A relatively long but enjoyable ferry crossing from Langkawi to Medan.  Medan is the capital of North Sumatra and is the third-largest city in Indonesia. You either love it or hate it and we definitely hated it: choked with traffic, pollution and poverty. It was a one night stopover while we booked our route to Bukit Lawang further north.

It was that exciting we didn’t bother taking out the camera.

Indonesia is far larger than we had ever imagined and we now know our 30–day visa will only allow us to see a mere fraction of our original itinerary.  We have somewhat revised it and plan to take a couple of internal flights in to reach our desired Christmas destination.