Been to Sumatra this summer

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May 14, 2002
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#1
And here's some photo's

I didn't had the time so far to edit and upload all the pictures but here some already.
I traveled with a friend of mine without a plan we bought a return ticket to Jakarta. Stayed there a couple of day's.
Bought a ticket to Medan on Sumatra and travel our way to the south of Sumatra to get a boat from there back to Java, and go by bus back to Jakarta to fly from there back to Holland again.



This is Medan, it's in the north of Sumatra

These are all some back alley shots, nothing fancy to find here...






This is how they collect garbage, if they do that at all. Usually they just collect a pile of garbage and they burn it on the street. But this doesn't happen so much in the cities, more in the villages.



This is what they call an 'Ocek' (Otjack) it's a popular way for transportation within small distances. I only took one once, I didn't like it much the motor hardly moved because of the weight of 2 Europeans and their bags.
We really got almost passed by, by pedestrians.



This is how they paint the parkinglots in Indonesia, they even paint the black and white striped sidewalk behind this guy by hand. Even in 35 degrees celcius. (don't know how much that is in farenheit but it's a lot I can assure you that)



These guys live only 5 meters from a train track, these people are poorer then poor. It's rediculous, I also wasn't really thinking when walking in this neighboorhood with my camera but it got me some great shots though.
These people didn't have anything for themselves they lived in a shantytown in the middle of Medan.

Here's a little guy throwing up gang signs, he will run the neighborhood when he is older for sure.



Here's some people from there that didn't want to have their picture taken, so I sneaked this one.



Here's a little girl living next to the train tracks, there are a lot of children living there. They were so full of life so happy and smiling, not knowing they have no future in front of them but poverty.



So we were walking in this shantytown like all the people living there, and suddenly someone shouted something and everybody jumped out of the way.. that's when the train raced by.

Here you can see the houses on the left behind the little boy, yes they live there. And the train going by (without slowing down) on the right side. There are also houses on the other side of the train tracks.



Here's some more people from Medan

There is a Chinese neighborhood in Medan (like everywhere else, the Chinese are also represented in Medan)





Some random dude


Little Raul, I guess.. she was sitting infront of us in a bus ride from Medan to Bukit Lawang, where we did a two day jungle trek.



I'll post some more up in a minute but I have my lunchbreak now. So I'll step outside for a min.
 
May 14, 2002
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#3
In Indonesia lives the greatest muslim community in the world.

This is the Masjid(Mosque) Raya Al-Mashun in Medan


Inside the mosque


This is Bukit Lawang, where we did a jungle trek for 2 day's which was really awsome but I only have a few photos from this track online yet.
Here's a few.

I think I might have spotted SHEA who was hiding somewhere...


Another Orangetang. (Orang Utang)


Some of the guides chilling with a Orang Utang


Some of these guides were really cool, in the evening I chilled with them and smoked some of their weed. It was some experiance to smoke some weed in a Sumatran Jungle.

After some while we ended up near Lake Toba in this lake there is an Island called Samosir Island, the lake is really big.
Here's some pics.

These are houses by people who live near Lake Toba, these people called 'Batak' and are the only Christians who live in Sumatra. They were converted by a German priest around 1800.
All the Batak people can sing and play guitar, really amazing. They can build a party everywhere.


This is an Ox on Samosir Island, the horns of the ox inspired the argitechture (wrong spelling I know) for their houses. (which you can't see on this picture but we all know how horns look like)


This is a christian grave from the Batak, there are graves everywhere, some in fields, some in yards, some a long the roads.


We stayed in a Homestay when we were in Lake Toba which were all small houses. When we arrived (by accident more then planning) we got the only house with a view of the lake itself.
This photo I took from our bedroom window.


When we walked down there we stumbled across this:


Lake Toba was truely paradise for only 6 euro a night!

This guy was paddling along.. with a sig in hand, I want to add that the most cigarettes they smoke are called 'Kretek' which means they added herbs in there (not weed) but has around 40Mg tar in there and no filter. If you smoke one of those you feel like you just smoked a joint, damn.
 
May 14, 2002
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#4
Some kids who live on Samosir Island



Also stayed some time in Bukittingi, they have this park called Panorama park, I made a lot of photos because the view is stunning, 3 vulcanoes, a canyon. This park lives up to it's name.
But for now this is the only photo I have online.


This is the Ampera bridge in Palembang


This is some kids having fun in Palembang, jumping from a dock in the most discusting river you'll ever seen, atleast he's throwing up gang signs. With the Ampera bridge in the background.


Here some guy is picking tea leaves.


We passed Jambi aswell our hotel was right across a school. When these children saw two Europeans they went mental infront of our camera's. Before I knew it the entire school was running infron of our camera's and the whole street got jammed because of them. No cars, scooters could pass anymore, even people had difficulties trying to manouvre through all these kids.
You can't really see on these photos how the chaos is in the street but I liked these photos a lot that's why these are online already.

I think about little maffiosi's when I see this pic.


no comment




You can see my reflection in his eye (if you look carefully haha)


 
May 14, 2002
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We wanted to experience a train ride, we took public transportation through out the whole ride down the island.
Which made me appriciate the public transportation at home much much much more.
First the busses were ALWAYS late by a minimun of one hour. We once had the 5 o clock bus at 8 o clock. Noone who is bothered by this, angry or annoyed. I like this mentality a lot. Although you can get nothing done this way.
Then the roads have all holes in them the size of moon craters.
There are not too many direct roads that go from A to B. They all go via the major cities in the neighborhood.
They drive full speed towards a crater, and press the brake reall loud then go over the crater slowly then speed up again and repeat the process.
Most of these busrides are about 12 hours and drive at night, but don't expect any sleep though.
It's also normal to smoke inside busses, taxi's, trains, restaurants etc.
One ride was so horrible there were 3 people hanging out the windows to throw up.

This pic is of a train ride. The train suddenly stopped and after a few minutes I saw all these people walking next to the train and chilling on the track. Turned out the locomotive just took off without the rest of the train. He just left us there.. The locomotive was broken and they went to get a new one. Without any form of communication, and again, nobody is bothered by this, angry or annoyed.



Because lack of other pictures to match a story I'll post some random up now.

Some dude fishing old school


Fishing Boat


More fishing boats


Some old KNIL - Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger (Royal Dutch Indisch Army) veterans playing a game of chess.


Some little dude acting tough on a motor


That's it for now.
 

I AM

Some Random Asshole
Apr 25, 2002
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#11
And here's some photo's

I didn't had the time so far to edit and upload all the pictures but here some already.
I traveled with a friend of mine without a plan we bought a return ticket to Jakarta. Stayed there a couple of day's.
Bought a ticket to Medan on Sumatra and travel our way to the south of Sumatra to get a boat from there back to Java, and go by bus back to Jakarta to fly from there back to Holland again.
nice pictures man. thanks for sharing them.

don't move outta rotterdam yet cause i'm bout to come there when i go to amsterdam next. lol
 
May 14, 2002
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#14
Damn those are some killer shots.

you are a good photographer ....nice to see such beautiful expensive extensive mosques in the middle of such deep poverty.

maybe the money could have went elsewhere & the could have worshiped God in a regular building.
Thanks bro, I know about these expensive buildings and god, endless discussion I guess. But this mosque was build in 1906 it seems by some Sultan. I couldn't find any more info in it so quickly though.
 
Dec 4, 2006
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#16
Great pictures man!

It reminds me of how some people in El Salvador live and kids out here in the U.S. think they got it bad in the ghetto.........not even close!
 
May 14, 2002
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#17
Good shit. Why did you choose to visit there?

What kinda camera do you have?
Thanks, I choose this location because of several reasons.

I was in Bali last year with family and that was a vacation vacation, but I did do some culture trips etc. There was a lady with us which I call my grandmother, she wanted a few days to spend some time with family of hers in Jakarta. So I took the oppertunity and told her I would love to experience to live a few days among people who actually live there.
So I went there a couple of day's, time which I really appriciated a lot.

From this point I started creating an intrest in Indonesia, every island is so different from the next one, even on the islands itself there is such difference in culture I wanted to see and experiance more of this.

Also Holland has a long history with Indonesia, we colonized them for about 400 years.
And I also practice an Indonesian martial art.

I was talking to a friend of mine who also practice the same martial arts about Indonesia because she went there aswell a couple of years. She wanted to go back and me too, we choose Sumatra because it appealed to us both also because there is almost no tourism.

I used a Nikon D40x mostly with a wide angle 12-22 (I believe) lens
For the portraits I used the kit lens 18-55 mm
On occasians I used a 55-200 lens but none in this series, though
 
May 14, 2002
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#18
I dont ever want to hear someone in the US EVER say "i have it bad".
True that!

You could have been born in a house which is made out of two boards and a train runs by 5 meters infront of.
Your parents have no money to send you to school and there is no goverment support.

I hope I can remember the things I saw to not complain so fast anymore.
 

I AM

Some Random Asshole
Apr 25, 2002
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#19
thizz face? lol kidding...anyway....dope pictures iaoish.....got some real nice shots pimp.

 
May 14, 2002
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#20
great great shots bro!

Looks like a very rewarding trip.
Thanks man, yeah it was a rewarding trip but you have to be able to step away from the hygienic (spelled that wrong) standards you are used to.
We ate a lot of the streets and seeing rats or cockroaches in the kitchen was normal.
Taking a shower means throwing several cup of cold water over you, you'll use the same cup for flushing the toilet and the Indonesian also use this cup to wash their behind after pulling a big one on the toillet, they don't use tp they use water and their left hand.
The toillet itself is a hole in the ground.

But the lessons you learn, people you meet, situations you end up in, and the life experience you'll get are very rewarding yes.

I also learned a lot of the language before I went there. I knew that they don't speak english, they all speak the same 3 words. "Hey mr" "how are you" "Where are you going".
This got us in a lot of situations which we wouldn't have if we didn't.
Once we were in a restaurant and we were talking to a guy who did speak some english, because he was working in a tourist thing. I threw some Indonesian words in there and the guy was so amazed he invited us in the kitchen, his dad ownes the restaurant. To eat there and eat some durian fruit which we could open ourselfs.
Which isn't easy I can say.

This is a durian fruit (this is not my photo/picture btw) it has to be opend with a machette.


This and a lot of other situation in which people were so much different towards us then they would have been, in a possible way.