Medan Journal (Day 1) : A Son's Notes

Introduction

Ah, where to begin! My holiday in Medan will be one of the most memorable period of my life. From Medan city to Samosir Island and to Danau Toba...words can never do justice on the beauty of the various places I visited while I was there.  We stayed there for six day; six days filled with endless wonder that I will forever cherish.

This is Medan's journey from the perspective of my son.

Let me share with all of you what we've gained, and hopefully you'll gain something beneficial out of it as well.

Let's begin.

Medan

Medan is circled red. 

Credit [here]

Medan, Indonesia is situated on Sumatra Island and it's the fourth largest city in Indonesia (after Jakarta, Surabaya and Bandung), with a population of around 2.2 millions[1]. Medan is an hour late, meaning that if Malaysia is 9.55AM, Medan is 8.55AM.

Our journey started around 4.45AM when we left home to go to the LCCT airport (now relocated to KLIA2). The flight from KL to Medan took about 45 minutes. We lifted off at 8.45AM (Malaysia time) and touched down at Medan Polonio International Airport around 8.30AM (Medan time).

The excited faces of my brother (I think he was more like stunned, actually), sister and father upon arrival

Man, I have to comment on the Polonio International Airport. The airport is very small and the system is not exactly...topnotch. The airport people would just pop in and out randomly asking for declaration slip, baggage stickers, etc.  But I was told that the airport had been relocated last year to a much better place - the Kualanamu Airport. About time, ey?

My brother loves airplanes so much!

Pictured above is him right after we touched down in Medan. 

Throughout our stay in Medan, we were blessed with the presence of a very helpful and friendly tour guide named Ridu. Upon arrival, he picked us up from the airport and gave us a quick tour of Medan. Interestingly, throughout the tour, there were a few things that I noticed:

1. Medan has a lot of sugar cane farms for the production of sugar.
2. In terms of occupation, some of the people work for the Government, although the vast majority of people are into some kind of business. 
3. People on the road love to honk. Ridu said that it's polite to honk other vehicles; it's a way of saying that, ''I'm passing through here, hope that's okay with you!'' and that, ''I'm saying 'Hello!' to you!'' 
4. People don't really follow to traffic rules - Ridu said that instead of the rules, they practice 'safety' -- whatever that means hahaha. But amid the busyness and the messiness of the road due to this lack of adherence to the traffic rules, there were no accidents, as far as I can tell. Plus, they didn't drive like crazy. There were quite gentle, to be honest. I guess that was what Ridu meant by 'safety'.
5. There are a lot of trishaws! Compared to Malaysia where trishaws are usually found in certain places only (e.g. Malacca, where there are a lot of tourists), it seems that the use of trishaws are widespread here, you know, like the kapcai motorcycles in Malaysia.
6. Ridu told us that the public transports here are of several kinds - the famous ones include trishaws (beca), taxis and minivans (angkot).

A glimpse of Medan city. Pictured in the middle is a trishaw (beca).

Angkot (a popular public transport in Medan) in action.

After that, Ridu dropped us at Ibunda Hotel, our accommodation for today and left us to explore the city ourselves.

My brother in front of Ibunda Hotel.

We were advised not to walk around enthusiastically since tomorrow's gonna be a very long day. Plus, we were quite tired, despite the short flight from KL to Medan. But before we call it a day, we managed to visit two interesting places in Medan, Istana Maimoon and Masjid Raya Al-Mashun. Head on to the next entry to read more about these two places.

I think my dad's lost.