The Fool's Progress: Danau Toba

A few weeks ago during semester break some friends and I decided to explore North Sumatera. Our first stop was Danau Toba (Lake Toba), about 4 hours by car from Medan (the biggest city on Sumatera). Most bus rides here are white-knuckled, hellish journeys spent packed into a crammed bus careening around too-small mountain roads...and our trip to Danau Toba was no exception. The trip was made even more fun due to the fact that the lady sitting in front of us insisted on keeping all the windows closed (even though there was no AC in the bus) to keep her hair from getting mussed (I took small solace in the fact that despite her best efforts, at the end of the trip she arrived with a huge cowlick in the back of her head...) However the journey was well worth the carsickness and stress. When we finally got to the lake, it was an amazing sight to behold. After spending 3 days there, I have decided that Danau Toba is one of my favorite places in the entire world! The lake is the largest in southeast asia and was formed in a volcano crater after a large eruption thousands of years ago (actually just making up the last bit...not exactly sure when it was formed, just making an educated guess...) There is an island in the middle of the lake (equal in size to the island of Bali) which is where we stayed.

On the first day, we rented bikes and rode around to check out the countryside and visit all the tourist "landmarks" (I say that in quotations because some of these so-called landmarks were nothing more than a few mounds of dirt...gotta give the resisdents some props for trying, though!) We also did some canoeing, saw some traditional dances, toured the traditional Batak-style houses, saw some traditional weaving, and visited hot springs. All in all, an amazing time!

Another teaching fellow and I in front of a traditional style house: