It was 1pm and many hours before the bus to Medan was due to leave. Almost all the bus agency offices were shut. What I wasn't prepared for was that the bus station was virtually deserted.
I was prepared for this and insisted that he took us to the bus station which was just around the corner. It swam along the ditch beside the road away from the cat which soon lost interest. The lizard must have been three foot long including tail. There in the drainage ditch was a monitor lizard being stalked by a cat. You can then get a shared minivan ('angkot') for a little as 3,000INR per person to the bus station which is in fact well out of town.Īs an aside I got my first sighting of Indonesian wildlife by the ATM. If you want to save money you could walk out of the ferry port area and there is an ATM opposite the gate. To be fair to our guy he first took us to an ATM, there are many, and then to a money changer where we could exchange the last of our Malaysian Ringgits. The standard foreigner fare was 50,000INR ($4). We, of course, did not have hindsight.Īs you come out of immigration there are plenty of people wanting to be your taxi. There is a nice lady who had a stand next to the bus selling chicken satay on sticky rice for 10,000INR/75c to help you on your way. With hindsight one should go to their office in the bus station which opens sometime before the bus leaves and buy a ticket there. The first thing is to confirm that there is a good night bus which leaves from Dumai bus station to Medan at 7pm. There was very limited information on how to get to Medan from Dumai on the internet so I will go into some detail for future travellers (and hope not to bore others). We plan to extend it another 30 days in Bali. We smiled sweetly and they gave a standard 30 day visa even though we had no evidence of an exit ticket. The ferry was very straight forward, as were Indonesian immigration in Dumai.
So they have travelled 100% overland and have booked a cruise to take them on the last leg to Perth, Australia. They took a more Northern route through Russia and Mongolia and China. They left the Netherlands the same month we left England. We shared the challenge with Moos and Emma, a young Dutch couple who we met on the ferry to Dumai. We have left the efficiency of Malaysia and the tourist funnel of Thailand and it is nice to have the challenge of trying to work which way is up in a new country where services are no straight forward. Before it filled up!For a while we are back travelling again.
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