Day 285: Trip to Toba

I had arranged for a tourist van to take me from Bukit Lawang to Lake Toba via Medan. Medan isn't really along the way, but the company swings by there to drop off people flying out and pick up more people, and all the best (barely) roads go from Medan, so it's the easiest route. Unfortunately the "best" roads are still pretty terrible, and traffic was very busy with everybody coming back to the city after the holidays. None of the roads are ever more than two lanes, and all the scooters on the road make travel a real pain. The total journey from Bukit Lawang to Medan to Lake Toba is only about 200km but that ended up taking us 10 hours to complete with all the traffic, rain and accidents along the way. I had been travelling from Bukit Lawang with an American girl, and when we finally got to the town of Parapat on the shore of Lake Toba it was just before the last ferry to the island departed, so we quickly rushed aboard. On the ferry across we met an American guy, and the three of us agreed to look for a place to share on the island.

I should explain a bit about Lake Toba and Samosir Island. Lake Toba isn't just a lake, but a supervolcano that erupted 75,000 years ago in what was the largest explosion in the last 25 million years. The result (beyond dropping the world's temperature substantially and destroying 20,000 km^2) was the Lake Toba caldera and Samosir island, which is nearly 30km long in the middle of the lake. We were heading for a little town called Tuk Tuk on the island to relax for a few days before continuing on our seperate journeys.

We spent a long time looking for a particular hostel one of them had had recommended, and were all pretty tired by the time we found it. They only really had one room available, and it was a pretty terrible room. I won't get into the details, but the horribleness of the room was balanced by the price (we paid $2 each / night), 2 ridiculously affectionate pudgy puppies that kept us company, and one of the most beautiful views of the lake.