Lake Toba hides the Caldera Supervolcano! | Sumatra

Sumatra is giving me the alone time I was craving in Bali. There are few tourists here, and at the moment, that’s everything that I wanted in my travels. It’s not that I don’t like to hang around with other travellers. Moreover, the opposite is true. After months of travelling and constantly meeting new people, I sometimes need a break.

I took a trip to Tomok yesterday and will explore Tuk-Tuk itself today. A side-effect of a less-dense tourist population means that plenty of people want a photograph with me. I’ll take it happily with it. Apart from feeling like a famous person, it allows me to converse with locals. If that isn’t what solo travelling is all about, there wouldn’t have been any good reason to have started this adventure.

Exploring Tuk-Tuk:

Tuk-Tuk and the whole island of Samosir have two prominent landmarks. Firstly there is, of course, the lake. Lake Toba is a natural lake stretching 100 kilometres in length and goes up to 30 kilometres in width. The lake occupies a supervolcano’s Caldera (a significant depression that forms after a volcano erupts).

In addition, it’s the largest lake in Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake globally. The supervolcano erupted about 75,000 years ago and was one of the most significant eruptions in the world. Besides, according to the Toba catastrophe theory, it is estimated that the eruption caused a six to ten years global winter. On the other hand, Mount Toba, in the middle of the island, gives Samosir its unique character.

Exploring Tuk-Tuk had to include great views of Lake Toba, great lookouts on Mount Toba and seeing the old and new villages. Everybody has a little bar or restaurant in the new towns where people don’t live in the Batak houses. The low wages of working in the rice field must make this an attractive occupation around Tuk-Tuk.

I had hoped to find people living in the Batak houses in the old towns, but that was different. Most of these towns turned into museums for tourists to visit. I have to go deeper into Indonesia to find some original cities. Keep up-to-date because that will be for the following days!

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