All right, I have been rather remiss in finishing up in any timely manner our travels through Sumatra and Central Jakarta. I realize I have been overly verbose, meandering and didactic. It has now been six weeks since we were in Sumatra and I have not even finished up that trip. So, herein out, I will try to be more short and sweet and let the pictures simply tell the story.
As you know from previous posts, the Island rose up from the caldera created 70,000 years ago when there was this incredible volcanic eruption. It subsequently created beautiful Lake Toba and the island was pushed up subsequently by the pressure of the underlying magma. Since then Samosir Island has been enticing tourists to come and enjoy the beauty of this land ever since. Unfortunately, past events and the difficult terrain one must traverse to arrive at the Island does not make this place into a tourist mecca. Too bad, because it is a wonderful, cool climate, with good accomodations, good food, and interesting history. The Batak people live in this area of North Sumatra. There are many different tribes and dialects of Batak and the Batak people identify themselves by the region wherein they reside. Thus in and around Lake Toba, the people would be known as Toba Batak. Their language is an Austronesian based language and the people originally probably came from Papua, the Phillipines and Taiwan about 2500 years ago. Throughout Lake Toba you will find hundreds if not thousands of traditional Batak houses with the characteristic upswept roof lines and the stilt foundations. You can see both the thatch roofs and corregated tin roofs on these houses.
As you know from previous posts, the Island rose up from the caldera created 70,000 years ago when there was this incredible volcanic eruption. It subsequently created beautiful Lake Toba and the island was pushed up subsequently by the pressure of the underlying magma. Since then Samosir Island has been enticing tourists to come and enjoy the beauty of this land ever since. Unfortunately, past events and the difficult terrain one must traverse to arrive at the Island does not make this place into a tourist mecca. Too bad, because it is a wonderful, cool climate, with good accomodations, good food, and interesting history. The Batak people live in this area of North Sumatra. There are many different tribes and dialects of Batak and the Batak people identify themselves by the region wherein they reside. Thus in and around Lake Toba, the people would be known as Toba Batak. Their language is an Austronesian based language and the people originally probably came from Papua, the Phillipines and Taiwan about 2500 years ago. Throughout Lake Toba you will find hundreds if not thousands of traditional Batak houses with the characteristic upswept roof lines and the stilt foundations. You can see both the thatch roofs and corregated tin roofs on these houses.
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| Two homes and a family burial plot |
Written Batak does not use a roman alphabet, but I do not think anyone really uses the written language anymore other than for local ceremonial and/or tourist purposes. Back in 1997 I bought a Batak medicine book from a Jakartan antique trader. It was written on bark pages with a bone cover, and each “page” was a miniature work of art. I doubted then, as I still do now, that this was anything other than a creation for the tourists, and this was confirmed on this particular visit where I found many such medicine books being hawked as souvenirs. However, I would have to admit that the quality of my book was much finer. Nevertheless, you can travel all over the island and find a “handicrap centre” selling traditional carvings, musical instruments and medicine books or calendars.
The island is desperate for tourism. About ten or fifteen years ago, it started to undergo a bit of a tourism explosion, and so a lot of investors built some rather large and fancy hotels. But then there were the Ambon religious wars, the Bali bombings, and the collapse of the Southeast Asian economies all of which had a devastating effect on tourism. Not to mention the 2007 earthquake, the lack of infrastructure and roads in and out of the Island, etc. So, when we would visit the ancient stone tombs, burial grounds and ceremonial execution tables, it often felt a bit like the fat European being invited to the hungry cannibals’ home for dinner.
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| ceremonial execution tables in Batak Village |
All the villages rely to a certain extent on tourism, but the tourists are few and far between. We went to one town which puts on some traditional music and dance for tourists. They generally only want to do it when there is a minimum of ten people in the audience (for an hour long show with a dozen musicians and half a dozen dancers, plus one water buffalo. When we arrived, there were four other tourists, which, when counting us made 8 people, and so they decided to put on the show. Unfortunately the other four people got bored and left before the show could begin, so all of these people put on a show for the four of us. They didn’t look too enthused about this performance. But they gave it their Broadway Best.
The bottom line: This is a wonderful little piece of the world to visit. The people are warm and friendly, the weather is great, the prices are good. Its 70,000 years of history and geology are staggering (see previous post about Lake Toba). Indonesia simply has to learn how to sell tourism. Maybe they need a good catch phrase: “Toba, it changed the world. It will change you too.”
And that concludes our trip through Sumatra. After two nights on Samosir Island, we took the ferry back to the mainland and a five hour 150 km car trip back to Medan. Wethen flew back to Jakarta. The following week, Ralph, Miles and I (but not Irene who had to work) flew to Yogjakarta (aka Jogjakarta) for several days to see the ancient Hindu temples at Prabanan and the Budhist Temples of Borobudor. That will be the next posting and then after that more life in Jakarta (and a smattering of politics).
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