Group of us are bundled into a little van, after the $25 visa and body search ofcourse. One group are going north to do jungle trekking and see the UrangUtans. One guy seems to know the taxi owner and is speaking the language, he runs a guesthouse south coast of Sumatra. Another girl is also heading for Parapat for lake Toba as I am. I am hoping to get to Parapat today and avoid staying in Meday which is not a very special place but the local bus wont make Parapat till 11 ish p.m and they wont put on a private bus just for me. So I head off in search of an ATM and accommodation. One good thing is that I am in the verwith Black domes and minarat (and under the flight path of aeroplanes, great), nice view though. I manage to visit both attractions of the city quite easily including the mosque (and for the first time there is a row of beggers lined up on both sides of the entrance and approach to the mosque, havent seen so many in all of the last 5 months) which
were nothing special. I continue walking. Very busy place, very poor pavements but then hardly any pedestrians either, I have to negotiate with motor bikes on the pavements and avoid falling down numerous open manholes. lousy traffic as usual.

I read that half the population live in Jacarta, the capital, that means in excess of 110 million people, I probably wont be visiting.

I get dinner at a street place, run by 5 young men, at times they have less customers than staff and the service is not so good but the food was alright. I had a hair cut earlier, the girl seemed unaccustomed to cutting mens hair, if she is not a pets hairdresser I think she should try it, but eventually the hair looked ok. It was a little shorter than I had planned,
but I had also been prepared (and had thought of doing this few days ago anyway) to get the clippers from her and take the whole thing off if she made a complete mess of it. then she washed my hair and gave my head a massage, all for 15000 RP ($1.5).

I have been trying to contact my travel company for about 10 days now (this is very organised of me) to see if I can reschedule the Australia flight but no reply yet. I set off in search of an internet cafe to call them and having visited lots of places it becomes apparant they dont have skype here, dont want to download it either, they tell you they have it because they dont know what I am. I end up being lost, I have walked about 5 hours tonight which is good unintentional exercise. I am asking directions to the mosque, having forgotten the name. This is difficult as I am in the largest muslim country in the world and there are lots of mosques. I remember the shopping mall and eventually a chinese mobile phone shop owner is helpful in giving me directions and also informing me there are no international phones here and my only option is a SIM card. I return with my mobile phone and get one from him, having been helped by him earlier. I get a recorded message from the travel company which costs me twice what the man thought it should.

I have arranged a taxi to Parapat in the morning picked up from the guesthouse, $2 more expensive than catching the local bus but saves me getting to the station on a scooter side carriage and sharing the bus. disadvantage is I wont leave till 9 a.m (I had hoped for 7 start).

Knock on the door at 7, might have been the motorbike I had organised. get down for 8.55, no taxi, buy tooth paste and tooth brush, no taxi, go back to the shop to buy another tooth brush as it is quite good but it was her last one. Still no taxi,
turns up at 9.25, then driven to the taxi station where we are picking up passangers as I write now.

 we set off at 10.07, only 3 hours after I had hoped, does this matter? The drive itself is not uncomfortable in terms of smoothness but the overtakes are awful. I notice a large billboard with some important looking people on it with the slogan "Road to zero accidents" minutes later we are doing a multi-vehicle overtake on the wrong side of the road and the double solid white lines that separate the carriageways. Driving on the hard shoulder is quite normal here, some times even cars coming from the opposit direction are forced into the hard shoulder as the traffic from our side appears to be the heavier stream. The driver buys me a Sumatran coffee (very good) at a stop and offers me some rice wrapped in some leaves, very nice. I have some small boiled eggs and tofu on skewers and also take some rice wraps with me onto the minibus. One looks coloured brownish and the
other is white and tastes better when I try them near Parapat. The lady next to me speaks poor English but happens to have lived in Munich for 3 years studying German at the Goethe institute and is currently teaching in Medan. I am quite pleased to be understood by her despite my meager German knowledge. Another passanger, a woman in her 30's is nursing her mother with her from Medan to Parapat, at times she literally takes mothers entire weight when getting her on and off the minibus.

Parapat comes into view and has stunning views of the Toba lake and the island of Samusir, I am tempted to stay but will probably have just as good views from the island. When I am dropped off, my bag is carried by one guy and 2 more are hovering
and start showing me details of their guesthouses on the island, these are the famous tauts. On the ferry there are more of them, basically harassing people, they have a lot of knowlege of England and probably many other places too and use lots of slang learnt from TV shows. Couple of them get into a banter with me and I do my best to keep up which is hard, they are well practiced in this. Gemma an Australian girl is engaged in conversation with Roy (another taut but a coolone) who appears to have a lot of knowldge of animals etc, Gemma is qualified in Natural sciences and is doing some work in Indonesia and
travelling for the last 5 and a half months here.