Indonesia Lake Toba & Berastagi Tour in Pictures

Lake Toba and Samosir Island
Rubber from a rubber tree on a rubber tree plantation! Cool!
View from our hotel overlooking Lake Toba
Giant butterfly creature
Boat ride on Lake Toba
The mountain we were headed to later…
Where the locals come on the weekend to rent paddle boats
Indonesian boat ride. Yay.
The shores of Samosir Island in the middle of the lake
At the graves of some of the old Batak Toba kings
Statues from the olden days
Old Batak houses
Drying out cacao beans to get chocolate!!
Where chocolate comes from!
Snake fruit or “salak”
Eating snake fruit
Some kind of tropical cactus
Along the banks of Samosir Island
Sour sop fruit
Entering the old Batak Toba village known for cannibalism
12 batak village houses
Lizard and 4 boobs… It’s supposed to tell the children that they have to return to their village after education and work to take care of their parents because it was their mother’s breasts that raised them…..
the place where the criminal sentenced to death had his trial and ate his last meal without his hands like an animal.
The calendar that said whether it was a good day for an execution. If yes, they would kill the criminal and eat his parts…
“toilet” in old batak toba writing.
There were these 2 kids playing around near the water.. This kid had money stuck on his head… I took his picture because it was funny. He looked confused. I then motioned to my his forehead and tapped my own before making the “what?” gesture with my arms. Then he realized it and started laughing… Apparently he’d put it on his head a while ago and forgotten about it. Haha.
Our traveling buddy Foo shared an Indonesian beer with us
We stopped because we saw monkeys. 🙂 We started throwing chips to them from the window….
And then more monkeys started coming….
Pretty soon there were 20 or 30 monkeys… And some of them were getting pretty close… Like this guy. We called him “Red face”… After we rolled up the windows a little higher.
Their bus got a little overturned…
Coffee beans! Well… the beans are inside.
Leaves from the clove tree. They smell like cloves!
To get cloves as we know them. You just let these guys dry out. And walla! Cloves!
Durian tree
Lake view
Crazy big cinnamon stick
Craziest plant ever… These balls are the “flower” and are filled with air. It feels fake!
Cloves – before and after
“kopi luwak” or coffee that’s processed after digested and expelled by an animal… known as “the world’s most expensive coffee” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak
Ingredients for the most intense but delicious ginger tea I’ve ever tasted
Cool flowers
Foo and Karen loved their durian. Especially Foo. Please notice how Tiffany is WAYYYY in the background away from the durian 😛
Tiffany hiding from the durian and enjoying the fantastic view.
Tunnel entrance to the King’s palace area
Tunnels are cool
I forgot what this building was for… Maybe the meeting place in the King’s residence
Chameleon!
King’s palace
I was taking a picture of this kid’s friends playing badmitton. He waved me down and said, “me me” and wanted me to take his picture. So I did. Then I showed him, and he smiled approvingly.
Sorry it’s blurry… List of kings who lived in this palace.
Inside the king’s palace. His 14 wives slept in this giant room… They each had their own fire at night.
One buffalo horn for each king
Ceiling decoration
Another Lake Toba view
Waterfall.
A cool flower blowing in the wind
More flower pictures
Another stop along the drive
volcano
Rabbits for sale at the fruit market…
Fruit at the fruit market. I totally forgot what kind of fruit this was.
Fruit market
So much fruit
And more fruit.
Petai. Apparently young people hate it because it makes your breath stink…
Dragon fruit.
More flower pictures.
One of my favorites.
Wild strawberries
Everyone loves rabbits…
the Catholic church in Berastagi
the Dutch pastor of the Catholic church in Berastagi. I appreciate how they built it using the traditional architecture style.
The Burmese style Buddhist temple
Buddhist temple
India deja vu. EVERYONE wanted a picture with us. I forgot my sunglasses and it was SUPER bright, so everyone who managed to get a picture with me has a squinty picture of me. I started joking with people that it would cost 10,000 rupiah (~$1 USD) for every picture. No one took me seriously. But next time, I’m charging for real 😛
Tiffany was famous too…
It was a really interesting place…
This family was my favorite. They were really sweet.
Buddhist prayer flags… (I think).
Baby Buddhas… doing kungfu?
Some kind of fruit
Everyone was excited to see white people. In my opinion, white people are highly overrated.
These girls were REALLY excited and wouldn’t stop waving and saying “hello!”
So we walked over to say “hi” and they wouldn’t stop smiling and waving.
No words. Favorite picture ever.
View with Medan in the distance
And they kept running over to where we were, shouting “hello”, waving, and then running back to mom’s corn shop
We fed him our mango peels… He caught them in mid-air.
Lunch with Foo and Karen… but I think Karen was in the restroom for this picture…
Avocado tree
Pineapple!
Cacao beans! Where chocolate comes from! Aka. Chocolate tree! (Really called Cacao tree or Cocoa tree) Woah! Cool! Yellow pods are ripe.
Not quite ripe Cacao tree.
Cinnamon tree!
Cinnamon our guide, Balas, cut from the tree!
Very cinnamony even though it’s not dried out yet! (You get the cinnamon from the bark and then drying it out…)
Lemongrass
Lemongrass
Very confusing catholic church in Medan that’s built using architecture and features from all religions…
More “friends”

Leave a comment