Traveling from Thailand to Indonesia is a bit like
visiting a friend whose house has the same floor plan as your own; everything
is familiar, but the furniture is bizarrely different. The Elaborate Buddhist
temples have been replaced by equally elaborate mosques, the tuk-tuks replaced with
sidecar-wielding becaks.
Call to prayer, haunting and melodic, pours over the
buildings, snaking in through windows and doors. It wakes you in the morning,
and bids you farewell at night. Hijabs of every hue cover the heads of devout
women, equally a proclamation of faith and a fashion accessory. Cats lounge and
prowl in broad daylight, flaunting their power in the absence of canine
competitors. The fried rice has a bit of a kick, the variety of local curries an even bigger one.
The landscape and weather are both similar in temperament
to what we live with in Thailand. Tropical flowers, palm trees, and banana
leaves abound; fried rice and noodles rule the kitchen; smiles are offered
openly and easily. Yet, touching down in Indonesia’s northern island of
Sumatra, we are greeted by a land that is still incredibly travel-worthy, with
a diverse culture, rare plant and animal life, and a lush array of landscapes.
Despite being so close to Thailand, both in kilometers and in attitude, and
despite having been to Java and Bali in the past, Sumatra offered us a whole new
world to explore.
