Travel Notes in Medan, Indonesia

It took me only five minutes from knowing that there is such a city in Indonesia called Medan to deciding to buy a plane ticket.

One afternoon twenty days ago, I was so hungry that I ate toast in the company teahouse. I noticed an advertisement for a Cathay Pacific ticket in the newspaper spread out on my sister's desktop with milk tea, so I took out my mobile phone and opened the webpage.

Medan?

Wikipedia saw it once. I read the Chinese version. The English version contains too much information. Compared with the Chinese version, the introduction is very short. Basically, I only read one sentence, "Medan is the capital of Indonesia's North Sumatra Province and the third largest city in Indonesia."

There are only 20 days before the departure time? Quickly searched several potential peers.

"What is Medan?" "The third largest city in Indonesia."

……

Forget it, buy an option first.

Next, I hesitated for twenty days. Go or not.

When you go to a new place to play, you always have to look at how the seniors played first. But I found it! I can't find it! Friends of the motherland, don't you all go to Medan? Why don't you have your beautiful photos and strategies! Medan, I haven't heard of it. This is not Bali. ) There are several friends in Taiwan Province Province, but the interval is in years, which can be seen in a handful of degrees. It is said that there are many China friends in Singapore and Malaysia, probably because they are close, just across the Straits of Malacca. Maybe because it's close, you don't need to do a raiders. ...

It turned out to be true. I spent the whole day with four Malaysian friends from China on the island in the center of the huge volcanic lake. They told me that Malaysian residents can travel to Indonesia once a week, just like Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

At the moment, my feeling can be described as follows: out of trust in you, your boss asked you to write a system and method from scratch that no one has written in the history of your company. This is already crazy. It's okay. We have Google. You search skillfully, but you find nothing to copy &; I changed it after I posted it!

Looks like my choice is getting cold.

In the next few days, I climbed Google as soon as I had time and called this little friend. There is nothing decent in Chinese, so I went to Lonely Planet and searched for various keywords in English. I gradually accumulated a lot of impressions and information, and I got the concept of the volcano and volcanic lake I was going to.

Then there was a tsunami in Indonesia, which swept away many people. Amitabha. In the words of friends, "This is the origin of the volcanic seismic belt around the Pacific Ocean!"

Well, Medan, in the first introduction of Lonely Planet, said it was a city that looked a little boring ... Well, I don't have to worry about the tsunami.

When I booked a hotel, I read the travel tips of the Hong Kong government and the travel suggestions of the governments of China, Commonwealth and Australia modestly and cautiously. Probably because I didn't find much mature travel information in the early stage, I left a psychological shadow and always felt that I was not practical.

The mother of the motherland said, "Since 2002, there have been many terrorist bombings in Jakarta and Bali. The government has stepped up anti-terrorism efforts and severely cracked down on terrorist organizations and individuals, and social security is generally good. " (Later, when I was in Medan, I lived in Marriott. Before driving into the hotel area, the security guard will open the front door, back door and trunk of the car to have a look. After getting off at the hotel lobby, you need to check your luggage and personnel before you can enter. "Indonesia is located in the Pacific Rim earthquake zone, with frequent geological disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes. China citizens should pay attention to safety when traveling to Indonesia, and try to avoid going to remote, inaccessible and undeveloped areas such as Papua, Aceh and Maluku for adventure tourism. "

There is really a province in Indonesia-Papua, and all the governments say they can't go.

Well, I saw the map, which is far from my North Sumatra province. That wonderful province borders Papua New Guinea, and it is said that there are still cannibals and headhunters (on the island in the middle of the huge volcanic lake where I lived for two nights, the indigenous Batak people stopped cannibalism about 200 years ago).

At the same time, I also paid attention to volcanoes. Since the level of volcanic eruption did not lead to the extinction of dinosaurs, it will be all right after six or seven kilometers. For example, Krakato volcano just erupted this time (causing a tsunami). At present, the upgraded restricted area is 5 kilometers in Fiona Fang.

As for the two volcanoes, which are two hours' drive from downtown Medan, one of them is forbidden to enter (because it erupted several years ago and is still in a relatively active period), and I have a look at the other one specially. The entrance to buy tickets is 7 kilometers from the top of the mountain.

In a word, I am hesitant with ups and downs all the way. On the last weekend before departure, I was still hesitating whether to go or not.

Finally, I bought insurance and registered with the Hong Kong government's outbound travel reminder service (probably to tell the government where I have been these days and what emergency I can contact).

Flying, four hours.

(To be continued ...)