Another week, another batch of photos from Sumatra. This will be the last you’ll see here of Indonesia; tomorrow we leave for Singapore to meet up with my mum for two weeks in Burma.
A lone tree stands guard at the base of “the mountain”, held in reverence by the locals for its wealth of natural resources.
Storms over Lake Toba on our final day in northern Sumatra.
Dua ibu prepare nasi goreng, a staple meal of fried rice and egg.
Parapat, the town tourism forgot.
The view out the window of our sixteen-hour Trans-Sumatran bus at breakfast time — 4am.
First light after a sleepless night.
Ghosts in headdresses wander the Bukattinggi market.
Sisters close up shop for the day.
A twisted carcass of a construction site…
…and again at sunset.
Scenes from a city park…
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Dusk over Bukattinggi.
And the same view during one of the city’s frequent blackouts.
Will and his new pet. “Plants and bugs in the jungle are usually red for a reason.”
Twigs of cinnamon trees, their fresh-scraped bark laid off-frame for drying.
Brown sugar from sugar cane.
Liquid sugar spills through the pores of the vat and into the pan below.
(L-R) Will, Steve, Silka, Terry, Rachel. Not that it matters.
Our overnight homestay in the west Sumatran jungle.
Tiller takes a break.
Will sips from a fallen coconut. As you do.
A water buffalo helps make short work of a farmer’s terraced rice paddocks.
Monkey in the wild…
…and a deer behind bars in Bukattinggi’s depressing zoo.
An elephant’s foot tethered to the end of a six metre chain, pacing back and forth as if trapped in a video game loop. Worse still was the banana-fed black bear, panting and pawing at the walls of its grimy 20’x20′ enclosure as locals pointed and prodded.
On the bus to Pekanbaru…
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