Swim, Eat, Sleep... Repeat!
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2011
1
42
44
Trip End
Jul 30, 2011
Parapat, North Sumatra, Indonesia
Saturday, July 9, 2011
We got there via a pretty uncomfortable bus from Bukit Lawang before catching a ferry over to Tuk Tuk, the a peninsular of Samosir, the main island within the lake. It was getting pretty dark as we came over on the ferry and most of the places in our guide book seemed to be pretty busy, we wanted a nice lake hideaway for a few days, not a giant resort. Although we had loads of hawkers shoving business cards at us (hard to tell who's honest and who's not) and one nutter sitting next to us for most of the ferry ride showing us pictures of somewhere we obviously weren't interested in, we didn't really know where to get off the boat. A chilled out hawker who I chatted with (Where you from? - Wales in the UK - Oh Wales yeh, ummmm, Gareth Bale, ummm Ryan Giggs) was cool and made an effort, saying its not a luxury place but it's right next to the lake, comfortable and secure. We grabbed him getting off the boat and asked to see the room.
Great choice, Reggae guesthouse was much further round the island than the rest, but meant it was on the sunset side. He asked which room to see (the £4 or £6 one?) and after seeing the £6 we were amazed. We rented a beautiful Batak style house (the whole thing!) made from wood all painted in the traditional way. It was massive, had 2 balconies off which you could jump into the lake, a bathroom and giant bed. Perfect! Contender for the best place we stayed all trip. It also had all sorts of swings, a diving board and floating platforms to make the most of the lake.
We completely chilled out in Lake Toba, it's kind of mandatory. It is a beautiful place as you can see in the pictures, the water is clear, it's cool and sunny and each night we had great sunsets. I learnt chess and got good enough to beat Gem a few times (although she quickly got her old tricks back!) The routine of getting up early for a swim just after dawn, getting breakfast, exploring the town, lunch, reading, another swim in the afternoon, some chess and then dinner was very easy to get into. My birthday, and our anniversary of course, landed there too and was spent mostly doing the same - with great meals of fish from the lake and Batak wine from the town.
One of our favourite places absolutely and we would go back there tomorrow but we haven't got much time. We need to get ourselves to Kuala Lumpur in time for the big Liverpool match!
