Thursday, April 5, 2012

Simple city in Indonesia~Medan

01/03/2012, this is my first time to reach the land of Medan. By taking the Air Asia flight, we reach here safely without any delay. We staying in my relative house for 5 days 4 nights in Medan and they bring us to visit quite a lot of nice place. Let me share some interesting view about Medan.

Location
Medan is located at the northern coast of Indonesia and it is the fourth largest city in Indonesia after Jakarta, Surabaya and Bandung.

Tourism Place
The most famous tourism place in Medan is Lake Toba. Lake Toba is a largest lake in Indonesia. We used almost 2 hours and a half to reach Pearl of Lake Toba from my relative house. The journey is far and the road is quite worse due to Indonesia government is not fully develop for this tourism place.

 I feel amazing with the view of Lake Toba. 


The weather  is almost same with the weather in Genting Highland. 
You totally wont feel hot when you come to this place.


Unfortunately, this place not really well developed as a tourism place by Indonesia government. The facilities here still not really good. Apart from that, please remember to wear long sleeve and apply more and more sun block when you decide to come for this place. If not, you will regret because it really cause sun burn. My skin totally get serious sun burn after I came back.

Maha Vihara Maitreya Temple is the biggest temple in Indonesia and it is also a famous temple in Asia.

 A very beautiful lotus that plant in front of the temple.



 Sky pot

 Cute monk bite by a puppy

 There has a nice decoration in the temple that allow people to take photo



This temple is really large and a lot of people love to come here to pray and exercise. You can see a lot of people gather outside of the temple to jog or playing badminton. If you are Buddhist, you have to come to this place to pray and visit. You definitely will not feel regret.

Food
Duck Mihun.
This is one of my favorite food in Medan. The taste is very nice especially the duck meat. If you like to eat duck, you definitely will love this food in Medan.You definitely will not find this special food in Malaysia.

Satay Padang,

Satay Padang is a dish from Padang, western Sumatra. It is a traditional dish that made in chicken, lamb, squid and many more. The satay sauce is quite different compare to Malaysia. It made from rice flour, tumeric, ginger, garlic, coriander,galangal root, cumin, curry powder and salt.

Meranti Swiss Roll
It is famous Swiss roll in Medan and a lot of people queue to buy this everyday. You definitely have to try this when you come to Medan. There has three different flavor such as Mocha, Blueberry and cheese. For me, I love cheese flavor very much. This is hard to describe the taste of this Swiss roll. The Mocha Swiss Roll is too sweet and I do not really like it. You can buy this as a souvenir when you come to Medan. Due to I only know how to eat it until I forgot to take the picture for this Swiss Roll, so you can google and find the image for this.

Shopping
Medan, is not a shopping heaven for shopaholic. It is not worth to shop in Indonesia due to the price for most of the clothes, bag or shoes are expensive. For example, I saw a nice cardigan in one of the shopping center in Medan, it cost around RM98 while it only cost around RM50 in Malaysia. However, the only things cheaper here is petrol. The cost for petrol is lower than Malaysia currently.

Culture
In addition, most of the local people here open their business in Medan. According to my relative, the rent and expenses to open a shop in Medan very high compare to Malaysia. In addition, the salary consider lower than Malaysia due to large population that cause the labor cost is very cheap in Medan.

Transportation
For tourist, it is better to rent a car that can bring you all go to the place you want to visit in Medan. It is naked truth to say that the transportation in Medan is not so convenient. Most of the local people will take their car or public transport like becak (Beca in Malay), small bus, taxi and train.

Point of view
Medan is a very simple and relax city. Compare to Malaysia, the city do not have much tall building and well develop by government. However, I feel surprise that all the road users in Medan know how to tolerate among themselves when drive. Due to Indonesia has large population compare to Malaysia, it always cause the traffic jam in the city. I really feel impress about the toleration of all the road users in Medan. They normally will hon to let other car or motorcyclist know that they want to change line or go other side. This culture will never happened in Malaysia due to Malaysia people normally already feel mad when hon by other car.

Compare to Medan, Malaysia already consider a very nice country to live forever. We have a lot of shopping mall, nice garden to exercise, advance public transport, high basic salary and subsidies or allowance from government . As Malaysian, we have to appreciate what we have in this country. We should feel proud to born in Malaysia.