Bukit Gundaling, the "Good bye darling" hill

Peace be upon you all. It's been more than 3 weeks since I made any update in this blogspot. Did I tell you that from November 2nd to 13th me and family was on a trip covering Medan, Danau (Lake) Toba and a number of places up to Banda Aceh? Then from November 18th to 22th I brought along my stepkids to places in Melaka, Muar and Negeri Sembilan. For the Nov 2-13 trip I've started a series in my main blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU... well, with only one article so far. Tonight I want to write the second article and with that I shall be making a number of supporting articles at my other blogspots starting with this. Come... :]

The trip was started by taking a plane from Sepang to Medan, the biggest city in the Indonesian island of Sumatera. For the record Sumatera is one of the largest island in the world with a size almost twice that of Peninsular Malaysia. From Medan we took a hired car to the highland resort town of Berastagi. The next day, Thursday 3rd November we started exploring a bit of Berastagi by going up a hill with some vantage views of the surrounding.

Mind you, Berastagi is situated at 1,400 metres above sea level. The top of the hill is about 75 metres higher, just 50 metres lower than the summit of Fraser's Hill in Malaysia but with a climate that feels the same.

Its name is Bukit (hill of Gundaling).

Interestingly the story goes that the name Gundaling is derived from the words "Good bye darling!". It is said that a Dutch officer once married a local and lived here. Something happened driving the wife to commit suicide. As as she jumped off the the top of the hill she cried out loud : "Good bye darling"... but in a dialect that sounds more like Gundaling!

Anyway Bukit Gundaling is a pride of the locals. For the record the town of Berastagi is located on a vast highland populated by the Batak Karo race. Here'a statue of their legendary medicine man ( I don't know from what era) called Pawang Ternalem.

Views of the surrounding...

And the town of Berastagi seen from the hill.