Day 122 – Travel to Lake Toba

Our next and final stop in Sumatra is Lake Toba, the longest caldera (volcanic crater lake) in the world and at its deepest point is 450 metres which is quite a scary thought! We will stay on Samosir Island, which is located in the middle of it.

On the drive from Berastagi, we stopped off at Sipisopiso, quite a mouthful and a beautiful waterfall.

On the way back up a group of lads wanted to have their photo taken with Ro and they all shook hands with him after. It’s going to be such a crash back to earth for him back in London, no longer the local celeb.

We took the ferry from Paragat to Samosir which was a lovely 45 minute journey across the vast lake. It reminded us both of a Scottish loch and was surrounded by beautiful mountains. We are staying in Hotel Carolina, which we picked because Ruth and Paul stayed there when they came in the 70’s. Fun! Also, it looked rather nice… The hotel is in Tuk Tuk the main tourist village and the whole time we were there it was so quiet, we only saw a few other tourists each day. We felt a bit bad for the local restaurants and shops which all had their doors open, but mainly sat empty. We were reassured by local owners that high season was on the way.

Day 123 – Lake Toba

Today we hired a scooty (called Scoopy) and set off in the morning to explore the South side of the island. The winding mountain road was beautiful to drive along and we jumped off for coffee and fried bananas at one of the many roadside cafes all with great views across the river. Rowan insisted we visit the one named ‘La Pinus’.

The island is deceptively big and it took us two hours to reach the main viewpoint we were heading for. We passed lots of churches along the way, it is one of the only places in Indonesia with a majority Christian population.

Our butts were sore from the ride but it was an amazing viewpoint, a great spot to stretch our legs and to watch kites swooping around the lake and other little birds in the trees. We chilled here for a while before scooting back to Tuk Tuk to swim in the lake, read our books and drink Bintang on the roof terrace.

Day 124 – Lake Toba

Back on our trusty scooter, this time looping round the north side of the island and down the west coast where we crossed a bridge back over to the mainland.

Our final destination was Bukit Holbung, also known as Teletubbies Hill; we didn’t spot La La sadly. Off the bike, it was a steep climb up to the top of the hill which had great views across the lake and to the huge Jesus statue on the opposite peak. We remarked at how like the Lake District it was, if you removed the giant Jesus and paddy fields…

Afterwards we had a particularly tasty mie goreng (fried noodles) and avocado coffee, surprisingly good – I wonder if it will make an appearance in London anytime soon?

Day 125 – Lake Toba

For our final day in Lake Toba, we went off to visit traditional Batak village Ambarita, which has the original Batak bungalows with their distinctive and beautiful boat-like roofs. While it is a tourist attraction, locals still live in the bungalows and we were able to go into one of them to see inside. They all have white, red and black painted decorations which represent the sky, earth and underworld. They were also incredibly low-ceilinged and we both managed to hit our heads on the low beams.

Another attraction were some old stone chairs and table which folklore insists date back centuries so tribal leaders could discuss important things like whether the massive volcano they were sitting on might erupt any minute now.

We loved our time here – it was very chilled with beautiful quiet roads to drive along, great food and we swam each day in the lake jumping off the diving board in front of our room. We could have stayed on much longer I reckon! But our journey must continue, and we will now leave Sumatra for the shores of Java.

A couple of pics that didn’t make it: