Lake Toba Tours
On the shore of Lake Toba lies the town of Parapat as the main tourist resort. Lake Toba is approximate 50 miles long and 16 miles across with a depth of about 1.400 feet and consider as the largest lake in Southeast Asia and once created by an big eruption less than 100.000 years ago. Lake Toba is located at an altitude of 906 meters above sea level. Parapat on the shore of Lake Toba can be reached in 4 hours by car from Medan or about 176 km from Medan city. Many recreational sports available in Parapat such as swimming, water skiing, motor boating, canoing, fishing. As the tourist resort some international hotels has been built in Parapat such as Patra Jasa Hotel Parapat, Nataour Hotel Parapat, Niagara Hotel Parapat and other small cottages or bungalows with affordable prices to suit visitors need during the trip to Parapat or Lake Toba. The climit in Parapat is cool and dry that make Parapat as an ideal place to relax. Parapat inhabited by Batak Toba and Batak Simalungun tribes and are happy and easy going people and are known for their lively and sentimental love songs. Batak Toba live on the western side of Lake Toba and Batak Simalungun live on the eastern side of Lake Toba. Batak Simalungun have had more influences from Malayu and other peoples than the Batak Toba people. In the center of Lake Toba, there is small island called Samosir island covering an area of 329 square miles. Samosir island is the original home of the fiercest but kind hearted Toba Batak. Samosir island can be reached within a half an hour by boat from Parapat. There are 2 main ferry jetty points on Samosir island are Tomok a traditional village with beautiful houses a stone tombs and houses, and Tuktuk where the island have many hotels and restaurants. Tomok famous for years now as the gateway to Samosir island, the visitors are greeted by rows of stalls selling a bewildering array of Batak calendar and traditional Batak musical instruments. In Tomok village you can find the ancient royal stone tomb of the Sidabutar clan dynasty. Bodies were buried in the stone sarcophaguses under a large banyan tree. Around 4 km north of Tuktuk village is Ambarita an attractive village with ancient stone walls that were once topped with a thick pagar or fence of thorny bamboo. Inside are stone seats and modern statuary the work of the Siallagan clan some 54 years ago. Ambarita is also good base for treks a cross the island. Simanindo is a picturesque village and has some of the best traditional houses and here you can see the Raja Sidauruuk house and now become a museum. At this museum you can see cultural performances. Pangururan is the proper town on Samosir island and also the administrative center of Samosir island. When visiting Lake Toba don't forget to buy some souvenir such as Ulos weaving is common in many villages on the northwestern shore of Samosir island. The highlight of Indonesia tours are mixed from natural beauties, ethnic tradition, religion, under water world, mountain activities, ancient heritages, fauna and flora preservations and others. Publishing tours on Indonesia would not be enough within dozen of pages, unless each of the areas which offers the specific interest could be detailed in a huge descriptions to give a complete idea of the interests that are exist in the areas. Basically each areas in Indonesia with the specific cultural heritages are coped within an administrative area of Province. For example North Sumatra Province has specific interest such as orangutans, Batak tribe culture with it's traditional life and interesting history and their beuatiful home land like lake Toba and Samosir island which is known world wide as one of the most breathaking views of the nature. Arrangement of tours to North Sumatra actually is very easy since it is only less then one hour flight from Singapore, the bussiest commercial city of Asia. West Sumatra which is known as a very devoted Muslim, yet strongly tied by their tradition of ancestors offers beautiful panorama of mountain, lakes, and people tradition which is inherited from the ancient Hindu kingdom of Pagaruyung. Their beautiful house or building architecture is probably only first in Indonesia which is comparable to Bali. So many thing can be offered by Indonesia in the field of sightseeing to their provinces from west Indonesia, central Indonesia, and eastern part of Indonesia. Some provinces have already sufficient facilities for the travelers to visit their interesting places such as North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung, East Java, Bali, Lombok, and Toraja Land. The facilities such as hotels, restaurants, sea transport, land transport and air transport. As Indonesia is a really vast country, the distance of traveling from one province to other province would give time consuming travel in all the transportation means, yet a great world to discover.