28th April - 1st May 2007
Took a relatively normal bemo from Medan to Parapat, where we caught
the ferry to Tut Tut in the middle of Lake Toba. For those of you that
don't know Lake Toba is a crater lake in the middle of a massive volcanic mountain, the lake has a island in the middle of it the size of
Singapore (called Samosir Island), the most popular place to visit on Samosir is Tut Tut.
We tried to be most organised this time and booked a hotel in advance,
but when we emailed the lady for directions she didn't seem to want to
reply, oh well can't be that hard can it...
Everything was going fine until we were waiting at the jetty to catch
the boat and it turned dark, everyone was clearly talking about us but
we didn't know what they were saying, but it transpired that they found
a way of conning us out of 25'000 Indonesian rupiah's (around £1.50,
but more than likely a weeks wage for the locals) by saying that we'd have to pay extra for the boat to drop us at our hotel and that this was the only way to get there, as it was chucking it down, pitch black and we were already on the boat we didn't see much choice.
James' take on Samosir Island:
Lovely, beautiful place, very chilled out seemingly untouched with the
expection of a few locals. Some stunning views although not sure we
managed to truly capture them on photo.
Danielle's take on Samosir Island:
hmmmm lovely hotel room,the bottom of the toilet was very nice too...
With the exception of Dan's illness it was a good trip, would have
liked to have stayed longer but our 30 day visa was soon to expire therefore time to move on!
