Well, it was a Saturday afternoon; Cheok Yeen came to me and surprises me with a trip to Lake Toba with their family. I have been hearing them about planning for a trip to Indonesia, Bali. Instead of visiting Bali, a dive destination, we ended up going Lake Toba, the world largest volcanic lake.
The next Friday morning came and we were all ready for anything, Cheok Yeen’s dad drove us to Airport. We took the Air-Asia flight and depart to Medan, Polonial Airport at 10am and our driver called Jun was already there welcoming us. After some short visit to the Palace and one of the restaurants at Medan, we proceeded to Parapat via Terbing Tinggi, it was a 4-5 hours drive. As our car climbed up to the rim of the volcano, we could see the lake and Samosir Island in the center. It’s hard to imagine that the lake is larger than a Singapore island, and we felt lucky that this was a dead volcano. We stopped by and took some pictures and enjoy the beautiful view before continue our journey. We checked in the hotel at 5pm and Cheok Yeen was very excited to catch the sunset and were greeted by the most amazing crimson sky from our cottage. It was like a volcanic rainbow as we watched the lake change from crystal blue to a magnificent red.
The next day morning, we took a ferry to Samosir Island. The lake water was clear and sparkling blue; looking down into it, I felt I could almost see the bottom of this 500meter deep crater. The ferry drove us to Batak Traditional Village to see the old tomb of Sidabutar King and Batak’s museum. We could see everywhere with the smiling children and curious women. The Batak people are the original inhabitants of the island, and it’s easy to identify their distinct culture by the unique high arched roof and wooded stilt houses decorated with ornaments to drive away evil spirit. 95% of the Batak are Christian. We continued our journey around the island taking the photos at every of our opportunity.
Our next destination was to visit the tea house where we took our spicy halia teh tarik, it’s a traditional ginger tea for a better digestion before we continued our journey to Sipiso-piso waterfall, the place we could almost see the entire Lake Toba, and the view was so perfect! During the journey, Jun stopped by and recommended us “Babi panggang”, it was super delicious. According to Jun, B1, which stands for dog’s meat, B2 is pork. During our jouney back to Brastagi, we see many churches. Many people there are jobless and most of the families grow their own fruits. Most people are jobless, they sell toys, mineral waters at the street whenever the traffic light turns red. For a moment, i felt i was very lucky because Malaysia is a developing country, investors come to invest and open up job opportunity, economy is stable and many of us still complain about life. As for the people in Medan, Jun said, they have never hoped for anything, execpt a job, then they would be happier.
Our next visit is fruit market at Brastagi where we bought our souvenirs there. I would say this is a best place for a good bargain. We arrived to Brastagi, Medan at the late evening after our dinner and check in the hotel.We check out the next morning after our breakfast, Jun took us to batik shop where Cheok yeen’s mother and sister bought lot of batiks with the beautiful corak. Jun also took us to the antique shop. After lunch, we proceed to crocodile farm, and a beautiful church with the mixture of the Hindu temple designed. The local delights was spicy for most dishes, it was quite alright to me.
The trip wider my sight and thoughts about life, and I could felt I was very lucky compared to the people there and I swear to never complaint about life again. What could I say; it’s definitely an unforgettable experience! A terrific destination I would recommend to everyone.
