Lake Toba: Motorbike Journey, Part 2

When we last left you on our harrowing tale, we had followed a road less traveled, which looked as if it had been hit with bombs, the black-top turned to gravel, riddled with deep blemishes and pot holes.  Our friends had (smartly) turned back, but Gavin and I had faith in our little manual bike, and pushed onwards to see the smallest lake on the largest island on the largest lake on the sixth largest island in the world (or something like that).  We had only a photocopy of a hand drawn map that had been give to us with the rental of the bikes to guide us on the journey.  We would later learn just how incorrect the map was, showing a direct route back to Tuk-Tuk from Lake Sidhoni that didn't really exist.

I guess I should also mention here that I made a detailed journal of our trip in its entirety.  I updated it almost daily.  This is an unedited exert directly taken from my journal of the events that transpired that day.

"June 19th - Having planned a bike trip with our friends the night before, the six of us met for breakfast, then got ready to head out.  Vicky and the Dutch woman, the Argentinians, and us.  Off we went, first stopping to take landscape photos, then at the stone seats, and a village of Batak houses.  Batak people are very interesting: Used to be cannibals until the 1800's, now mostly Christian, they are the minority in mostly Islamic Sumatra.  We rode on to Simanindo where there was a small and pointless museum.  Then to Parbaba where we thought a white sand beach was.  Well, pictures can be deceiving!  Dirty sand and shallow filthy water filled with teens jumping in fully-clothed.  All the girls and women stuck to the shore, covered in T-shirts and jeans despite the sunny day.  Not wanting to shock the locals, we stayed ashore while the guys went for a dip.  We ate lunch there, then continued on.  We had planned to stop in Buhil to see more weaving, but never a sign for it.  While our map made it look like Parbaba was quite far from Pangururan, it only took a few minutes to get there - this should have been out first sign that our map was faulty, but we continued on, trusting it as our guide.  After several wrong turns, we made it to the hot springs and took dips in the swimming pools filled with hot, spring water.  Our plan from there was to head inland to the largest lake on the island.  Samosir is famous for being something like the largest island on the world's largest crater lake (Toba).  So we it was intriguing to find another lake on that island!  Our map showed a road from the lake going straight back overland to Tuk-Tuk (where we were staying).  Although we had heard the roads were bad, just how bad could they be?  Well, within a few km inland the road got so bad that one of the bikes didn't even attempt the feat.  The other bikes' passenger hopped off due to the bumps.  After our trip through Vietnam's Central Highlands last year, we thought that we could handle the roads* and went on without our team, telling them we would meet back in Tuk-Tuk this evening."

*Might I add here that Gavin has an inability to "Double-Back," so, although I was fine with going back the way we came, it wasn't an option for him.

"The road was smooth again and we sped up to the "mighty" lake and had a look.  Here I mentioned filling up the tank of gas, but Gavin, being as cheap as ever, said he could make it on the half tank we had.**  We set off, but the road wasn't as it looked on the map, and every time we saw people, they pointed us in the supposedly right direction and we continued on."

**The full tank had come free with bike rental.

"As our gas continued to get lower, the sky started to darken as rain clouds moved in.  The roads continued to be awful, sometimes jerking us violently from side-to-side as we went.  We finally stopped for petrol, only to find out they were out, and there wasn't any more for miles.  We were pointed onwards, learning we were not on the road we thought we were on, and that road may not have in fact even existed.  We continued on as apparently other tourists had earlier taken this road.  As the sky darkened menacingly due to the late hour and the impending rain, we felt the first gentle rain drops slip from the sky.  About 30 minutes into this drive, we had yet to see a single person or house and appeared to be in uncharted territory on our map simply marked "Forest."  This is when I started to cry. 

Why were we out here?  Mostly because of Gavin's inability to "Double-Back" and due to our sheer stupidity.  We didn't have rain coats, a pocket knife, a lighter or even a flash light.  As it grew colder, our shirts and shorts over wet swimsuits were obviously not enough coverage.  Just when I was about to lose it, we rounded a bend to see three young men about our age, who we recognized from the hot springs earlier in the day, in worse shape than us.  They were helmet-less and somehow wearing less than us.  One had a flat tire, one's brakes were basically shot, and all were dangerously low on gas, plus they were driving automatics, not nearly as fit as our light, springy manual motorbike on the rough terrain.  They were at a fork in the road, wondering where to go and after a brief exchange of pleasantries, we all started off together.  There is power in numbers, right?"

"At this point, our bike kept sputtering out, losing our momentum, and cutting out due to a combination of low gas and rough terrain.  The sky opened up as we finally seemed to make it out of the forest and saw a tiny, ramshackle farmhouse.  We drove up and ran for cover from the rain.  Shivering and drenched, I realized these guys weren't going to be helpful at all.  I ran to the neighboring house and talked to the man and five children inside.  Petrol was down the road.  We had to move.  It was already 5:30 and the sun was not on our side and the rain was just continuing on.  It was here that we learned that only one of the four bikes had a light that worked - not ours - and looked around realizing there were no street lights to guide us once the sun set completely.  We drove on, stopping once more to check if we were going the right way.  When we did this, the others continued on without us - this is when we realized that it really is every man for himself! 

We carried on and sure enough we reached the end of the road and a petrol stand where the others were huddled under an overhang, trying to avoid the ice-cold, torrential downpour.  We filled up the tank and took a break.  The others seemed to want to stay, but I knew better.  Although the rain was worsening, I thought it might only be bad here, in the highlands of the interior of the island.  Plus the light was failing.  It was already 6:00 and the road we needed to take looked much smoother, so the 10km we were told we had to go didn't seem so bad.  We headed out, soaking wet, turning left from Parmanagan onto smooth road.  Gavin gunned it, weaving down the windy road as we shivered and thanked the heavens.  The others quickly fell behind us, probably moving much slower with their flat tires.  As I had predicted, the rain stopped within a few minutes.  Gavin stripped off his wet shirt because he was so cold and we could soon see Tuk-Tuk in the distance.  We kept going, speeding past other bikes, through the woods and villages, feeling exalted and hopeful now for future.  We arrived at the bike rental place just as it finally got dark.  Had we been just twenty minute longer, we would have had no light to navigate by.  We dropped off the bikes and went back to our apartment for a long, hot, delightful shower. "

Later that night, I would awake to a thundering rain storm, even harder and stronger than we had experienced earlier in the day.  It was the first rain Tuk-Tuk had seen in over a month and was the self-same storm we had encountered earlier that evening in the interior of the island. 

And that is how we almost froze to death in the Tropics...

Lake Toba: A Motorbike Journey Around Samosir Island

With a group of our traveling pals we set off on a bright morning to tour Samosir Island by motorbike.

Our lovely Argentinian friends, Guido and Aylen.

A Scottish/Dutch combo on the third bike.

A map of the island our only guide.

After departing from Tuk-Tuk, our first stop was at Ambarita, a site of cultural significance for the Toba Batak people.

Ambarita was once the site of the king's residence and a court where important judicial meetings took place. On these self-same stone chairs, local elders met to decide the fate of transgressors.  Popular punishments included slashing the skin and placing salt and chili pepper in the wounds.  After a litany of other torturous methods were employed and death was inevitably met, the criminals were then boiled and consumed by the remaining members of the tribe.  Human flesh, especially certain parts of the body such as the earlobes and soles of the feet, were believed by the Toba Batak to contain vital nutrients and "soul-enhancers" (not the James Brown type).  Cannibalistic practices remained an important part of the culture up until the mid-19th century.

This tree, a victim of a recent storm, was butchered and later sent to the market.

A typical Sumatran school bus.

Water Buffalo.

The dusty, decrepit Huta Bolon Museum in Simanindo.  This is a traditional Batak village, located inside a small square that is surrounded by a tall bamboo fence.  Inside the huta, a row of long-houses faces to the mountains, where their communal God was thought to reside.

The borotan, or slaughter-pole, is placed directly in the center of the village and is adorned with carvings of animals and the leaves of the banyan tree (known as the tree of life).  During feasts or celebrations, a water-buffalo would be tied to this pole and subsequently... 

At a cafe across the street from the museum, a group of youngsters sat around playing guitar and crooning out solemn songs of unrequited love and hard times (peppered with the ubiquitous Bob Marley or Eagles classic).  Within contemporary Batak culture, the banalities of everyday existence are heightened by their cultural affinity for music (both Western and local).  It is rare to meet a young man or woman who cannot play guitar or sing a melody.  There is no better way to pass the time, and on this island, there surely is a lot of time to pass.

As the boys continued their communal chorus, the older patrons at the cafe chain-smoked, drank tea, and played chess.

"Welcome to Parbaba White Sand Beach". 

In one brochure, this strip of dirty sand and shallow, tepid water was referred to as "Toba's Little Slice of Bali". Located on the far northern shore of Samosir Island.  It wasn't quite Bali, but made for a nice pit-stop for lunch.

A youthful paradise on the shores of Lake Toba.

A local artist's not-so-subtle denouncing of logging and the devastating erosion created by the truck-monsters. 



We drove onwards to the fabled hot springs.

What were billed as natural hot springs turned out to be a restaurant/cafe and some man-made pools built into the side of the mountain.  However, geo-thermal activity was indeed present and some of us took a warm, muscle-soothing dip in the sulfurous water.

Stay away from narcotics.

Village life in the middle of the densely-forested island.  At this point the road was devastated and the rest of the group, smartly, turned back to return to Tuk-Tuk.

Attempting to find this tiny, unassuming pond was almost the end of us.  Deep in farm country, we braved treacherously unearthed roadways to encounter glorious Lake Sidhoni (a lake on an island on a lake on the world's sixth biggest island - confused yet?).

We did indeed park the bike and march down to the water's edge.  Encountering some proud ruminants...

...and a mischievous gang of raggamuffins fishing for froglets in a muddy stream.

Further afield, with the afternoon light declining, we took our last photo of the day before a rain-storm and the lack of a proper map left us cold, miserable, and hopeless.  Our last shot depicts another impressive ancestral tomb on the roadside before we set off into the wild...

TO BE CONTINUED...

Pulau Weh: A Drive Around the lsland

The morning was rain-sodden and the tides and currents had changed dramatically, giving the sea an unwelcoming mien.  We donned our swimsuits, prepared a daypack complete with rain jackets, and walked back along the path leading to the tiny, seaside village in Iboih to rent a motorbike for the day.  We were given large helmets and the man offering them up chuckled and mentioned that the aggressive troops of monkeys lining parts of the road should be deterred from attacking us thanks to this bulbous plastic headgear.  He turned out to be a false prophet...



Up and down slick, winding roadways, littered with blankets of leaves and branches knocked to the ground by last night's monsoon from their comfortable arboreal existence.  Garguantuan boulders pushed into the roadway here, a toppled tree-trunk playfully uprooted there... just another day on a motorbike in SE Asia.

 Past a sunken mangrove swamp, destroyed years ago by the tsunami.

We stopped to admire silver-domed mosques. This part of the world has been Islamic since Arab traders arrived in the Middle Ages, trading for cloves and coconuts while simultaneously proselytizing.  These metallic onion-tops blended into and refracted the gray skies above, creating a surreal effect that was difficult to capture on film.

The look-out point to Pulau Klah.  The weather is quite variable on the island as you can see from these two contrasting shots.

The Aceh Province has a fascinating and bloody history.  In a nutshell, the Acehnese had a working relationship with Dutch colonists (see: resource extractors) that became violent and tenuous at times, but generally rolled along somewhat peacefully for centuries.  Briefly, towards the tail-end of WWII, the Japanese occupied the lands and their brief, yet rapacious sojourn was noteworthy only for the punch-drunk amounts of brutality leveled against the inhabitants. 

Until (a largely successful) ceasefire in 2005, the Indonesian government fought a decades long soft-war against the "insurgents" in the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) who were ostensibly battling for an independent state governed by their own dictates (ultra-conservative Sharia Law!), rather than those emerging from Jakarta.  After the 2004 tsunami, with a large influx of foreign aid workers present, the Indonesian army found it more difficult to massacre villagers and the aforementioned laying down of arms was initiated. 

Presently, Aceh is an indolent, lush land where almost all of the women wear head-scarves and almost all of the outside work is done by men, with women relegated to the domestic sphere.  The former GAM now has a legitimate political party, Partai Aceh, and has been making severe gains in local elections, with their gubernatorial candidate, Zaini Abdullah, easily winning the 2012 election. With reactionaries gaining ground across the globe, it appears that Aceh is following suit and giving progressive values a hearty thumbs down.

Bill Hicks would be proud...

Pantai Sumur Tiga.  The longest and most enchanting spit of fine, white sand on the island.  Located on the north-eastern coast.

A house for prayer.

A house for pigeons.

The sleepy port of Kota Sabang.  With around 10,000 inhabitants it is the largest town on the island, a center of commerce and cosmopolitan living.

A mid-way stop on our return home for some Acehnese Coffee (Kopi Aceh).  Starbucks and their Sumatran blend has nothing on the real thing.  A potent jolt is delivered by this muscular brew.

Stale, fish-shaped angle food cake for dipping.

Despite the fact that the majority of marijuana grown for sale in tourist centers in Indonesia (i.e. Bali, Lombok, the Gilli Islands) is produced in the mountainous rainforests of Aceh, sale and consumption of the herb is punishable by death in the region.

This piece of wood is clearly stoned.

The rain had altogether ceased by the afternoon and our drive home appeared to be much quicker.

 After passing through the last crop of buildings and entering the mountainous region heading back to Iboih Beach, we noticed that the roads had awoken in our absence and with the ending of the rains came the incessant droning of insect life in the forest and the presence of a troop of long-tailed macaques (in the local patois = cheeky monkeys) patrolling a particularly steep, uphill slope.



As our engine-clatter neared and we dropped into second gear, a grizzled, pink-faced patriarch leveled his vicious, beady eyes directly at us and roared into a full sprint.  We had been warned of their aggression towards the orang bule (white people, foreigners, tourists,etc) and their propensity for muggings, but were not quite prepared for this brazen act, especially with our fancy, Robo-Cop helmets supposedly providing protection against all beasts of land and air.  Big enough to topple our bike in the event of a collision, with jaws strong enough to pry a sizable chunk of flesh from our exposed thighs, the angry beast hurtled towards us and lunged.  Nellie kicked wildly and screamed at the top of her lungs and, with my heart galloping out of my chest, I swerved to the left, narrowly avoiding his greedy, outstretched paws.

Unscathed, but rattled, we continued onwards to only encounter another troop of macaques around the next razor-sharp curve.  Panic set in again as I gunned the engine, preparing for the worst.  This time however, the brigands were listless, probably sated from their last violent act of theft, and barely noted our passing as we roared by.

Nearly a half-hour later we arrived at Land's End.  "Point Zero".  The northernmost tip of Indonesia. Reached through a remote strip of protected, dense forest where we encountered some strange birds and a giant, black, swarthy wild boar, this could easily be the setting for a cataclysmic reckoning of humanity.

Yet, instead of the Apocalypse occurring or being able to romantically rattle off some lines from Matthew Arnold's fine body of work, we were just harassed by a bevy of Sumatran men that at first appeared innocuous and playful, but turned slightly menacing after we denied their one-thousandth request for a photograph. 

Time to leave the end of the Earth and head home.