Brastagi

Day 3 (cont'd)

Ordered room service for lunch and lazed in the room coz it was raining.




Left the hotel at 3pm for town. Hailed a Sibayak minivan in front of the hotel and stopped in town. Went to the Tourist Centre near the Fruit Market and the man in charge showed us a map of Brastagi and pointed out the places that we could visit including Mt. Sibayak. It's a 3 hour climb to the peak.


We took a public van to Gundaling hill and rode on a horse cart around the area just for fun.



In town, we bought some persimmons and oranges at the fruit market as well as some scarves for myself and Jai's mom.



Walked down and came across the bus terminal and a wet market. Explored the place a bit.




We stopped by a stall for dinner and ordered ikan bakar (grilled fish) among other dishes. It was delicious.

That's the owner of the stall!

Day 4 - Brastagi

Had breakfast at the hotel.


Jai and I decided to explore the foothills of Mt. Sibayak (but actually ended up climbing the mountain instead). The guy at the Tourist Centre advised us to get a guide if we decided to climb the mountain (apparently, some tourists have lost their way and some have even perished while attempting the climb the mountain. In fact, 2 months back, an Austrian got lost while climbing the mountain and his body was found 8 days later).

One thing, the road towards the mountain was tarred. We could've paid a van to drive us to the junction (the end of the road) but opted to walk up instead. Along the way (after much huffing and puffing) we met up with a local who happened to be a tour guide. Imagine our luck. And, speaking of luck, we even managed to hitch a ride to the junction. Imagine my glee!

That's the tour guide who was on a holiday (forgot his name).

The smell of sulphur was overwhelming.

With Jai and the tour guide is a tourist from Holland

The climb was pretty challenging towards the peak. Thank goodness I was a little monkey who enjoyed climbing trees and hills back in my younger days! That proved to be useful indeed.

CAN YOU SPOT THE DUTCH TOURIST?

Feeling ON TOP OF THE WORLD!

The climb down was also quite a task. All in all we took around 5 hours.

That's the view of Mt. Sibayak from ground level.

Jai kept telling how proud he was of me for climbing the mountain. Hehehehhehehheheheh.


Day 5 - Brastagi - Medan - KL

Did some last minute shopping in the morning. Packed our bags and thank goodness, despite the shopping we could still fit everything into the 2 backpacks! Ooo la la! Took a bus from the hotel to the fruit market to catch a bus to Medan. Unfortunately most of the buses were PACKED! So ended up taking the bus going on the opposite direction which brought us to the main bus terminal (20 mins away). Boarded another bus (which was ready to leave) to Medan. Managed to get a seat each coz those who boarded later had to sit on the roof of the bus! Omigosh!

Reached the bus terminal in Medan 2 hours later and took a beca (trishaw- not the pedal power kind but the motorbike kind) to the airport. We waited for more than 6 hours coz the plane which was supposed to take off at 8.10pm, took off only at 10.15pm. By the time we reached home it was 1am.