Wonderful Indonesia (D5 to D9: Samosir Islands and Lake Toba)

HORAS SAMOSIR :( greetings by the Batak People)

Chinese Fung sui believes that our house should face the sea/lake as it is believed to bring us happiness, luck and success and have mountains at the back of our house as a sign of protection. So coming to this beautiful island of Samosir, I was able to realize the effects of it for myself. I spent four nights there in a traditional Batak house. I must confess here truly that I was really happy to be there and every moment I had there counts as one of the best times I ever had in my life. 

 

A traditional Batak house

Batak architectures are really unique and are well-preserved by the people. Since the first time I saw the Batak houses, I kept wondering how it looked like from inside because it was so much different from what we see in a usual rectangular shaped-houses in Bhutan and India. Now I understand why tourists coming to Bhutan admire our traditional houses so much. Uniqueness is what makes a place and its people worth remembering.

Samosir Island

Geographically, Samosir is a volcanic island surrounded by the incredibly beautiful Lake Toba in Sumatra Island of Indonesia. It has a population of less than one hundred thousand. The first thing I came to know as I set my feet on the island was that anyone (especially tourists) can rent motorbikes and ride around the island without a license and helmet. So my friend Rima was offered the golden opportunity to ride me around the island as she knew riding a motorbike…hehe. Kadinchey la!

Ready for a ride! 

Tomok is a famous market for tourists to buy home souvenirs. Once there, the shopkeepers keep nagging us with so many unwanted stuffs. However, for Bhutanese I thought the traditional batik-patterned shawls are must buy as they so much resemble our hand-woven kiras. The shawls match kiras so perfectly.

Coming from the mountains, I enjoyed seeing the way people over there has maintained a beautiful friendship with the form of nature called lake. Young kids enjoy jumping into the lake and swimming and floating. Like our mountains made me take on a number of hiking from my childhood, Lake Toba there had served the people to pick up a hobby/interest of swimming, boating and sea diving. A geography-induced hobby/interest!

As I had a morning walk around the island, I was amazed to see so many fruits graduating on their trees. I was seeing the Avocado trees for the first time. And even the durian. The durian tree was quite huge and I was told that the people don’t have to pluck it. It will fall off the tree as and when it’s ripened and those ripened durians act like they have eyes because they never fall on a human’s head. Well, if a durian hit our head, I am sure we will sustain some degree of head trauma as it’s not less than a kilogram with spiky coverings. I just wondered if this special feature of durian made them the ‘King of Fruits”. Other fruit trees I saw at the island were passion fruit and pineapple. Thank you Samosir for linking me back to nature in such a beautiful way.

 

Durian tree

Avocado tree

Sigale gale dance was a traditional Batak dance, which most of the tourist experience and enjoy while in Samosir. The tourists are made to put on a head gear and a shawl over the right shoulder. Then an instructor guides us through various steps. And next to him was a wooden puppet on which are the same costumes as us and that moves with the rhythm of the Batak song played in the background.

 

In the Batak Costume

With this, my trip to the Wonderful Indonesia came to an end. It was such a memorable time there where I was taken so close to the beauty of nature as lake and boat were so less in my life. Perhaps that made me develop some level of hydrophobia as well but so glad that Lake Toba reduced this phobia in me. I shall cherish those memories forever.

Terima Kasih