Short trip to Medan

Four weeks ago, we went for a short trip to Medan as hubby had a Lion’s Club function there. The initial itinerary included a trip to Lake Toba, and that was the main reason I decided to tag along but two days before departure, we received the revised itinerary and (gasp!) Lake Toba was out of the picture. Bummer! It was too late to pull out by then so I just went along grudgingly.

At LCCT and shortly after boarding

The first day was practically spent in the hotel with Yiu Yiu as hubby and his other Lion Club members went about their official functions. On the second day, members of the Lion’s Club in Medan brought the Malaysian delegation to Taman SImalem Resort, a hill resort about 3.5 hours drive from Medan. Though there’s an excellent view of Lake Toba from the resort, it still isn’t the real thing – taking a boat ride to the Samosir Island right in the middle of the lake and visits the traditional villages to experience the traditional Batak culture.

View of Lake Toba

Anyway, Taman Simalen Resort is an agro-tourism attraction so visited some fruit farms and organic vegetables farm.

More views of Lake Toba

Our flight home on the third day was scheduled at 8.20pm so we spent the day visiting some places of interest in Medan. We were brought to a Chinese temple, a crocodile farm and Istana Maimun, an ancient Malay palace.

Top: crocodile farm and bottom: Istana Maimun

An incident happened on the way to Medan. Just before the plane took off, we realized that the backpack containing Yiu Yiu’s milk powder, hot water flask and snacks were missing. Hubby pleaded with the crew to allow him to go back to the departure hall but he couldn’t find it. Only after the plane took off did we realize he may have left it at the scanning machine after going through passport control as we don’t remember carrying it at the departure hall. We had to buy her a new bottle and milk powder in Medan but unfortunately, we couldn’t find the brand she’s taking. We ended up buying Enfagrow but my little missy rejected it, probably it tasted different so she went without milk for three days. When we got back to the LCCT, we contacted the MAB personnel who gave us a KLIA number to call, as all missing bags are sent there. After several phone calls and a trip to KLIA, we managed to retrieve the lost backpack. What a drama!