TRAVELS WITH MY TEXT BOOKS 8

The following morning we were offered the option of another walk or some time to sunbathe. Approximately five minutes later, we were found stretched out on our towels by the lake with a large thermos of tea. A lazy morning later, we floated down the river in large inner tubes, steered by our faithful guides over the rapids.

It was easy to understand how easily travellers could get stuck in these kinds of places, spending weeks exploring the jungle and floating lazily downstream. But we decided to move south to Lake Toba, where our level of productivity slowed down to almost non-existent. Toba is the largest volcanic lake in the world and like most other travellers we stayed on the island in the middle of the lake in a village called Tuk Tuk. I would be hard pushed to find lazier days in my life than the ones I spent on Toba, since my entire time there seemed to revolve around sunbathing, eating or browsing the shops that were less than fifteen minutes walk away. All our great plans to hire pushbikes or motorbikes went up in smoke when we arrived and realised how pretty the mountains were, so we decided that all we wanted to do was sit there and look at them.

We left going back to Medan as long as was humanly possible and almost missed the last boat back to the mainland as a result. In the minibus on the way back the driver, deciding that we required some entertainment, revealed his DVD player and a whole case of music DVDS. As he selected one, I told Felicity that I didn't mind what it was, as long as it wasn't the man with the guitar that had plagued me all the way to and from Tana Toraja in Sulawesi. Suddenly, as the title screen came on, a very familiar moustachioed man appeared...it seems this man was taking over transportation everywhere. Luckily this time I had someone else to suffer it with. We were almost relieved to arrive back in Medan, however much we disliked the city but were absolutely shell-shocked to learn that the bedbug ridden hotel we'd stayed in before was full. Homeless and wandering around in the dark, we stopped at the first hotel we found, which we thought would be well over our budget. Not only was it cheaper, it was also one of the cleanest places I've stayed in during my entire time in Indonesia.

I had two days left in Indonesia once I arrived back in Jakarta and found myself very busily trying to pack a years' worth of my life into suitcases. I visited the school, receiving a very warm (and loud) welcome from the two of my classes who were there and had a last dinner with my housemates and co-workers. But all too soon, I found myself loading my bags into the car and watching Jakarta flash by on my way to the airport. To describe just how difficult it was to leave Indonesia is an impossibility. I had essentially built up a life there; a job, a home, a social circle, accumulated favourite markets, warung (street stalls), weekend trips away, beaches, cafés and drinking holes, seen some incredibly beautiful places and met some truly amazing people. Essentially I'd gone from arriving in a country I didn't really understand to feeling so comfortable there that I couldn't imagine ever being anywhere else. I believe you could spend a year travelling through Indonesia and still only feel like you'd seen a tiny corner of it; it is that vast and uniquely eclectic. I will always consider Indonesia to be my home and crave to go back there. I know that in the not-too distant future that I will and there is a strong probability that I would return to live. The list of things that I missed about the UK became shorter every day that I spent in Indonesia, while the list of things I loved about Indonesia grew. There are so many more things I miss about Indonesia than I delight in having back now I am living in England. Missing brie and hot showers seems so insignificant when I think of all the experiences I am missing by not being in Indonesia; weekends at the beach, climbing a volcano, trekking through the jungle, chatting with locals at a bus station. Though this will sound like a cliché, I feel incredibly lucky and blessed to have been given the opportunity to have lived there and I will continue to miss it and the people that live there every day.