Waited for the boat to Parapat at 8am but somehow the ferry missed me. Got on the next 9am ferry (7000 Ruppiah, 40 minutes ride) to Parapat.

On the way to Parapat

Parapat Port

I decided to skip Berastagi and other scenic cities on the way and took the 9.45am bus to Medan.

View Larger Map

Even though it’s only around 170km but the bus ride took around 4.5 hours

and got to Medan Amplas terminal around 2.30pm.

Had my lunch, figured out where to stay for the night then got on an Angkot, shared mini vehicle to Masjid Raya area.
Before

After, this tiny vehicle managed to cramped 14 people in it.

Masjid Raya area is where most of the budget hotels are located. Stayed at Hotel Zakia (55,000 Ruppiah).

However, I would have chosen Hotel Residence if I were to pick again.

The Grand Mosque

I was thinking about visiting Banda Acheh up in the north but changed my route to Bangkok instead because of time constraint. For the past few days, the protest in Bangkok was pretty big in the news, but I am hoping things will get better in the next few days. Flying straight to Bangkok will cost around USD$300. A more budget is to get to Penang then go overland to Bangkok by train.

There are ferries departing every morning at 11am to Penang. The boat ride will take around 4-6 hours. However, the port is in Belawan which is another 30km away and cost around 45,000 Ruppiah. By taking the boat, I’ll have to leave around 8.30am and probably arrive at 5pm Malaysian time which is an hour faster. There are also a couple of low cost airlines flying daily from Medan to Penang, AirAsia, Srivijaya Air, Lion Air and FireFly. Those cost from 300,000-800,000 Ruppiah depending on supply and demand.

Since there is a train leaving from Penang to Bangkok at 2pm, I tried to get the morning flight. After asking at the 4th travel agency, I managed to get a seat on the 7.20am Srivijaya Air fllight (485,000 Ruppiah~USD$50).

Walked around the city for a couple of hours. The air in Medan is quite polluted by the many motorbikes and cars on the street.

The street is dusty and not very pedestrian friendly.

The old city.

Managed to walk from Masjid Raya area to Carrefour, passing by Lapangan Merdeka and breathed in a lot of polluted air.

A roundabout in the city

Medan is the 3rd largest city in Indonesia and the largest in Sumatera. There is a big ethnic Chinese population here and surprisingly the Hokkien (FuJian) dialect they speak is quite similar to the Hokkien used in Penang.

Got on a Becak, a three wheeler.

to Jalan Majapahit which is famous for Ambon and Layer cakes, Marquisa juice and other Indonesian local products.
One of the shop recommended.

Got some stuffs to bring home and had Sate for dinner (17,000 Ruppiah).

The bus cramped many people in it. I think there were 7 people in the row in front of me.

Finally arrived at Parapat at around 10.30am. The 500 km ride took almost 17 hours!
Parapat is actually a small town beside lake toba. Lake Toba is the largest lake in South East Asia (1130 km^2) and was formed when a giant volcano erupted around 70 thousand years ago. Archaeologist mentioned that the eruption killed most human then and caused volcanic winter which decreased the earth temperature for few years.

Indonesia has a lot of Volcanoes, a lot of it are still active.
Volcanoes in Indonesia

Samosir is something like an island in the middle of Lake Toba but is connected to the mainland as well. The size of Samosir is similar to the area of Singapore. Tuk Tuk is at the eastern tip of Samosir where most of the hotels and guesthouses are located.

[mappress]

Took the hourly ferry at 11.30am to Tuk Tuk.

Kids swimming in the lake

Met a German lady who is the owner of Toba Cottage (50,000 Ruppiah) and managed to convince me to stay there.

Rent a motorbike (40,000 Ruppiah) for a few hours and ride around the quasi island.

Lake Toba area is populated mostly by the Batak people. Many years ago Batak was a cannibalistic tribe where they ate human. People in Padang area are pretty conservative Muslims but the Bataks are very strong Christians. There are around 6 million of them living around Northern Sumatera.

View around Samosir

Batak architecture

Tomb of a Batak King

Today is actually a public holiday in Indonesia. It’s the day of Silence, Hari Raya Nyepi which is a Balinese new year celebrated by the Hindu. I heard that in Bali, even airport is shut down to keep the sound level low.

Because there are so many different ethnicities in Indonesia, the government is trying hard to unite the country. Races are not that obvious since everyone speaks Bahasa Indonesia fluently. Unlike Malaysia, on Indonesia national identity card, ethnicity is not a required item. Only religion has to be shown on the ID, there are only 5 major religions (Islam, Buddhist, Hindu, Protestant and Catholic) that can be chosen, atheism and agnostic are not one of the option so pretty much everyone has to pick a religion.