions they had for me. Where did I want to go? I mentioned some places in the middle, didn’t mention aceh in case it was sensitive. They made me wait and I have to say it was a bit nerve wrecking. Eventually the woman emerged with a printed out visa, I was good to go. I walked out the doors and took in my first free steps in sumatra.
I mentioned the guys at the fence before, they must have some sort of rota going on. One guy inside the building had already negotiated my custom. He didn’t want any money, nothing in this life is free. I know I will pay for this later but there seems to be some sort of union like pact amongst the taxi wallahs here. I jumped in the front seat with my bag secured and off we went.
Dumai is a pretty unremarkable town. Its buildings are square, run down and dirty. It is set out in a grid like fashion which would suggest that it is a new town, I reckon it must have built itself up since they found oil in nearby pekenbaru. The Americans who so selflessly offered to show them how to dig the stuff out built themselves a really souless characterless town, something you would expect in eastern bloc europe. Kinda ironic considering this would have been done right in the middle of the cold war.
Twas about 1 in the afternoon and I was starving, I had my first indonesian meal in a roadside cafe not far from the bus stop. The first thing that strikes you about the place is the lack of billboard advertising, so far it feels a bit like rural phillippines. My bus wasn’t leaving til 4 so I was looking at a fairly blank 3 hours, there didn’t seem like there was anything doing in this town. While either shuffling my feet or twiddling my thumbs I was approached by this small dude who began with asking the usual questions about where I was from, what I did for a living and what places I had visited. After giving him the standard burb which I have delivered it must be 10000 times already, it seemed it was enough to convince him that I had something bearing a resemblance to a grasp of the english language. He then revealed his true mission in coming to speak to me – he ran the local english school and had a class starting at 2 and wanted to know if I would go and give the lesson for him, or at least talk to the kids and improve their confidence in speaking in english. I had 2 hours so figured, what the heck!!
Onto the back of his bike and we took the spin across town. We arrived a little early but it wasn’t long till the kids in dribs and drabs filled up the classroom. Before I knew it I was buried under a barage of personal questions from the girls such as where was my wife/girlfriend? what religion was i? what countries I have visited? to much more pertinent questions from the boys such as – Who my favourite football team /footballer was? I was there for about an hour, time for my bus was close so with a heavy heart I had to leave them there though with a promise to call in again before I returned to malaysia.
I made it back to the bus stop just in time to catch my minibus to the town of bukittingi. The driver said it would take 6 hours. He lied, it took 12. It was like getting a lift with postman pat, he called into every house along the way to see if they wanted any parcels delivered to BK, the funny thing was that most of them did!! So we had to drive around to every bloody house that he had a package for. To make matters worse the roads here are terrible, I’m sure the ones on mars would be better. They completely scuppered any notion I had of slumber!! I arrived in BK begging the driver to just drop me off first, but he insisted on dropping off the parcels. I was in agony, I needed sleep so bad. Zombified I found myself standing outside hotel asia at the top of the main drag in the town of Bukittinggi. For the first time in my life I was in the southern hemisphere but that revelation didn’t hit home till the next day. The hotel was locked up, gates chained together with little life inside the main door. I almost cried!! Sleeping on the pavement became a very appealing prospect, though even that desperate measure wasn’t possible as it was very very cold… Remember that I am virtually straddling the equator here and I am a shivering wreck, I thought I might be sick but what souls were on the street at the time all had big jackets on so I stopped fearing for my health. What could it be? Thoughts of parallel dimensions entered my impressionable mind – sleep deprivation is a common torturing technique the americans pioneered back in the 50s. I felt like a test subject. Finally it tweaked, altitude…. I rattled the gates some more and to my delight a porter reared his sleepy head. I signed in at reception and made my way to bed, at last….
Tags: bukittinggi, dumai, Indonesia, sumatra
Phil Gill
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