“It’s the final countdo…”. No, wait, make it “rock in Toba”. “It’s the rock in Toba, tudududu tududududu…”. We cannot unhear this anymore, the song has changed forever. This is all because of our guide during the free geotour on Monday. This tour was offered to all groups of the international field project in Indonesia in order to test it before it will be made an official tour.
After getting in the car early on Monday morning, we first felt a bit awkward and uncomfortable to start a conversation with our tour guide Wong. However, the more our group got to know the driver and the driver us, the less awkward it became and the more fun we started to have. Joking around with each other, telling some more personal stories and sharing personal interests. Because the drivers’ music was playing (which was a mix between Indonesian music and European/American pop music), music started to become the topic of the conversation. Together we figured out that we all had a similar taste in music, namely classic rock, and not long after, we took over control of the audio system of the car.
With the This Is Queen playlist from Spotify on shuffle, we continued our road trip around Samosir Island. Where at the beginning of the trip, everyone was a bit shy to sing along as loudly as possible to the music, this feeling of shame suddenly disappeared with Bohemian Rhapsody blasting out of the car speakers. Everyone in the car sang at the top of their lungs and it resulted in a true carpool karaoke, which continued until the moment Wong dropped us off at the hotel again. During the tour, we tried out different types of Dutch music as well and from Wong’s drumming on the steering wheel we could tell whether we had to skip the song or not. Particularly one Dutch song was to his liking, namely “Watskeburt?!” from De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig. He even tried to sing along, even though he had no clue what he was singing whatsoever.
Still singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody for the second time this trip, we arrived at the hotel and we were quite sad that our performance was suddenly over. After a fun day with a lot of laughing and singing we said goodbye to Wong, who had done a terrific job in showing us the island. Fortunately, we still have the pictures and memories of this amazing road trip!
Written by: Mattia Jongerius & Féline Borsje
