Belawan

[SailingCableBeach]

I couldn't find out anything about what to do in this port. Now that I have been there on a cruise this month I'm not surprised. There's not a great deal to do in Belawan for those on a cruise in the port for the day.

You can walk from the ship into town which takes about half an hour along a very dusty busy road where you will have tuk tuk drivers approaching you in a pretty heavy manner. Not much room to walk and many trucks. It is a very smoggy place from what looked like a cement factory belching out smoke.. Or maybe it was the oil refinery or a fertilizer factory!

It is just a little local town......no scenic points of interest that I could discern with much litter.

I took a tuk tuk into Medan which took about 45 minutes. The drivers are aggressive bargainers but once the price is set it was fine although the tuk tuks are pretty uncomfortable and of course have nothing like seat belts or air con! There were tuk tuks just by the ship...well there were where our ship was berthed.

I went to the Sun Plaza shopping centre.

On the return journey I took a blue bird taxi and these taxis use meters and the price was significantly less than the journey in and a great deal more comfortable. The lesson is to bargain hard with the tuk tuk drivers...they expect you to bargain and it is no insult to do so! It seems Blue Bird taxis and other taxis are not able to get access into the port area for pickups. Our taxi was able to get into the port area to drop us off right by the ship however the taxi was charged 15,000 rupiahs to enter the port. There is also a toll (it's a a good toll road into Medan as Belawan is such a busy important port) of 3,000 rupiahs and of course both these costs are added to the taxis metered amount.

In retrospect I could have happily stayed on board for the day relaxing although I didn't fancy the smog had I stayed out on deck.

Many passengers wondered why Seabourn would have this port on the itinerary?