Berastagi and around. Couldn't think of a pun.

I'm currently wasting time in KL airport before flying back to work and thought what better thing to do than update my blog. The answers I came up with included: sleep, buying Daim bars and drinking hot chocolate. Regardless here I am anyway.

Having reached Berastagi after a brilliant night in Bukit Luwang I decided that I should do something a bit stupid to make up for having to leave such a fantastic place. To that end I checked into my hotel and decided to rent a motorbike to travel the 60 odd km's to a 120m waterfall on the edge of Lake Toba (a place I'd always wanted to see). Having never been on a motorbike let alone actually driven one I thought starting out with no instructions on some horrific roads (think 70% potholes) and in the rush hour would be as good a place as any. Thankfully the way you actually ride one seemed to bear at least some resemblance to Jonathan's and my old quad bike which meant I didn't have to sit in front of the rental place looking like a complete tit for too long.

An hour and a half later I somehow safely completed the trip as the pictures below will testify. It's very hard to give a scale to this but the island in the middle would happily contain the whole of Singapore were some pillock to decide to move it there as some sort of bizarre practical joke. It's around 60-80 miles long in total and was caused by a cataclysmic eruption. This is what Yellowstone will probably end up looking like someday:





and here's Yellowstone might look like one day if I stood in front of it looking like an arse:



The 120m high waterfall which appears from an underground river:



Waterfalls are always measured in round figures aren't they? Why is that? I refuse to believe that every waterfall in the world over 20m can be perfectly measured in 10m increments. Someone should look into that. (Not me though as it sounds really dull).

After another edge of the seat style journey back I decided to treat myself to a celebratory meal of, well chicken and rice obviously. Fully (...) sated I was more than ready for my 7am trek from the hotel to one of the nearby volcanoes. All in all it took about 6 hours with an hour of getting knocked around by the wind at the top. The fumaroles sounded like jet planes taking off and smelt just horrific. Still there were some stunning views from the top:





The summit itself:



and the view from it:



The twin volcano which also overlooks the town. The smoke near the top is from volcanic activity rather than cloud cover:



and this little chap on the way back down:



Having decided that wasn't enough walking for one day I then went for a 2 hour walk to a nearby hill just in case there was a nice sunset. Thankfully I was in luck:








Back to work until around the 10th now then I get another 3 weeks off until coming home. It all seems to have gone by a touch fast now.

Hope everyone's having a good summer,

Keg