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For the New Year I was in Indonesia at Tuk Tuk on Samosir Island in Lake Toba, Sumatra. Shortly after the New Year I traveled back to Medan and then caught an over night bus up to Banda Aceh on the extreme northern coast of Sumatra. The Aceh province had a more extreme form of Islam than the rest of Indonesia and generally wanted its independence from the rule of Jakarta. Banda Aceh had a beautiful central mosque and a colorful central market, however, I had really traveled up to the province to go out to the island called Pulau Weh. From Banda Aceh's port of Krueng Raja it was a 2.5 hour sailing out to the idyllic tropical island which was famous for it's marine national park and diving.
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1996 Travel Diary (Part 1)

Gjcmcclurg
2005-12-23 14:40:13

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200km on the Alas river and managed to see a good deal of wildlife including monkeys, snakes, bats, Hornbills, Kingfishers, and beautiful butterflies.

After the Alas river trip I found myself approaching the end of my third 2 month Indonesian visa, so it was time to head back to Singapore. I traveled back down to Batusangkar and said my final good-byes, before returning to Singapore via Pekanbaru.

I arrived back in Singapore on 2nd February and returned to my normal guesthouse - Lee's Travelers Club on Beach Road. The following day I did my usual run to the American Express office to pick up my mail. I had a letter from my mother, brother and best mate Mark. There was also a hand written note attached to my bundle of letters - the message was to abruptly end my trip - it read "Gavin - Your father has passed away in England". Although my father hadn't been in the best of health this was a total surprise. I spend the next couple of days arranging my flight back to England.

On 6th February I caught my Cathy Pacific flight up to Bangkok and then my Tarom (Romanian airline) flight to London via Bucharest. I arrived in Bucharest at 6.00am the next morning and it was -10 Celsius, quite a shock since it had been 30 Celsius in Singapore and now we had to walk through the snow to the airport shuttle bus! I finally arrived back at Heathrow in London at 11.30 on 7th February and then traveled home by train.

On 19th May I resumed my trip by catching a direct 12 hour flight from London to Tokyo. I planned to explore Japan for a couple of months and also to visit my best mate, Mark, who was working in Tokyo. Due to my traveling and his working in Japan I hadn't seen Mark for 20 months, so we had allot of catching up to do. Mark met me at Narita airport and we caught the JR train back to Shimosa Nakayama where he was living.

Mark's suburb seemed a lively little place with a busy ...