Medan, Sumatra

Ahhh Medan. This little jewel in the rough is a place to get away from it all. No foreigners, just you. Maybe 10% speak English. Still, prices are good. I walked into a 5 star hotel, stayed 3 days at the regular rate, then negotiated a rate for 30 days... 5 star perks for $29USD a night. I've been here 2 months now. If you're a fan of Art Deco or Art Moderne, this place is great. The city is beginning a modernization process... slowly... just slowly enough. There are 4-5 huge shopping malls (and a couple of dead ones :). The food choices are wide and varied. The core of historic Chinatown, in Kesawan district, is quite the place to shop or eat- there's food, fabric, motorcycles, musical instruments, sports equipment, cell phones (an entire mall for just cell phones). Medan has a LOT of coffee shops, from little carts on the sidewalk to hipster joints in refurbished buildings (and Starbucks). Like the song by 'Missing Persons' says, "Nobody Walks in Medan". The scooter and motorcycle rule the road here. Watch where you are walking (sidewalks are a bit rough). Brastagi is the fancy grocery store. Indiatown is wonderful and the restaurant Cahaya Baru is the best Indian food since... well... India. The area was settled by Local Aboriginal Natives, Chinese, and Indians, and there is a great cultural mix with a lot of tolerance today, especially as time moves on from those dark days of the late 1990's Indonesia... out with the old, in with the new...Young people just wanna have fun now. Mosques, temples (Indian, Buddhist, Confucian), churches... Medan really is the most culturally diverse spot in Indonesia. If you want to get off the tourist grid, really off, try Indonesia's 4th largest city. Did I mention the active volcano?