Elephants

After pancakes and omelet for breakfast, with Laurie as our guide we drove ‘Indonesian style’ (on a motor bike) to the elephants. When we got there the keepers rode the elephants, holding trunks to tails, to the river and we all followed close behind.

At the river the elephants had a swim before we scrubbed them all clean. The baby elephants tried to steel sugarcane from the keepers. The elephants were hairy but their skin was quite soft and delicate not very hard.

When the elephants were clean they decided that we needed a shower to so they sprayed water all over us. After all that work giving people showers they were hungry so we gave them bananas and sugarcane. The youngest elephants trunk wasn’t big enough to hold the food and when she did manage to hold a small banana she held her trunk out as if there was nothing in it.

Once the elephants had eaten all the food we shook hands/trunks with them before they had a short rest and ate some porridge. After they had had their break we got to ride them. Two people on each elephant. To get to the jungle the elephants had to cross a river 6 times and we hoped that they didn’t decide to roll over and have a swim because then we would get very wet.

Jungle Walk

Next, at 12:00 we went on a jungle walk with Laurie as our guide. Before the walk we put on leech cream however, on the way we still had to remove a few leeches from our trousers. During the journey we had to wade trough several rivers and Laurie pointed out many orangutang  nests.

Eventually, we came to a stoney beach were there was a beautiful shrine of flowers to hold our lunch. After a short swim, lunch was fresh, juicy pineapple as a starter and chicken goreng with rice, prawn crackers and fried aubergine.

Then we swam to a waterfall were there was a rock which Alex jumped off. Emma somehow kept a flower in her hair the whole time. Laurie did a flip off the rock. After swimming we walked back crossing between beaches and wadding through the water to the house.

At 5:00am the taxi is waiting to ferry us to Changi airport. It’s Singapore’s 51st birthday so there will be lots of celebration later. At the airport, there is a ornamental pond with live fish in it next to the coffee shop. Alex has drawn the fish and discovered it is an archer fish which can spit up to 15.3cm of water to knock down passing flies (lunch).

The flight ,with Silk air, departed at 7:40 with a very cautious pilot and arrived at 8:00 at Kuala Namu where a car is waiting with Eddie, our driver. It took at least an hour to get out of Medan.  Briefly the road was clear and flat, but soon the potholes started and shortly after that we were into rough track.  The track got progressively narrower and rockier.  After driving 140km in 5 hours, Mega Inn, Tangkahan is finally in reach.

The house at Mega Inn had a thatched roof and lots of Geckos living in the light shade eating all the mosquitoes there was a terrace and over all the house was nice. To get to the house however a swaying, rickety bridge had to be crossed. To cool down after the drive we swam in the river. Alex went the furthest but the monkeys stayed in the trees and relaxed in the hammock until dinner.

Singapore

I’m awake at 8am but when I try to encourage any other clan members to wake up my head is bitten off.  Finally hunger forces action.  De Hollandse Club is not doing breakfast due to catering changes so we decide to go to the Adam Road hawker center.  It’s very nice but the kids are still in weetabix mode so we move to the french cafe and have marble cake opposite the Botanical Gardens.

we use the Metro to Orchard and walk along Orchard road towards the sea.  A gentleman stops us to ask if we are looking for a specific shop.  We buy flip-flops for me, and then look for a food mall to find ice cream.  If you walk into a mall and can’t find the ice cream shop you ask the security guard.  He doesn’t know where to get ice cream.  2 minutes later he turns up to tell us where to go, how to get there and he even comes up 20 minutes later to check that we got our ice cream.  To say that generally people in Singapore are helpful is an understatement.

Jane wants to see the sea so we take the Metro to the Pier from where we have some nice views of odd buildings.

We eat in the Hollandse Club and go to bed quite early because it’s going to be a 5AM taxi pickup.