SumatraTravels, July 2002
When my teaching contract in Jakarta ended, I set off for China. Why China? Most of the students I had taught were ethnic Chinese, and though they had been born in Indonesia, spoke only Indonesian (and some English, of course), they were intensely interested in the land of their forebears, and some of that interest rubbed off on me.
The journey to China was, as with my travels in the past, to be an entirely overland (and overwater) one, travelling through Sumatra, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, and into China. This, then, represents the first leg of that journey, which began with an overnight ferry ride from Jakarta to Padang on the west coast of Sumatra, and continued overland to Bukittinggi, Pekanbaru, Lake Toba, and Medan.
Padang
The view over Salat Pandawi from the clifftop at Padang.
Padang
Padang
Padang
Bukittinggi
Bukittinggi
Medan
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Delhi Deadlines by Sheldon Smith
A washed out journalist, posted to India to cover a bloody election campaign, uncovers truths about his son's life - and death - in the country, truths that test loyalties forged in the war zones of Bosnia and Rwanda. A fiercely evocative narrative of modern-day India, filled with the clamour and hot stinks of its capital, this is a novel of death woven through with life.
"The writing is very very good... the mysteriousness of Wyndham's death and the narrator's involvement will entice the reader to keep reading." - 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Expert Reviewer
