The only reason I have had to stay in Medan was travelling back from lake
Toba and you had to stay overnight so that you can travel on to Penang in
the morning, the best laugh was the German bar selling "draught fruit" i.e.
beer because the mosque was on the other side of the road, an even worse
place to be is Dumai where you arrive from Melaka by ferry and you have to
hang about till 19.00 for the bus to Lake Toba, this place makes Medan look
like paradise
"Matthew Brealey" wrote in message
news:1152098608.285124.109950@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
Alfred Molon wrote:
> In article <1152023479.966480.219540@b68g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> oneofcold@yahoo.com says...
>
> > On the Lonely Planet website discussion forum, there was a lengthy
> > thread on what's the worst place in the world, and Medan was mentioned
> > several times. What's so bad about it?
>
> Haven't seen that thread but I would also have given my vote to Medan.
> The air is incredibly polluted, the town is hot and very, very dirty.
> It's like a Dantesque inferno.
It's hardly that bad. The town is hot by standards of say the UK
perhaps, but less hot than dozens of other cities in the region. There
is no 'hot season' as in Bangkok, where temperatures reach 40 degrees
celsius. Coming there from hotter, stickier Yangon, I found it
relatively mild.
Frankly there is no particular reason to visit Medan, but it is a very
good place for shopping, with many (air conditioned) shopping malls. I
purchased a Canon Ixus IS 800 camera for 3,800,000rp ($419) from a
camera shop there. This camera was on sale for SGD 713 (equivalent to
US$450) in Singapore airport, while Amazon US sells it for $450, and
Amazon UK charges £266 (US$ 490). Clothing is also cheap - I like the
Matahari department store (found throughout Indonesia). At the large
branch at Medan's Thamrin Plaza, I picked up two Ralph Lauren Polo
dress shirts for equivalent of less than $10 each, as well as long
sleeved Wrangler cotton shirt for a few dollars, and a very wide choice
of decent high-quality t-shirts with different colours, logos, etc. for
less than $4.
One could happily spend a couple of days in the city shopping, and
eating cheaply at some of the restaurants there. There are admittedly
no tourist attractions that I would take a visitor too, but it is a
long way from being hell on earth - the transport is cheap enough, a
taxi will cost $2-$3 to take you around the city centre, the level of
development is fairly good.
The pollution levels are indeed high, but as to b eing dirty, Bangkok
is a smellier, dirtier city, albeit one with far more to offer the
visitor.
But all in all the city is extremely affordable, even with post-tsunami
accommodation price hikes, and between the shopping malls and the hotel
room, and the people, who are friendly (again you are much less likely
to get ripped off here than in Thailand), I can't see what people find
so bad about the place.
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