A Walk In The Park

Andrew brought up the idea of walking the "ring road" of Medan probably about a month back, or "making history" as he put it. Tom and I had been pretty keen on the idea since the beginning and we all actually made an attempt at it on Saturday.

We knew starting early in the morning would be best so we could do a large portion of our walking before high noon hit. Our scientist Andrew estimated our trip would take roughly 12 hours, give or take an hour depending on speed and amount of stops. We set off a little after six, accompanied by an amazing sunrise. We hoped on a Becak to take us to the ring and from there we would start our walk.

The walk wasn't that bad in the morning it was cool out and the sun took it's sweet time getting up into the sky. We met a little old lady who fancied Tom but he kept trying to pawn her off to me. She was interested in having a Bule (white foreigner) as her husband. One day I am sure she will get what she wants, she seemed very determined.

My legs started to getting tired about 7-8 hours in. I figured I would push on and see how far I could take it, we had to get to the finish. Shortly after that I whipped it out "I don't think I will be finishing this today". Tom was in agreement due to his cut up feet from crummy flip-flops. We started the walk on the west side of the city and headed south. We were now coming on the north east corner of the ring road. That was when we parted ways with Andrew, he wanted to press on. He said something along the lines of "this thing was my idea so I think I should finish it".

So after about 8 and a half to 9 hours Tom and I headed home. In a becak obviously, we sure as hell were not going to walk back. Andrew pressed on but when he noticed he was getting slower and slower he also decided to pack it in. He came in the house about 2 hours or so after Tom and I got in. We were all in bed by 9 and in rough shape but it was worth it.
There has been mention of doing another big walk, but instead of around the city we would go through all the side streets from one end of the city to the other. I will need to get more sleep the night before next time...

Here's a map of the city to give you an idea of the scale of our journey.
The first X is where Tom and I quit, and the second is roughly where Andrew quit.