Lake Toba, Medan Indonesia (II)

We had a good night’s rest and woke up to this magnificent view!

Taken right from our balcony.

This one was taken from the lobby as we waited for Ramses and Torang to pick us up after breakfast.

Heres more pics from our villa! Tell me its not perfect. haha!

 

At 1030am, they arrived and fetched us. We drove around the town of Tuktuk and saw many local children going or leaving for school. We saw how the locals of Samosir Island live. They are all self-sufficient, growing their own crops, rearing their own farm animals. The entire island is believed to be the top of the volcano that exploded and formed the lake that surrounds it. The whole area is so huge and beautiful. Lush and green. Every crop grown blossomed and flourished. The air is cooler and fresher. I feel healthier just being there for 1 day.

My only gripe is the roads. They dont have banglas and other foreign workers like in Spore. Only locals work to make roads and others. So work is slow and messy. Stones and rocks still line the paths and driving is extremely bumpy. Youre better off on a bike. But thats little price to pay for what we were about to witness after a couple of hours leaving samosir to sumatra island via a bridge in Tano Banggol to go up Tele. A place up in the mountains that gives you a bird’s eye sweeping view of Lake Toba that will forever stay etched in my mind. I almost feel that im in some European country instead of Indonesia.

Our driver and guide. 🙂 Great guys.

After spending an hour up here in Tele enjoying the scenic view, we returned to Samosir to visit the Hot spring at Pengururan. But as we drove down, we had to make a pitstop because the view was too gorgeous to ignore.

We knew we have reached the Hot Spring when we could smell the sulfur. It was so strong and overpowering. Despite the nauseating smell, we had lunch there at there restaurant. hahaha! Wasnt that bad, really! Hubb and the 2 men even climbed up the sulfur formation to take a closer look at the hot water flowing down. I am too chicken to do so. hehe… They have pools for guests to swim or just sit in. But we didnt wanna because it was too hot!

After that, we drove back down and visited the Huta Bolon Simanindo museum to see how ancient Bataks live. A little history lesson in our trips, always makes em that wee bit more interesting. 🙂

We returned to our villa famished and in need of a good shower. Ramses had invited us to Roy’s Pub later that night to listen to some live Batak Reggae music. I told hubb to go on his own. I booked a 2hr in-room massage for that night for idr200k instead. As soon as the masseuse left, hubb returned saying that while the music was good, they were heavily drinking. (duh… its a pub!) So hubb excused himself earlier. Haha…!

We had an amazing day on Samosir Island. It broke my heart a little knowing we’d be leaving the next morning. There are many other things to see and do. Like a boat tour around the lake, the waterfall which i’d only see on Ridu’s laptop the other night, the bbq session, swimming in the lake, other unknown nooks and crannies not listed in the usual touristy itinerary and only accessible via Ridu’s and Ramses’s diary. Haiz.