When I first received the information about my guests, Martin, Anke and Lilian, I thought they were Singaporean, because their flight from Singapore. I did not know much about them because I was only assigned as their tour guide for their journey in Sumatra. I received the job from a travel agent in Sumatra, and my responsibility was to take care of their trip during their time here.
Their journey was a five-day, four-night trip covering Medan, Bukit Lawang, Berastagi and Samosir Island. The program included jungle trekking in Bukit Lawang, visiting Batak villages, enjoying the scenery around Lake Toba and exploring several places in Samosir.
When I finally met them, I noticed that their faces looked a little mixed. I became curious and intentionally asked whether they had Indonesian ancestry. My guess was right. They told me that they have German-Indonesian heritage.
I still did not know exactly where their family originally came from. For me, it was not really important at that moment. I was simply there to guide them, make sure the program went smoothly and introduce them to the places we visited.
But there was one thing that made our journey much easier.
They could still speak common Indonesian.
That immediately changed the way we communicated. Instead of having only the usual conversations between a tour guide and tourists, we could talk about many things during the long drives.
Sometimes the road was quite long, especially when we travelled between Bukit Lawang, Berastagi and Lake Toba. Those hours in the car became a good opportunity to talk.
Martin, in particular, told me that he often followed Indonesian news through The Jakarta Post. That surprised me a little. It meant that I did not have to explain everything from the beginning whenever we talked about Indonesia.
From there, our conversations became more interesting.
We talked about Indonesia, tourism, local communities and everyday life. Of course, there were also some topics that seemed almost impossible to avoid when talking about Indonesia.
The Roads
We talked about damaged roads, road conditions and how infrastructure can affect tourism. As someone who works in tourism, I see these things directly. A beautiful destination can attract visitors, but the journey to get there also becomes part of their experience.
Then our conversation moved to the government and its performance, as well as many other issues that people often discuss when talking about Indonesia.
We did not always have the same perspective, but that was what made the conversation interesting. We could share what we knew and what we had experienced without making the journey feel like a formal discussion.
Sometimes, I think this is one of the unexpected parts of being a tour guide.
People may think our job is simply to take tourists from one destination to another, explain the history of a place and make sure they arrive safely. But a long journey can create something more than that.
A road trip through Sumatra can become a conversation about Indonesia itself.
While driving through villages, plantations and mountain roads, we were not only looking at the scenery. We were also talking about how people live, how tourism is developing, what visitors expect and what local people experience every day.
I started the journey thinking Martin, Anke and Lilian were probably visitors from Singapore.
I ended the journey realizing that they had a much closer connection to Indonesia than I had expected.
And perhaps that is one of the nicest surprises of working as a tour guide. Sometimes, you begin a trip thinking you are only going to show people a place.
But along the way, you also get to know the people behind the journey—and sometimes, you discover a different side of Indonesia through their eyes.
