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| Lake Toba |
Indonesia tourism never fail to impress travel lovers around the world. Not only the beauty of the nature and colorful society with tribes diversity, but the history behind it is really amazing.
Lake Toba, the biggest lake in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, has unique and mysterious story behind its beauty. Moreover, around Lake Toba, there are so many unique and awesome places that makes you really love to travelling in North Sumatra province.
In previous article, I showed you 5 great places in Medan city, the capital city of North Sumatra province which makes Medan city is
"Bhineka Tunggal Ika (Unity In Diversity)" represent city. However, Medan city is only small part of the greatest of North Sumatra province. Lake Toba is trademark and icon of North Sumatra and Indonesia tourism.
Why Lake Toba is always be favorite place for people to enjoy their holiday? What kind of story and mystery behind Lake Toba? And are there any great places around Lake Toba that you must visit?
Let me share my travel story in Lake Toba in the beginning of 2017.
I'd like to guide you by this article, to have a look inside Lake Toba and the great places around Lake Toba.
Lake Toba, Or I Have To Say 'Mt. Toba'
Lake Toba is the largest and biggest lake in Indonesia as well as Southeast Asia with over 1145 square km with depth around 450 m. Even Lake Toba is one of the deepest lake in the world
You must be amazed when you see Lake Toba by seeing photos above or photos in Indonesia travel website. You'll be more impressed when you see by your own eyes because even me as Indonesian, I don't know that Lake Toba is very beautiful, the lake and "Bukit Barisan" hills around the lake.
However, behind Lake Toba's beauty, there's long story and mystery how this Lake was made.
I made research about Lake Toba history from several website. The story behind Lake Toba makes me scary but at the same time, it makes me proud to be Indonesian.
Lake Toba, or I'd like to say 'Mt. Toba'. Yes, it's 'Mt. Toba' not 'Lake Toba'. Before being a lake, Lake Toba was very high mountain. Until now, there are many speculations about the height of Mt. Toba. Around 75,000 years ago, Mt. Toba extremely exploded. It was considered as the most terrible explosion in earth history, that kill almost all humans in the earth and 6 years without sun. The effect of this explosion was Mt. Toba totally destroyed and create very big caldera with one island stayed in the middle. That big caldera for 75,000 years filled by rain and it turns to be a lake. The island in the middle we known as "Samosir Island". Yesss, that's the story behind Lake Toba.
Actually, if we discuss about Lake Toba, it won't be end because there's still so many mysteries in Lake Toba, at least that's what heard from local community who're living around Lake Toba.
Sipiso-piso waterfall located in Tongging village, Karo town. Sipiso-piso waterfall one of the nature sites around Lake Toba that very famous because the beauty of this waterfall.
The name "Sipiso-piso" is from Indonesian words "Pisau or Indonesian usually said, Piso" means knife. Furthermore, the waterfall that have height 120 m / 800 mdpl, is flowing like a knife. Some people said that, if you touch the water from waterfall directly it can hurt your body like you stabbed by knife.
Sipiso-piso waterfall is one of the tallest waterfall in Indonesia. It's only "one of the". Because the tallest waterfall in Indonesia is located in North Sumatra as well. I'll write about it later.
If you want to feel the sensation of Sipiso-piso waterfall, there's a way to go down until bottom of the waterfall. However, let me share my experience. When you arrive in Sipiso-piso waterfall, you will see the waterfall from top of the hill. So when you challenge yourself to go down into waterfall's bottom, it's same as you climb down the hill. It's okay when you go down, but when you go up, makes sure you have enough power and water because it same as you climb the hill.
However, your hard work will be paid off once you arrive in the bottom of Sipiso-piso waterfall. You can feel the sensation, joy, and good feeling from torrent of waterfall. If you lucky, you can see a rainbow from Sipiso-piso waterfall that gives you the best travel experience in Sipiso-piso waterfall.
Silalahisinabungan Monument, Jakarta's Monas Looks Like Monument
Yeah, it looks like Jakarta's Monumen Nasional (Monas) because the gold on the top of the monument looks similar with Monas, but it's different monument and have no relation with Monas.
Silalahi Sinabungan Monument was built in 1967 and officiated in 1981. Silalahisinabungan Monument is located in Silalahi Nabolak, in the edge of the Lake Toba.
Beside the monument, there's Batak tribe traditional house, Ruma Balon Silalahisabungan King. So, if you love photography, you can get two objects in the same place and time.
In monument, you can see the paints that described life in Silalahisabungan Kingdom and how Silalahisabungan King's government work. There's also description about Silalahisabungan King in the monument. All of these are written by Batak language, the language of Batak tribe, you I can't translate it for you.
Moreover, you can getting close with Lake Toba and enjoy the air and peaceful atmosphere. I suggest you to come Silalahisabungan Monument in afternoon time, because the scenery is really beautiful. Unfortunately, when I went there, it's rainy day so I couldn't enjoy sunset here. But still, it's worth to visit.
Tarutung Town, The Cleanest City Only One Soda Bathing Place In The World
Let's go to the city that takes 2 hours from Lake Toba, the cleanest city in North Sumatra that I ever see, Tarutung town, North Tapanuli.
No offense, but everytime I pass market district in every town in North Sumatra, there's always trashes on the street. It doesn't look nice and it's quite dirty! However, in Tarutung town, I didn't see any trashes on the street even when I passed the market district. The river is also clean, although the color is brown, but there's no trashes passing on the river's flow. That's really really shocking me and the rest of my big family who have trip with me. I never see such a clean town in Indonesia like Tarutung town. The other city especially bigger city must follow Tarutung town cleanliness because clean city is better place to live.
Moreover, Tarutung town has more than its cleanliness. Tarutung town has soda water resource that use for public bath and it's the only one place in Indonesia. Even in the world, there are only two soda water resource, one in Venezuela and one in Tarutung town. However, soda water in Venezuela, I heard rumor that it won't use for public bath, which means Tarutung town's soda water resouorce is the only one soda water bathing place IN THE WORLD!
Woooowwww, that's why I'm so proud to be Indonesian 😁😁😁
Tarutung town's Soda water was found by Minar Sihite in 1973. At first, local community feel the place where soda water belong was scary place because the paddy that was planted near soda water were died. Furthermore, the red color around soda water give 'mystical' impression for local Batak community. That's why they call soda water as
Aek Rara, "Aek" means water and "
Rara" means red.
Even though there's mystical impression from this soda water, Minar Sihite build bathing place in this soda water and in 1990 Tarutung town Soda Water Public Bath was officially opened.
So, North Sumatra has nature resources that never fail to impress tourist and make Indonesian proud to be Indonesian. The only one soda water public bath in the world is exist in Tarutung town, North Tapanuli. Don't miss the opportunity to clean your body with natural soda water. Visit Tarutung town Soda Water Public Bath 😁😁
Actually, there are more nature sites around Lake Toba that makes you falling in love with Lake Toba, unfortunately I wasn't able to explore all of them because I had trip with my big family who bring many little kids, the fathers must work in the next day and the traffic is too crowded because I went here when 2017 new year holiday period.
There are more places that I should visit such as exotic beach in Sibolga, coffee garden in Sidikalang and Siantar, Lake Lau Kawar in Mt. Sinabung, and many more. Next trip, definitely will visit more places and of course I'll share to you.
North Sumatra tourism is more than amazing. You will surprise that you can find this kind of beautiful natural tourist site in Indonesia. We should explore more North Sumatra tourist sites and share to people around the world so that North Sumatra's tourism can developed in the future.
Don't just read and see the pictures of North Sumatra tourism, save your money and book a ticket to North Sumatra 👍👍
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