|
Sun- Had a look at the mainland town of Parapat first - as usual nothing quaint about it. Took the ferry over to Tuk Tuk - went to Tony's nice place, cheap, no atmosphere, far, no view of waterfall cos it's dried up due to deforestation. arrived knackered after 17 hour bus journey so took shower and drank a litre of water which I didn't realise was lake water, have had spouts of dizziness and tiredness for 5 days, but not really bad stomache. So that put me in a funny mood. | |||||
Touristy setting with no tourists
|
It was a surprise to see a big difference from Lake Maninjau which is a normal area with some tourists, Tuk Tuk is definitely a tourist resort area. Not so big, but only tourist stuff, other real villages are 4Km away. The nicely built Tuk Tuk guesthouses lining the lakefront, but 2 guest houses for every tourist | Reason for no tourists in Indonesia #7 no tourists
| .. so no buzz about the place, pressure on what few tourists are there, and negative atmosphere cos locals moaning.
You hear the friendly greeting "Horas", but 40% of the time you get "hello, you need motorbike"
| 
nicely built Tuk Tuk guesthouses lining the lake front Too big to go to meet people.. I should have stayed at the south west corner near Bar Rumba, cos near there are the best cheapest places to eat and stay close together. I had to walk past empty restaurants so spent a couple of hours each day just walking there and back.
As I said the people say "horas", cos they are of Batak Toba race and they are either Catholic or some other form of Christian so no loud mosques.
Monday exploring south |
People try to push you into exploring the whole island hiring motorbikes for $7 which is cheap, but not so cheap. However I wanted to get a feel for the place first. It only took me 40 minutes to walk to the village of Tomok. | On the way farm women tried to beg from me, surely they have enough food ? But they woofed down the sweetbread I had. There must have been hordes of tourists before, cos streets of souvenir stalls line the way to the 2 tourist sights. But I never buy carving etc. Got disorientated by a bad map, so ened up walking up the hill towards the village of Sigarenting |
|
Got a ride down to Tomok with the school teacher she wouldn't accept money, people offering me rides to Tuk Tuk wanted 10 or 8000, which is far too much 3000 is normal see 50% giving, 50% begging
Enjoyed meeting the other travellers at Sugary Café etc Danish Eric had bought an excellent guidebook : Handbook to North Sumatra
By Mahmud Bangkaru, which he left there for people to read | ||||||||||||
Reason for no tourists #8 no cooperation
|
In Tuk Tuk all the restaurants/ guesthouses are open all the time burning electricity all the time. Surely in times of crisis it would better for them to cooperate and cut costs I.e your restaurant takes a holiday today mine to tomorrow. Similarly instead of lowering each others prices to compete guest house operators could fix a minimum price and come up with a system for sharing profits instead of letting their neighboirs starve. I.e merge 5 businesses mothball 3, that way instead of 10 tourists bringing in $20 with 5 sets of staff to pay, you get $30 in with 2 sets of staff to pay..I am told it's very difficult for Indonesians to cooperate.
| Tuesday exploring North |
The island has a bus service, running south to north, but the buses don't come near Tuk Tuk mostly they prefer tourists to hire motorbikes. So I walked 4Km North to Ambarita. Same set up hordes of souvenir shops 2 "tourist sights" An execution block and a set of ancient stone chairs probably carved 50 years ago.
|  Ambarita Houses I walked to the main road and went by bus to the next village, but it's tourist museums had shut down. Here a view from the hill  Lake Toba North view Weds - day off from tourism , working etc
|
The boys were pressurising me to go on a cruise for $10, cheap but I wasn't sure about it. The people at their hotel were having a good time, but were being exploited as they pushed to fork out cash, for motorbikes, cruises, dope and buying everyone drinks.
| let's blame everything on Americans bandwagon |
| In the evening went to see traditional dancing bit boring repetitive featuring school girls who couldn't smile. Met a girl from UK who complained about her neighbours being insular - racist anti-immigrant when they had never travelled or met one . They had no experience so how could they make such stereotypical judgments ?.. She then went on to rant about Americans and the Iraq war. I found it very ironic that she couldn't see that she was making stereotypical judgements about Americans and being racist , even though she has never been to Iraq, or been party to the inner workings of the American Iraq decision making process. And demonstrating the same lack of perspective in ignoring all the bigger evils in the world in her rush to join the let's blame everything on Americans bandwagon.
Thinking too difficult for you, don't like statistics, too much of a chore to read up.. ? Don't worry whatever problem exists you can just blame "the Americans"
Pushing on |
| Thu - Another, organising rest from sickness day Friday - visa running on, so decided to push on to Berastigi
Indonesia not a country , but a continent of many different races |
Another area, the 3rd and 4th race of people : it's strange that Indonesia is called a country when in fact it's a whole European Union of countries. Here in Siantar region it's a different tribe with a different appearance and in Berastagi another. Some of the women are quite good looking : slim with straight hair (not that anything going to happen even though this is not a muslim area as people are pretty fundamental Christians) |
| Bus to Karbonjahe - heavy rain couldn't stop off, Kaebonjahe not quaint either. |