Vacation part II - The day on the motorbike

On the second day at lake Toba (and our only full day) we decided to rent motorcycle are drive around. We wanted to see a lake up in the mountains that we'd been told was really nice.

Our first activity was to go to a traditional dance performance. The dance was quite different than Javanese or Balinese dance, and to be honest, I prefer the other two. But it was still interesting to see part that part of the culture.

A man blessing the dance


An engagement dance

The performers relaxing off stage

The music

The dance was in a really interesting little tourist area with traditional houses you could enter and a little museum.

There was also this buffalo that dave was afraid to touch, so I made fun of him about that for awhile. The buffalo was actually part of the dance. I'm not exactly sure the story, but I think they were dancing to bless it before a sacrifice.

Then we saw where the buffalo hang out

And nearby there was a beautiful little dock

You could tell that the locals here were quite poor, even by Indonesian standards. There was one woman trying to mandi (bathe) in the lake but all these tourists were around taking photos. And there were these kids out fishing.

After the dance we wanted to find a little restaurant near the lake to have lunch, but that proved to be an almost impossible task. Finally we found one a little outside of town that was across the street from the water. We had some super spicy (but yummy) fish and there was a puppy for me to play with! Yay for being in a Christian community that doesn't hate dogs! Except that they also eat dogs and that puppy was probably going to be someone's dinner but I don't think about that too much.

So this was the lake that we heard so much about. It was pretty small and boring and we didn't even go up to it cause it looked like it was just a pond among somebody's fields. But it was a lake on an island which was in a lake, which was on an island. So I guess that was pretty cool. There was also a funny moment where Ben and I remembered just how American we are and just how....Indonesian people here are. There was a really steep hill across from the lake and there were some Indonesians who had also apparently come to see the lake and maybe do some camping. So instead of parking on the street and walking up the hill to see the view...they decided to try to ride their motorbikes up. Ben was literally the only person who parked at the bottom of the hill. So there were these motorcycles precariously perched on the side of this hill and the drivers pretty much just had to walk them up anyway cause it was too steep to ride. Indonesians do NOT like to walk.

Even though the lake was lame the ride to get there (a few hours) had amazing views and some stressful moments on the terrible terrible roads.

Dave and Ivan stopped below to take photos

We got stuck in the rain for a bit and sat in a little restaurant. The rest of the ride home was freezing because I was wet and the air was a lot cooler than I'm used to.

That evening we just stayed in the room playing cards and eating jelly beans.