Zue's Personal Blog

After visiting Lake Toba and Samosir Island, we are then heading to Berastagi. Berastagi , usually pronounced Brastagi, with an elevation of 1220m, close to Lake Toba is a small, normal busy Indonesian town. Berastagi is located 70km from Medan. It does not rely on tourism so you'll get to see the locals getting on with their lives rather than hassling tourists to make a living. There is 2 active volcanoes close to Berastagi. Sibayak, closest to town, 2100 meters high and fairly easy to climb and a great place to view the sunrise. And Sinabung, 2400 meters high, quite steep and difficult to climb, often getting on your hands and knees to climb at times. 40 minutes from Berastagi is the Sipiso - piso waterfall ('like a knife') on the northern edge of Lake Toba. The waterfall is 120m high and is formed by an underground river which flows out into the Toba caldera. Unfortunately, it's raining the moment we ...

Early morning, we had our breakfast before took ferry heading to Samosir Island. Lake Toba is in the centre of the homeland to the Batak people but 'Tano Batak' covers an area the size of Belgium within North Sumatra. With their own language, the Batak are mainly Christian, encountering Christian missionaries in the 1850's and 1860's from Holland and Germany. The current estimated population of Samosir is 120,000. Including Lake Toba there are six major Batak regions - Toba Batak, Karo Batak, Kakpak/Dairi Batak, Simeulungun Batak, Angkola Batak and Sipirko Batak. Around 1.5 Million Batak live amongst these regions. The Karo Batak and centered around Berastagi. Three megalithic sites on Samosir bear witness to the glory - and horror - of Batak history. The three consist of 300-year-old stone seats and benches arrayed in a circle. The first set of ruins was used as a confere...