Lucky me! My parents came to stay with us for a couple of weeks recently, and to celebrate we decided to head out of our usual territory and jump into a trip to Lake Toba.
It was the first time that my mum has been able to visit since I moved here just over a year ago, so we were extra excited, and wanted to make it a trip to remember.
We set off from Bukittinggi after dinner and drove through that night and the next day until we arrived at Parapat, late the next afternoon. From there we took the ferry (about 45mins) to Samosir; an island the size of Singapore in the middle of the lake.
The drive was looooooong. There is no way to sugar coat it. Just over 20 hours stuck in a car, on roads that are so windy in places its a wonder we weren’t all struck with car sickness. My parents took it pretty well though, and we did our best to keep things up beat with a (frankly brilliant) music compilation provided by yours truly, and stopping regularly to pick up little treats along the way. If there is one thing that Indonesians do better than anyone it’s fast food. Disagree if you must, but the fact that you will always find an old lady selling everything from chocolate fried banana’s to fresh boiled corn on the cob in the middle of every seemingly deserted road, miles away from anything, is nothing short of a triumph. And a life-saver on incredibly long road trips that have the potential of being unbelievably boring…
So, we occupied ourselves for the duration of the journey to and from Toba with awful singing and bizarre food sampling sessions. I found myself eating some lovely cake at 2am at a small warung (food stall) on the edge of a small village on the way home. My mum informed me that our friends Bg On and Wahyu performed some beautiful renditions of traditional Minang songs during the night, while the rest of us slept.
Once on Samosir we quickly found our lodgings, rooms in beautiful Batak houses at Liberta Homestay. Samosir is home to some very competitively priced accommodation, however, I was shocked to find that the most expensive room cost around 70,000idr per night (that’s less that 4gbp or just over 5usd), and included a hot water shower. All rooms had bathrooms attached, and the atmosphere and team there were wonderful. The crew quickly learned all our names, and were incredibly helpful. The six of us stayed for four nights, and ate most of our meals at the on site restaurant (very fairly priced and pretty tasty Western fare). The total cost was less than 1,000,000idr; I think fuel for the car cost more than that.
As for activities on Samosir, there is everything from traditional Batak performances and museums, to bars and magic mushroom pizzas for the more hedonistic traveler. There are lake side beaches, and many of the locals wash in the lake, swimming is always a great option, too. We managed to rent a pedalo, for a fun, but pretty slow, excursion one day. The scenery is beautiful, and it is a good temperature; you’ll be able to chill out in shorts comfortably during the day, but also get a good nights sleep, without any worries of getting too cold or overheating.
Make sure you take suncream, sunglasses, a hat and mosquito repellent; one evening there was a mosquito the size of a bus in our bathroom. It sounded like a hornet. Anyway, the bugs there are best avoided, not because of disease – it’s actually a fairly safe region, but just because the size of them means that the bites pack a bit of a punch.
It was a great place to spend a few days, and if it weren’t for time constraints we all would have happily stayed longer.
I have to say that I wasn’t particularly fond of the food on the road once we left West Sumatra, but, to clarify, I don’t actually know what the local fare tastes like; Toba is a Christian dominated area, and as such we were forced to head for places displaying signs such as ‘Rumah Makan Islam’ or ‘Makanan Minang’ in order to avoid any unfortunate pork incidents. Once you leave West Sumatra, everything tastes like a not great imitation of the food at home. West Sumatra has turned me into a food snob; I fear that no other food will ever seem up to par. Upon our return, we stopped at a warung in Padang and I gorged myself on ikan bakar and pergadel (grilled fish and potato cakes), in a beautiful curry sauce. The boys did likewise, while my parents ate in a slightly more reserved fashion.
We stopped in Bonjol on the drive home to jump like children from one side of the equator to the other, multiple times, of course. We also stopped off not far from Bukittinggi to see if a rafflesia (or stinking corpse lily – the largest flower on earth), was in flower. Unfortunately it wasn’t, so we instead enjoyed a delicious cup of locally produced organic luwak coffee.
A special thank you has to go to our friend Bg On, for doing the majority of the driving during this excursion, and, of course, Wahyu, for being an endless source of entertainment. What legends. Oh, and of course my mum and dad for flying to the other side of the world to see us. Thank you!
Jen is an English girl who found herself in Sumatra one day and never went back. A wife, mother, traveler and book worm, she has lived in Padang long enough to speak the language and unearth plenty of useful hints and tips for the weary traveler…
