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‘Can you turn off the light?’ I asked, lying on the living room floor at night, next to Clement, ready to go to sleep. There was a pause of incomprehension. Clement pointed to the light, and made a cross symbol. Incomprehension. I tried the same kind of waving my arms around. The grandpa turned on the other light. Two lights were on.
‘No. No.’ We pointed to the light. ‘Can you turn off the light?’
Hesitantly he turned off both lights. They couldn’t possibly mean that. Who would want to sleep in the dark?

The family

I love West Sumatra. What a day it was, ending with some lovely new friends in a little village nestled amongst steep hills with a view over the rice fields. Today we had durian, played with the baby pet monkeys, cycled on beautiful roads through rice paddies and snoozed on a restaurant balcony. We also crossed the equator. Hello southern hemisphere!

Rice fields

The road was varied today. Steep undulating hills, a flat river and then a 17km climb into the heights. High above, the wind is cool, the view over the mountainous forest landscape is amazing, and we are given mangoes fresh from the tree directly over our head. Using a stick like a snooker cue, the mangoes are knocked down to be consumed.

We stopped for our first durian of the trip. I remember durian fruit as being the most horrible food I have ever tried. The last time, I was not even able to swallow it. This time both Clement and I managed to eat it, and we even finished off a full durian together.

Durian

Durian

The people here keep monkeys – and the monkey babies are soooo sweet!

Monkey

Monkey

In the heat of the day, we passed the equator. I feel at home now. People stand on their heads, and the water goes down the sink in the right direction. ☺ (For the nerdy people there (like myself), the water rotates in a random direction in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The effect due to the Coriolus force from the rotation of the earth is minimal, and is outweighed by other random forces.)

Equator