Lake Luzern in Indonesia

Okay, so that one hour actually ended up being four hours. I was supposed to be picked up at 11, but was delayed until 1 because of the car breaking down, and didn't actually leave until 2--had to wait for one more passenger to arrive. I took a shared taxi (new toyota suburban) with six other Indonesians, and it wound up being an interesting ride, to say the least.

Medan is simply huge--it took us about an hour to get out of the city. I am a city person--I generally like cities and I will usually find some redeeming quality about them. Medan has two: it is the best place to use as a base for a journey to Lake Toba, and its main mosque is pretty (it is literally the only photogenic building I saw in Medan). There's nothing else memorable about it, unless you include yellowish, smoggy skies, and crazy drivers. Of course, Lonely Planet mentions in its Indonesia guide, but not its bigger SE Asia guide, that Medan routinely tops the list of travellers' most favorite places to hate. It was somewhat awkward when a group of university students asked me to fill out an interview with the question "what do you think of Medan?" when my opinion used a four letter word coupled with another four letter word. I simply wrote "chaotic but interesting." And no, it wasn't a ruse just to pickpocket me--I checked just to make sure.

Imagine driving on state highway 121 (dallas to wichita falls)--now, imagine that state highway 121 is generally a one lane road, every other vehicle is a dumptruck-sized truck carrying god knows what, and add in an equal number motorcycles. Now, throw in horrendous driving, people driving the wrong way, and the road serving as the "main street" for several towns along the way. Sound fun? That's what the road to Lake Toba was for all four and a half hours--and our driver was generally good. Now, imagine you are stuck sitting in the middle seat for about 3.5 of those 4.5 hours, and you have an elderly Indonesian woman who keeps falling asleep and putting her head on her shoulder. Also imagine a chain smoker coughing big phlegming coughs every five or 10 minutes or so sitting right behind you. That was me.

Here's a hot stock tip, btw: go long on tobacco companies in Indonesia, especially Sumatra. People, mainly males, chain smoke here. It's not just adults, either. At the internet cafe in Medan, there were boys not even old enough to shave smoking like seasoned pros. Tobacco advertising is everywhere, and the existence of "nonsmoking" places is nonexistent. Even if you are on a wooden boat in the middle of a lake.

As bad as sitting in the middle seat was for 3.5 hours, what was worse was having to change vehicles, and having the driver look at me and say "you mind smoking?" which was more of a demand than a question, and I wasn't about to argue with a guy who could have kicked me out and left me in the middle of god-knows-where Sumatra. I did manage to snag a window seat, though, the advantage of which was promptly lost when chain-smoking cough phlegm guy took the seat directly in front of me and proceeded to smoke like a chimney. At this rate, I will be coming home a full-blown nicotine addict without having actually smoked once this entire trip.

The climb in elevation was generally subtle--your ears only popped occasionally, the road wasn't hilly or noticeably steep by any stretch of the imagination. We passed lots of concrete and corrugated metal houses and structures along the way, and were generally surrounded by ricefields the entire time, except towards the end of the trip, when we started gaining more altitude and then we found ourselves in the middle of a palm plantation for a bit. After the palm plantation, we drove right through one of Bridgestone's (the tire company) rubber plantations, which was simply gigantic, and stretched as far as the eye could see on both sides of the road.

We finally neared Lake Toba, and I was frustrated as hell from the 3 hour delay and the constant smoke being blown in my face. That all vanished when I got my first glance of Toba at sunset--the place sneaks up on you, and you don't notice that you're on the edge of a caldera until you start descending through the big forests--my jaw literally dropped. Picture Lake Luzern, only the surrounding mountains are steeper and higher. That is Lake Toba.
Even though I got here after dark, I was able to find a great place to stay with a couple of other westerners and a great staff.

In the daylight, the place is simply spectacular, as you can also see the native Batak houses and farms along the coast. Its relaxed, easy going pace is a thankful contrast to Medan's chaos. In short, it's a great place to chill out for a couple of days.

There was a movie made about a decade ago called "The Beach" that starred Leonardo DiCaprio and was based on a fictional book written about backpackers who live in a secluded, edenesque beach in SE Asia, with little to no contact with the outside world. If the author had to choose a setting in which to write a similar narrative today, he'd probably pick Lake Toba. It's a relaxed, agrarian place, with a handful of westerners, but with more hotel rooms than actual tourists (thanks to a pre 90's asian financial crisis boom), and the place is full of classic longterm travel stereotypes.

In short, was the frustrating time spent in Medan and the long trip in the toyota worth it? Yes, but my lungs will probably not forgive me anytime soon.