Munene, the journey...

Lake Toba We left Lekjon Cottages at 9.30am, aboard our ferry to the mainland of Danau Toba. We then boarded the bus to Medan. We got to Medan around 2pm. We checked into our Jakarta-bound flight at Kualanamu airport at 3pm, and grabbed lunch at an airport eatery. We departed Medan for Jakarta around 5pm. And here we are. From Jakarta, we bussed to Bogor where we stayed at a really nice hotel for the night.

Fish farming We left for our hotel on the opposite side of lake Toba at 6am and got there in about 50mins. It was a cool ferry. We learnt that Toba is a volcanic crater lake, formed over 750m years, after a volcanic eruption that changed the climate of the planet. At the hotel, we got breakfast: hurriedly done and not very good, but just barely palatable. We climbed on the ferry and we went to see fish farms. I really liked the design of the fish ponds in the lake. However, we learnt that the government had banned further development of such ponds and termed them unsustainable. Red, black and white Later, we went to see a Batak traditional dance and explored Batak history. We learnt that the gecko is a sign of good luck for the Batak people, while the water buffalo is a sign of the strength. I really like the architecture of Batak houses which look like boats, with sharp upper edges. We participated in a traditional Batak dance. The Batak like red, black an...

The day began with an elaborately laid breakfast at 9am. The camp opposite our own got visited by a famous orangutan, called Jackie and her young. So we went to check them out. Add caption We played in the water for some time, then we crossed the river a couple of times to the waterfall. The waterfall was beautiful, cool, refreshing. At the waterfall, I was crowned the Lord, King Raja himself by one of the guides. He made kingly garb from leaves and vines. We played some more in the water, and then went back to our campsite. We had a fruit snack, lunch and then broke camp. We rafted down the river to our hotel. It was loadsa fun. We competed with the other teams to get to the hotel. Having started last, our raft boat was able to make up for the lost time, and was leading at some time. In the end, we came second after a closely-fought battle with the leading team. We got back to our rooms, and I changed and I am here writing this post. We are supposed to prepare f...