Banda Aceh to Takingon

We caught a bus to Bireun to avoid the main roads and also 300kms of unneeded flat roads.  This was a good idea as the roads looked busy, hot, pretty flat and same-same.

We stayed the night in the mosquito invested Bireun and rode out at 6am hoping to beat the heat and make the highlands.

We managed to do this.  We cycling up, and up, and up, and then up. The roads were quiet, the people nice and the scenery pleasant.  We also saw some thomas-leaf monkeys which are not evil like their cousins.  The first major climb of the day was pretty impressive, through someone in Indonesia decided to build the biggest road in the world going up the hill.  The result was rather impressive...

A eager engineer in Indo making a big road (Nancy included in photo for scale)

The day was pretty much licked, through what we didn't realise was to go into Takingon you have to climb over the lip of a mountain and drop down to the lake.  This was quite hard work, we climbed for 10kms after 100kms, riding with a lot of traffic going past. It was quite difficult but then we were rewarded with a 7km descent into the town.

Takingon is an interesting town, very similar to danau toba but there were no 'white' tourists and it is a bit more industrial.  It is still amazing scenically, and the hotel that we stayed in was this amazing indonesian villla that was built for royalty in the 80's but since no-one has visited or done any maintenance.  We were afforded the most luxiourous surrounds we've had on the trip overlooking the late for a few days.  very nice indeed, though the lack of people made it feel a bit like the hotel in the shining...

Lake Takingon at dawn (marked on the map as 'Place of Scenic beauty'.

Takingon in the evening.  Busy, dirty, scenic, amazing and very Indonesian!