Holidays in Tangkahan - Part 2: Money, money, ...

I wish to think that it was my wonderful writing style of the previous post that made you decide to come back and wanting to know more about visiting Tangkahan. So, what's next? I guess the most important thing to know about is the money: Which cost would this trip run up?

Here is what I found out: You need a currency converter and a list of the cost as they occur!

- Flight

- Visa on arrival for European countries and Australia, all others please check Visa regulations

- Taxi from airport to hotel

- Hotel in Medan

- Food in Medan

- Tips (taxi)

- In RAW package

• Transfer from Medan to Tangkahan
• Lunch on the way
• Accommodation in Tangkahan
• Food full board
• Activities
• Transfer from Tangkahan to Medan (possibly lunch) 

- Tips staff at Tangkahan

- Hotel in Medan on way home
- The odd lunch or dinner

- Transfer from Hotel to airport

However, the most important thing to know is that are no ATMs in the jungle, so Medan is the last time you can draw money. For my last trip I travelled with a big pile of banknotes in my bag, because I had to pay for my entire stay in Tangkahan in cash.

Flight

If you are travelling to Tangkahan from abroad, then Medan Polonia airport will be your entry point. Medan is the capital of Sumatra, a sticky, dusty place, stuffed with motorcycles and noise, and I love it! On my first trip it scared the hell out of me, but since I dare leaving the hotel it really grows on me. To get there, you will have to book your own flight even if you book the tour with RAW Wildlife Encounters. They however are always happy to help and they are expanding their services all the time, so just check with them.

Visa on Arrival

Guests from European countries and Australia buy a visa on arrival, all the others please check the visa regulations. In the air plane already, or even at the gate before boarding for the flight to Medan, you will get a customs declaration and an entry card. Best fill it in straight away, it would be a hassle wanting to do it on arrival, although Medan airport is amazingly organised. Staff sometimes looks a little bit 'important' but they are actually quite friendly. In a far corner of the arrival hall are two counters for Visa. On one you pay, on the other you get it stamped into your passport. Visa cost US$ 25, but I saw somebody pay in Indonesian Rupia (IDR) - yet, better check that information if you want to do that, the dollars definitely work!

After that you go through Immigration. I never know what sort of paperwork they want, so I drop passport, custom declaration, Visa stuff and sometimes even the boarding pass on the counter and put a silly smile on. So they patiently select what they need and send me off to collect my suitcase.

There is only one conveyor belt from which everything plonks on the ground. Before you leave the building to enter the steamy heat of Medan you give the customs form to somebody in front of the door, you will know to whom as they already have piles of those in their hands; nobody seems to be really bothered what is written on it as long as they get it.

Taxi and Hotel

Taxi from the airport: If you are travelling with RAW then the tour officially starts with the transfer from Medan to Tangkahan, but usually somebody from the team will be in Medan to pick you up from the airport. The way forward is to stay a night in a hotel. Tangkahan is a four hour drive away and rain usually kicks in in the afternoon making the road a bit of an adventure ride, so starting fresh the next morning makes sense.You will have to pay for taxi and hotel, though. 

Hotel: I usually stay in Swiss Belhotel Medan, a 5-star hotel, which is very nice. It can be booked online and you can book airport pick-up and drop-off with them, too. Those are 5 stars of European standard.

My boys Ika and Bimbim

 The breakfast buffet is amazing, and a mall can be reached through a side entrance of the hotel, so ATM, a store for Indonesian SIM cards and so on are easily accessible.

Christmas decoration, Swiss Belhotel lobby

The transfer between the Swiss Belhotel and the airport lasts about 20 minutes and cost approximately IDR 50,000 if you use a bluebird taxi, they are the safest, a choice I nevertheless only take when I get picked up by RAW tour guides. If I travel alone I arrange pick-up by the hotel taxi, which then cost IDR 70,000. In any case I tip something like IDR 10,000, which is about 50p. I have been tipping in US$ as well because I did not have small IDR bills. All this will change in the future as they are building a new airport outside Medan, so cost and travel time will rise.

A cheaper hotel option is the Pardede International Hotel, Medan. Less then half the price of the Swiss Belhotel, it has wifi as well, the breakfast is decent, sockets for charging appliances are a bit scarce but it is doable if you take a multi-socket extension lead with you, something I highly recommend anyway. This way you only need one power adapter - Indonesia has the European style sockets - and you can charge everything in one go.

 

The hotel is just around the corner of the current airport. So yes, it is a good hotel, but nothing like the standard of the Swiss Belhotel.

For dinner you either can eat in the mall, which is still very affordable and tasty, or if you are with the team, go out to one of the street restaurants. The food is amazing, but I am still not 'street smart' enough to dare going out on my own.

The Adventure Package

If you are travelling with RAW, then the transfer to Tangkahan, accommodation, food, fees, and activities are included as stated in your bookings and itineraries. If you are travelling individually you will have to consider the individual costs.

Transfer to Medan: I tested the different ways to get from Medan to Tangkahan. When I booked with RAW it was included anyway, the team usually would meet the guests at the Swiss Belhotel the evening before and then share cars to go to Tangkahan as convoy the next day, very safe and organised - and fun, travelling in a group.

For my second trip I book a car via a young lady who usually did the bookings locally for RAW. Everything went well and the car was on time, yet the driver did not speak English. In an emergency we would have had no means to communicate, so I was glad that coincidentally a guide was in Medan who was about to use the bus. So it was a win-win, I had my translator and he had a comfortable ride.

For trip number three I used the hotel to book the transfer and that went horribly wrong. The car just didn't show up. So I got double lucky again that my Tangkahan friends had come to pick me up and they called their own car. This saved me quite some money as well - via the hotel the car would have cost IDR 700,000 and booked directly by the boys I only paid IDR 500,000. Depending on the bills I have I tip IDR 50-100k.

The solution for travelling alone: Get in touch with CTO  (Community Tourist Operator) or the RAW office in Medan (they are only just establishing now, but check the RAW website for details), and ask them to arrange pick-up and drop-off for you. Now, this 'getting in touch with CTO' thing is again showing how remote Tangkahan is: Internet is weak, so email usually is not working well. Facebook turned out to be a fantastic tool to communicate as the mobile application usually works. So either:

• send SMS or call the CTO mobile on +62 85275605865 (Rilly), or +62 813 61423245 (Darwin), or
• befriend them on FB and send messages to Rilly or Darwin

Rilly is the lady in charge at CTO, Darwin was running the CTO office and is now taking on the new RAW-Indonesia office in Medan. 

Fees, Accommodation, Food, and Activities: On arrival in Tangkahan you have to stop at the visitor centre to register and pay the entrance fee. In the end all the cost will be paid to visitor centre, except purchases and services arranged with the respective lodge like washing clothes. The picture below gives some guidelines what cost to expect for fees, accommodation, food and activities. I however will not be able to update with the latest version, so please check with Rilly about the actual price. This is really just meant to give you an idea. All the lodges are beautiful, I however can't help but stay in Green Lodge. The elephant camp is right next to it, and it is a bit more remote than the others, I just love it there and it has become my second home.

prices as of April 2011, please check with CTO for current prices.

Tipping Guide - North Sumatra

I took this from the RAW material which I recieved during my first trip. There it says that tipping is not compulsory yet it is generally recommended if you believe the service warrants a show of appreciation. They gave their recommendation in A$ I am using a converter to give you a rough idea:

I hope all of this didn't put you off! Things are quite cheap; going for lunch with seven people to the local open restaurant usually set us back 120 - 200k which is something around £10-15. Those restaurants usually don't look like much but the food is just amazing.

Last lunch in the Lake Toba area before heading home to Tangkahan

Coming up: The Elephants

... and a little appendix!

I just had a long telephone call with my mum to discuss all the material and to help her translate the material Jess had sent. Well, turns out: I do not own a single piece of clothing we are supposed to bring. That'll be fun!

Shopping cotton based materials never worked for my shape. During the last winter sale I drove a shop assistant bonkers because non of the 'oh so loose cut' outdoor trousers would want to accommodate my thighs. I think I need to find an army shop!

And then they are recommending to bring Leech socks! What the heck is that? Particularly long ones?

I'm just kidding. I am very much looking forward to it and it actually sounds like the adventure I have been hoping it would be. I don't mind the leeches, I have more of a problem with big insects... argh!

Sumatra: The Dream come True

This will be the page that keeps all the Sumatra posts together.

24th October 2010

I can't believe that about 10 month have passed until I now eventually have further news on my dream. Time went by so quickly, IL site has changed to IL project in the meantime and ... well, we all didn't get any younger.

So, what happened?

After I had discovered the trip I confessed my wish to hubby and although he initially had his concerns he made his peace with it eventually. Concerns in a worrying kind of way, with him not being in my proximity while wild animals and jungle would. The thought that he would not be able to come to the rescue should I turn into a damsel in distress made him somewhat reluctant to my plans.

He however came round to my point of view having to admit that on his various trips to Canada and Mexico he had encountered all those wildlife matters, and that no thought ever crossed his mind to not do it because I wouldn't be able to come to the rescue. Double standards... dear boy...

Now almost a year on hubby has confidence in my travelling skills, my mum is as excited as I am, her husband found his feet again as well ... and most importantly: The trip is booked and the deposit is paid.

4th - 15th July 2011

my mum and I will be travelling with
Raw Wildlife Encounters
to
Sumatra

Below I will be linking all the posts relating to the trip for you to find them all in one place. I hope you will enjoy reading about it as much as I will enjoy writing it:

• How it began: Sumatra as an Eco Tourist (10th Dec 2009)
• ... and a little appendix (24th October 2010)

How it began: Sumatra as an Eco Tourist

10th December 2009

Yes! I am determined to do this. So brace yourselves, in the future there will be quite a few updates on that matter.

Let's start at the beginning: Michelle tweeted a Tweet - 'I highly recommend this tour company: Raw Wildlife http://www.rawildlife.com.au/index.html'

Innocently I clicked the link - as you do when you are on Twitter - expecting well, a link of a tour company but nothing utterly mind boggling, and then I got hit by something that felt like a hot iron in the neck.

OK, I admit: For a lot of you this might not be the holiday of your dreams, but I love big wild animals especially Elephants and Apes. Ever since I got the book from Jane Goodall about her life between chimps when I was about 15, I wanted to go into the jungle and observe animals. But then one gets married, settles down and is thinking: 'Well, there are nasty, big insects, and they bite, and it's hot and humid, probably it's not that nice anyway'. This is how dreams are getting forgotten.

Now that I was sitting in front of this screen my dream was streaming down my neck like a flow of something very hot, I had to take off my jumper. Reading on, the tension grew and all the thoughts I ever had about this subjects flooded my brain within a split second - between all those noises there was one voice shouting louder than all the others: I need to do this with my mum... alone with her... without hubby... sh... he will never approve, ... and started crying.

I know: Pathetic!

This trip seems to have it all, the environmental approach, the 'not just being a tourist' but being integrated as much as that is possible within the short period of 12 days, the animals - Elephants AND Apes, the jungle, and most importantly the soft approach. I have been looking at other trips, and usually one has to be a tough, well trained, weather proof, 20 something year old, '...Get me out of here' style. With me be being almost 50 while mum is hitting the 70 soon we are running out of time to make this dream come true - can it be that a thing like this is running in the genes? I know that my granny would instantly have joined us as well...

So I enquired about the price and tried to get a bit of background information, hoping for a 'nice' email to come back. I have this thing of writing to people and if the response is too business like I am becoming a rather cautious. Well, what can I say: I got the loveliest email!

Jessica, one of the tour directors explained how Michelle came to recommend the company: The two are friends and she is assisting the Nyaru Menteng project with an 'Enrichment Program' teaching the staff how to keep Orangutans interested and make them learn all the stuff they need to know if they want to behave like proper Orangutans, and to prepare the ones who are waiting for release back into the wild. So she will be going to Nyaru Menteng in January 2010 for 6 weeks - gosh how I envy her!

The tour is rather expensive though, I was told around A$4180 incl. VAT, excl. flight. I had a rough check about flights, the visa will cost extra, and of course it depends on the exchange rate - that makes an approximate £3000 for the two weeks. Please be aware that these are rough numbers and that the basic price can change as well. So if you are interested, always enquire details first.

So given that mum has an incredibly busy travel schedule and I have to smartly manage my annual leave and my expenses during the next year, we are aiming for the first quarter of 2011. I am determined to stop buying stuff now... in 15 month time I should have managed to save the one or the other quid towards this wonderful dream!

Can't wait...!