Lake Toba

Lake Toba is the most popular tourist destination in Sumatra. It is a massive lake, biggest in South East Asia, with 100 by 30 kilometers in size. What makes it unique is the island in the middle of lake, called Samosir. This island itself is as big as Singapore. Lake Toba is created by eruption of a Supervolcano some 75,000 years back.

People in Lake Toba are ‘Batak’s & most of them are Christians. I found Batak’s are not as friendly as people in other parts of Indonesia. They speak in a loud voice, do not greet us or smile at us, a total contrast to Java / Bali or West Sumatra people. I heard cannibalism was in practice among Toba Bataks previously.

Lake Toba was in my list of places to be visited since 2003. Only reason why I did not visit till now is the difficulty in reaching this place. The closest airport is Medan. From Medan to Lake Toba, it takes 4 hours by car. Distance from Pekanbaru is around 750 km, but with not so good roads, it takes about 15 hours by car to reach Lake Toba.

I made up my mind to visit this place during Idul Fitri holidays. My Indonesian colleagues advised not to travel by road, saying it is not safe for me to travel that long with family. Friend Dodi arranged flight tickets, hotel reservation and a car with English speaking driver in Medan. Entire deal came in for a high cost since it was a high tourist season due to Idul Fitri holidays.
We travelled by “Lion Air” from Pekanbaru, as suggested by my friends. Only two airlines fly this route; other one is “Sriwijaya Air”. I preferred the former, though probability of safe landing is same in both the airlines, chances of flight delay or cancellation was less in Lion Air since they have a bigger fleet.

We met our driver Shamsher in Medan airport. To my surprise, the car was a Kijang Innova, pretty new one with air-condition in working condition. Shamsher was good at driving but had a great difficulty in speaking English. He apologized many times for his inability to speak good English but still continued to speak in English, even after I told him I could understand Indonesian. Throughout the journey from Medan till Lake Toba, he commented on almost everything visible.

By the time we reach Lake Toba, it was 7pm & already dark. We could have had a beautiful view of sunset if we would make it 30 minutes earlier. We checked in at hotel Niagara in Parapat area.
Next day morning, we went to Samosir Island using a car ferry. It was a huge ferry, carried 35 cars at a time. We paid Rp 100,000 one way per car. Passengers travel for free. It takes an hour to reach Samosir by car ferry. Whereas passenger ferry takes less time & have more frequent trips.

Ferry docked in a place called Tomok. First, we went to see some Toba houses and a museum. Shamsher insisted us to see a dance show by Toba people. The show did not impress us at all. Not that I was expecting it to be of same standard with Bali dances; imagine how this dance was, looking at the show Aditya asked me “daddy, what they are doing?” Though there were few western tourists, who enjoyed the dance very much.

After this, Shamsher drove us to couple of tourist interest places. One of them is Ambarita, we could see Kings Courtroom of stone chairs and an execution stone, where convicted are beheaded. I questioned Shamsher on the Toban cannibalism, he said it was in practice, but they used to eat only outsiders & enemies, not people from same group or village. He was quite proud to say that.

Then we went to a place called Tuktuk, which has many resorts & shops. The resorts here are really nice, each resort is open to the lake & guests can directly swim in the lake. I inquired; these resorts are inexpensive too, compared to the hotels in Parapat.

Lake Toba is beautiful, water is crystal clear and the outside temperature is very cool. Samosir has some picturesque landscapes. Most of the hill area is not occupied by people & offers ample opportunity for trekking, climbing etc. We did not try to explore more, since Vrushali injured her feet in a motorcycle fall few days back, hence avoided long walks.

Next day, on our return from Parapat, we took the scenic Brastagi route to Medan. We can travel along with the lake on one side and have a glimpse of many villages on another side for almost 2 hours. On the way we stopped at a place where we had a last view of Lake Toba & a stunning view of waterfall on other side. We got stuck in traffic after Brastagi, which took almost 6 hours to travel from Brastagi to Medan, in normal days it should take just 2 hours.

We stayed in Medan for one more day, visited Hindu temple, had Indian food & purchased Indian groceries, which is not available anywhere else in Sumatra. We returned to Rumbai, tired but with beautiful memories of Lake Toba.

The pictures from this trip can be viewed by clicking below link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/vinushetty/LakeToba