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Medan is the capital city of the Sumatera Utara (North Sumatra) province of Indonesia. It is located in the north of the province and has a nearby harbour, Belawan, and international airport.
The city is Indonesia's third most populous after Surabaya and Jakarta, with approximately 2 million people. Compared to Jakarta, the city might seem a little provincial, as it lacks most of the glossy Western skyscrapers and shops. You won't, for instance, easily find frozen chips, canned dog or baby food in Medan's supermarkets, things that the more affluent residents of Jakarta take for granted.
The city rates little mention in most travel books, with most recommending it only for a night's stopover on the way to one of the more natural tourist destinations in North Sumatra.
It is not difficult to see why people form this view - upon landing at Polonia international airport (located only a few kilometres from downtown Medan), you immediately gain the impression of a third world city, with baking heat, a tiny airport with relatively few modern features, and blatantly corrupt immigration staff. Exiting into the car park, and hailing a meterless 15-year-old taxi with broken air con, and taking a trip into the city centre, it's pretty easy to see that Medan has rather been left behind by the 21st century.
The city, which was relatively booming prior to the economic crisis, although still very much alive and bustling with people, suffers from extreme poverty, as you will see from the gaunt rickshaw drivers sleeping in their cars at night.
The city offers relatively few attractions for the Western visitor: a notoriously badly kept crocodile farm, the grand mosque, which while certainly grand, is nothing to make a detour for.
This said, the city offers excellent shopping facilities for the budget-conscious, with the major malls being the Deli Plaza complex, Medan Mall, Medan Plaza, Yuki Simpang Raya (a Japanese-owned complex, with higher prices, and in easiest walking distance of the main backpacker area), and Thamrin Plaza.
Of these Thamrin Plaza is probably the best, with its 7 stories devoted almost entirely to the mid-market Matahari supermarket, which offers Western-standard clothing at Indonesian prices.
Apart from shopping, the city also has a few good restaurants, where you can find excellent seafood at reasonable prices.
