March 2008

Samosir Island lived up to every thing I had hoped for. Samosir Cottages was a wonderful hotel with good food friendly staff an breath taking views on every moment of the day or night. There were motor cycles for rent and one of the hostesses even got my torn pants fixed. I got to know nice people and with one -Ronald Plak I was to travel all the way to  Java. He also took some of the most impressive pictures of me, but that’s for the next Album of Bukittinggi.

One more thing about the population. I stopped for fuel, next to a little stall, where petrol was sold in plastic bottles. When I did not manage to open the tank, lots of kids came to help me. I asked how much it was, Of course I did not understand the answer, so I handed over a Rp 50.000 note. No, no; were the gestures.

I wanted to take an other note out of my wallet. The lady that had sold me the petrol put up seven fingers and gave me the 50.000 note back, More honest than that, people can’t be. I gave her 10.000 and she gave me back 3000.

Rp 7000 for 2 liter petrol is € 0,25 a liter. No wonder I got confused.