Lake Toba, Sumatra

Here we are on Lake Toba and it is absolutely stunning – I’ll include some photos but I know they won’t do this place any justice. 

The trip here was quite insane – I sat in the front with the driver – whom we call “Bak” as in Mister.  Here he is:

 After spending 7 hours on the road, let me tell you, there is no way I would drive here. People pass despite cars and bikes being in the other lane coming towards you, they just expect them to move over. Tim says that’s how they drive everywhere in Indonesia and I realized the value of a driver – it isn’t a splurge, it’s a necessity.

The journey from Medan to here is only 125 km but it took 7 hours then another 2.5 hours to wait for the ferry, and another hour to cross the water. The long drive on the road was the result of congestion and bad conditions; I don’t think the driver ever went over 60km even though it felt like a crazy ride.  We gave up waiting for the car ferry and instead took a passenger ferry across, leaving our driver and car to arrive later. All of us, especially the baby, were exhausted.

Day 2

Our view off the veranda at Samosir Cottages is pretty spectacular. I wish our camera would do this vista justice. You’ll have to take my word for it, the hills, or cliffs left by the volcano are extremely high and covered in trees or moss. From afar, they look velvety like you could roll down them.

Our driver’s first stop was to see a Batak house. The Batak people arrived over 4,000 years ago and lived in relative isolation on the island. At the village we had a guide and he was most informative. He took us into a traditional home that was quite bare inside with a central area to cook on.

He explained that the Batak use to be cannibals but would only eat bad people (raw) to get their black magic. ‘Bad people’ were rapists, adulterers, and murderers. 

Court was held at this site on stone chairs around a stone table. The lower chair was for the criminal, kings from various tribes sat on the bigger chairs, their wives on a stone bench removed from this circle and the 4 executioners on a bench within the circle. Once the criminal was found guilty, he/she was put into prison (underneath one of the Batak homes) and fed for 7 days to fatten him/her up for eating. Here are Tim, Michelle, Ian and I around the court area:

The criminal was taken to another stone circle and placed on their back on a large stone – Tim was our criminal demonstrating here in this photo.

The poor soul (the criminal, not Tim) was then tortured: cut open, beaten, eyes plucked out, nose cut off, etc. Once this was completed, his head was then chopped off and his body placed on the table where he was cut up to eat. His head was placed on the stone wall. Batak are now Christians so they no longer follow this practise but there are some (Papua New Guinea) who still do. 

After this we visited a Christian cemetery for Batak kings and Ian got some great photos of the area.

In the afternoon, Tim, Ian and Banyu went for a swim with this incredible view in the background. Everywhere we go, we seem to be the centre of attention with a gang surrounding us.