Day 50: Medan

Photos: http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051072&l=0daf9&id=1101094

The next morning we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Medan, a city in northern Sumatra that also happens to be the third largest city in Indonesia. We arrived at the terminal just under an hour before the flight, and we expected to check in and get through security with time to spare.

The only problem was that we were at the wrong airport. AirAsia, it seems, has its own separate airport in KL that isn’t serviced by the KL Express train we had taken to the main airport. Once we realized our mistake, we scrambled to find a cab driver to take us to the AirAsia terminal, which was ten minutes away.

Finding a cab driver was quite easy, probably because we were running like idiot tourists who were about to miss their flight. Sensing blood in the water, a cab driver ran up to us and motioned us to his car.

Jumping into an unmetered cab is a developing country without first discussing price is the surest way to get overcharged that I can think of, but we didn’t have time to negotiate. Once we were on our way, the cab driver told us the price of the ride: RM 90 ($25). Ninety ringgit! Surely you jest. We managed to whine and bargain our way down to RM 40, which was still a rip off.

We sprinted through the terminal to the AirAsia check in counter; by now our flight left in 25 minutes. Luckily, Kendyl was able to flash a smile and convince the guy at the counter to let us onto the flight. We ran to the gate, boarded the plane, and collapsed in our seats in relief.

On the ground in Medan, we walked to the main street in town, Jalan Sisingamangaraja. We found a decent hotel, although none of the options were spectacular, and then we headed down to the main site in town, Istana Maimoon (Maimoon Palace). Built in 1888, the palace still houses the current Shah of Medan—who happens to be nine years old. The palace was mostly run down, but we did get a look at a wall of photographs of past shahs, including one of the current shah holding a scythe and trying to look tough (at age seven).

Outside the palace was a strange building that housed a holy canon—or, rather, half a canon. According to legend, the current shah’s great grandfather’s brother (still following?) died, was reincarnated as a canon, and subsequently shot so many cannonballs at enemy troops that he blew himself in half. One half of the canon ended up in another city, but the back half is housed here. Even today, residents of Medan come and leave flowers on the holy half-canon. Strange stuff.

We walked down the road to the main mosque in town—Mesjid Raya, or the Grand Mosque—and on the way we met a man named Edy who spoke excellent English and was more than willing to tell us everything that we wanted to know about Medan. Edy walked us into the mosque and then out to the graveyard in the back, all the while educating us on Medan, Islam, and Ramadan (which was now in its final week). According to Edy, though eating and drinking is prohibited during daytime hours during Ramadan, Medan was liberal enough such that we would still manage to find restaurants open during the day. Aceh, our next destination, would be another story.

True to his word, Edy walked us down to an Indonesian noodle shop and we gobbled down our first meal of the day. Edy kept his fast going, though he admitted that plenty of people cheated from time to time.

That evening we bought morning bus tickets to Sigli, a town in Aceh that Edy recommended we visit, and then we stopped by Medan’s Fourth Annual Ramadan rock concert for a sampling of Sumatran music and street food. Later that night we met Edy for tea at a local hangout, and he gave us more advice for our visit to Aceh. His favorite line was “I don’t want to tell you what to do, but…” followed by instructions on exactly what to do. We loved the guy.