On to Berastagi

Up bright and early, said goodbye to our gorgeous kitten and got a boat at 7.30am across the lake. While waiting on the jetty, I took this photo of a lovely Batak lady. I didn't have time to get out my SLR but my little Canon G16 did a good job!

We got a bus north with a German couple and Russian lady. We got to Berastagi after about three hours but the driver took us to the wrong guesthouse. After 10 minutes of confusion we finally arrived only for the Russian lady to start shouting at us as if it was our fault. We had given the correct guesthouse (showing the name written down in Indonesian as well as the location on a map) but that didn't stop her from being really quite rude and suggesting that we were in the wrong and were inexperienced travellers. We didn't really know how to react and were shocked, as were the German couple.

Russians have a very bad reputation amongst travellers for always being rude and I usually stick up for them and point out that you shouldn't make massive generalisations. So it's even more frustrating that the rudest person I've met so far in these seven months has been Russian.

The confrontation was really unsettling and we needed to find some distractions. We walked around the busy town and explored the market. The local people (a group known as the Karo Batak) seem to be really friendly and you can't walk more than a few meters without someone saying hello.

Later in the afternoon we walked an hour or so up a hill to a popular viewpoint. We sat with a beer and watched the changing colours of the sunset surrounded by storms and volcanoes. A group of women on the table next to us asked to have a photo taken with Stef (see extra photo) and then gave us a lift back in to town!

We went to the street food vendors and had 'roti cane' (the same as 'roti canai', one of my favourite dishes in Malaysia - freshly made Indian roti with a curry sauce) and some 'bandrek', a local speciality hot ginger drink that reminded me of Christmas.