Photos: http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052287&l=aa7d2&id=1101094
The following morning we caught a bus south to Parapat, a town on the banks of Danau Toba, the largest lake in Southeast Asia. Our end destination, though, was not Parapat but a large island in the middle of Danau Toba called Pulau Samosir. Samosir is famous for its Batak civilization, which lived in isolation in north-central Sumatra for centuries before being “discovered” by the British traveler William Marsden in 1783. Unlike the vast majority of Sumatrans, the Batak people are predominantly Christian (they also happened to be cannibals until 1816), and their language and culture have surprisingly few similarities with the Sumatrans living around them.
While we waited for the ferry that would take us from Parapat to Pulau Samosir’s main town of Tuk Tuk, we ate dinner at a restaurant near the pier. We struck up a conversation with the restaurant owner, and eventually the conversation turned to religion.
“So are you Muslim or Christian?” we asked.
“That’s my boss,” the man said, pointing up to a painting of Jesus hanging on the wall. Hilarious.
Our stay at Danau Toba was perhaps the most relaxing part of the trip, despite the fact that both Kendyl and I got wretchedly ill from street food we had eaten in Medan just before catching the bus to Parapat. We spent our days swimming in the lake (the fresh water felt good for a change), jogging around the island (finally, I was getting into shape), and relaxing around our quaint guesthouse, and our nights sampling Batak food (quite good) and drink (we weren’t around Muslims anymore, so beer was back on the menu). I, for one, could have stayed here for weeks.
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