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We've spent two lovely days here in a quiet lake resort, with hot and cold running water (that you can drink and brush your teeth in) and where the food is fresh and varied. There is even wine, and lattes. There's a pool, and of course the lake, where we took a dip to cool off this afternoon. Our accommodation is in a traditional Batak house, typical of this area, and we are on the second floor. I am sitting on our covered patio, enjoying the view of the lake, and the light rain that is falling again tonight.
It wasn't easy to get here. We are travelling during the Christmas to New Year's break, and even now there are a lot of people on the move. We were expecting g a long day of driving, but not quite that long. It took 12 hours of intense driving to get us here from Buket Lawang. I spent most of the time with my eyes closed. They drive on the other side of the road here and I had a close up viewI of the motorcycles and cars that we were passing. Many of the roads were two-lane (which of course means nothing) and others were narrow winding roads up and down mountains. Our guide and driver changed course several times to avoid the heavy traffic going into Medan, and even then we were too late to catch the last ferry (it was full by mid-day) and had to follow a different route to where there was a bridge across to the island. All that swerving in and out and speeding up and slowing down is just very stressful for me. Fortunately there were some stops of interests along the way including a stroll through a fresh market, where we sampled many fruits we'd never seen before.
But we got here, and the last two days were split between touring and learning about the Toba Lake Batak people, and leisure time. We visited traditional villages away from the mainly touristic villages, and danced with local people as part of a traditional performance.
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| Family of 6 children in a local village |
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| The women weaver's village |
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| Decoratvecarving on traditional Toba Batak house |
We've eaten some great food: we love the peanut sauce and have tried it on just about everything. There is a lot of fresh produce here; on the way we saw fields and fields of agricultural crops. We do have our favourites: cap-cai (pronounced chap chai), a mixed vegetable dish with oyster sauce; gado-gado vegetables with peanut sauce; Medan style soto, a coconut milk soup with chicken and vegetables deliciously seasoned with turmeric, galanga, ginger, candle nut, kaffir lime and shallot ; grilled fish; and fresh green salad. Margaret is enjoying the iced kopi (coffee!)
Our guide, Deslim, and driver Nasib have been amazing. They are knowledgeable about the natural environment here, and the culture. Deslim cooks a lot at home so he knows food and ingredients really well. He can often tell us how things are made and the ingredients, and he has ordered all of our food, ensuring always that mine is gluten free.
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| Light nutmeg, or candle nut |
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| We tried balancing the basket on our heads for this dance |
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| Christmas trees everywhere made from recycled plastic bottles |
Today we tried to buy ulos, the traditional woven garments here, in one of the weaving villages but couldn't make a deal. He gave us good advice before we went to the village, and translated for us, but, alas, the price was too high. We left empty handed :-(
Tonight, we are packed and ready to go. There are still long lineups to get off the island by ferry, so Nasib has taken our bags and gone to line up. He is either in the queue, asleep in his car, or on the mainland, I guess. Tomorrow Deslim and Margaret and I will take the foot passenger ferry and meet him on the mainland. We have a flight tomorrow afternoon to Jakarta, and then on to Sarong, Papua, where we will board our boat, the Seven Seas, for our snorkeling adventure. We can't afford to miss that flight!
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