Here I Am

The size of a city is relative to your perspective. In the United States and Europe, 2.5 million people is a pretty big city. That’s the equivalent of Chicago in the US, our third largest city. In Europe, it’s Rome, the sixth largest European city. However, in Asia, where urban populations have been rising and mega-cities are mushrooming everywhere, 2.5 million residents is a small city. That doesn’t even come close to cracking the top 20.

I currently find myself in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. The Chicago of Indonesia. 2.5 million people, the third largest city in Indonesia. However, unlike Chicago, Medan is fairly passed over in the grand scheme of Asian cities. Medan is on the northeastern side of Sumatra, on the Strait of Malacca, facing Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur is nearly due east, and we are not far from Singapore, south of Kuala Lumpur, either.

Like most of Indonesia, Medan’s population is predominantly Moslem. Intermittently throughout the day I hear the call to prayer being broadcast from the minarets of the city’s mosques. Many women wear head coverings. Motorcycles vastly outnumber cars on the roads. When you call a Grab (the competitor Uber sold out to in Southeast Asia) you can request a car or a motorcycle to come and pick you up.

For being a large city, I haven’t found that much to do in Medan. Today I went to the sultan’s palace. Only the center portion was open to visitors. Not the side wings. There’s a Buddhist shrine somewhere in the city that may be worth visiting, and maybe one or two historical museums. However, there is an abundance of natural beauty around Medan, and I plan to explore that on the weekends. Hopefully I can get an extended getaway over Chinese New Year. That Tuesday is a national holiday.

For a city of 2.5 million, I would have expected more foreigners, but I have barely seen any over the week and change that I’ve been here. There are my co-workers (one Colombian, one Indian, one American). I saw another white guy in my hotel one morning, and other than him, I saw a white woman at the supermarket yesterday. She had about 50 hot dog packages in her shopping cart. I’m not sure if I want to be her friend or steer clear of whatever she is cooking up.

I shouldn’t be surprised that my company has saw fit to set up a coffee buying business in such an unknown part of the globe. The company’s strategy is basically to go where others won’t. North Sumatra produces a lot of high-quality coffee, and we buy it for our global roasting customers. I’m here with the coffee business, helping to implement some new software and technology for the supply chain. I expect to be in Indonesia until the end of March.

To occupy my time, while I’m not working, I’ll continue to explore the city. I have a feeling there are some hidden gems around. I’ve already found the velociraptor on a balcony, and there’s some sort of upside-down house in the city as well. There are nice movie theatres where I can go and see films if I so please, and there is no shortage of food.

The national staple is mie goreng. Mie means noodles. Goreng means fried. They are wok friend noodles with egg and bean sprouts. It’s pretty good, and there are variants with chicken, spicy sauce, or crab. Everything comes with a handful of shrimp crackers, which “pop” when they hit your tongue. I’ve found a vegetarian restaurant that I really like. Tonight, I had a tofu and mushroom soup. It was my second visit to the restaurant. The first time I had barbeque tempeh. This week I’m going to hunt down some legendary boiled duck in broth which looked delicious on the internet.

I’m staying on the west side of the city. It’s about a 20 – 25 minute drive to our coffee warehouses from my hotel. The warehouses are in a back-roads area. Lots of companies have warehouses here. There are some schools, mosques, family homes, convenience stores, and what looks like a palm oil plantation down the road.

I’ll report back as I branch out some more and experience more of Sumatra, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia. I’ve already booked a brief excursion to Penang, Malaysia for next weekend.