Things to do in Sumatra
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Trekking
Treks into the Gunung Leuser National Park require a guide and can last anywhere from three hours to two days. Most people opt for two days so that they can spend the night in the jungle, which increases the likelihood of seeing orang-utans and other critters in the wild.
Guide rates are fixed by the Sumatra Guide Association: they are US$10 for a three-hour trek; US$25 for a day trek; and US$45 for a two-day trek, including overnight camping in the jungle and rafting back to town. Prices include basic meals, guide fees, camping equipment and the park permit.
Despite the pressure, take your time in choosing a guide. Talk to returning trekkers and decide how much jungle ti…
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Bedudal Café
For bread, beer and English menus, try Bedudal Café or Canyon Café. They also prepare the local speciality, dadiah campur, which is a tasty mixture of oats, coconut, fruit, molasses and buffalo-milk yogurt.
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Museum Huta Bolon Simanindo
At the northern tip of the island, in Simanindo, there's a fine old traditional house that has been restored and now functions as a museum. Museum Huta Bolon Simanindo was formerly the home of Rajah Simalungun, a Batak king, and his 14 wives. Originally, the roof was decorated with 10 buffalo horns, which represented the 10 generations of the dynasty. The museum has a small but interesting collection of brass cooking utensils, weapons, Dutch and Chinese crockery, sculptures and Batak carvings.
Displays of traditional Batak dancing are performed at 10:30 from Monday to Saturday (30,000Rp), if enough tourists show up.
The village of Simanindo is 15km from Tuk Tuk and is acce…
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Danau Maninjau
Only a few hours' bus ride from Bukittinggi, Danau Maninjau is a peaceful volcanic lake surrounded by verdant rice fields. Swim in the early morning dawn, watch the storm clouds climb over the crater lip and enjoy the cool climate. The road to get there is demanding - a 44-bend road switchbacks its way to the valley floor but the views are worth every turn.
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Mentawai Islands Tours
Padang is used as the mainland launching point for tours of the offshore Mentawai Islands, which are famous for a hunter-gatherer culture and world-class surfing. The various islands of the Mentawai chain are starting to sprout reclusive resorts if you're hunting for a holiday away from the crowds.
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Batak Warung
In Pangururan, a simple warung, across from the police station, looks more like a bus stop than a restaurant, but it does a busy lunch-time trade of Batak dishes, such as sassang (stewed pork) and nila (fish stew).
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Canyon Café
The Canyon Café has good english food and they also prepare the local speciality, dadiah campur, which is a tasty mixture of oats, coconut, fruit, molasses and buffalo-milk yogurt.
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Country Steak House
Wherever there are executives, rest assured there are steaks. Psst, there's beer here too. The restaurant also has wireless access for laptops.
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Tony's Restaurant
Although it looks closed, Tony's is still firing up pizzas. It is located directly behind the bus terminal.
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Orang-Utan Feeding Centre
Bukit Lawang's famous orang-utan centre was set up in 1973 to help primates readjust to the wild after captivity or displacement through land clearing. Much of the original duties of the centre have been moved to more-remote locations, but twice-daily feedings are still provided to semi-dependent orang-utans. These events are open to the public (no guide required) and provide one of the closest views of the forest ape outside the confines of a zoo.
During the centre's decades-long career, it has introduced 200 orang-utans into the jungle and many of them have successfully mated with the wild population. Before releasing the animals into the jungle, the centre teaches the …
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Trekking
If you don't fully succumb to Samosir's anaesthetising atmosphere, there are a couple of interesting treks across the island. The trails aren't well marked and can be difficult to find, but ask any of the guesthouses for a map. In the wet season (December to March) the steep inclines are very muddy and slippery and can be quite dangerous.
The central highlands of Samosir are about 700m above the lake and afford stunning views of mist-cloaked mountains on a clear day. The top of the escarpment forms a large plateau and at its heart is a small lake, Danau Sidihoni. Samosir's vast tracts of jungle have long since vanished and the only forest you will pass through on either w…
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Lambaro
It doesn't make for sunny postcard fodder, but travelling over oceans to mourn the dead is a profound gesture of sympathy. Seeing the place with your own eyes allows for personal and sacred memorials and helps feeble imaginations understand the scale of a disaster.
Many of the most moving images of the tsunami will be erased in the coming years: the freighter ships deposited miles inland will be disassembled, the empty landscape will be rebuilt, the amputated families will form new connections. But what will remain is an ancient human custom: housing the dead so the living can remember.There are four mass graves in and around Banda Aceh where the dead in the province wer…
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Christian Paraphernalia
You'll see more Christian paraphernalia in Toba than you will in the American Bible Belt. In Batak communities, homes are typically decorated with tapestries of a long-haired Jesus and gold cross necklaces adorn cleavage. The rice paddies and villages are cultivated around sober Protestant-style churches and tombs merging traditional Batak architecture and Christian crosses.
This was once the 'heart of darkness' from the perspective of the European and American missionaries and the first evangelists met their makers by the tips of spears. Good timing brought survival and fame to a German missionary named Nommenson. His arrival preceded a bumper crop and in return the Bata…
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King Sidabutar's Grave
The Batak king who adopted Christianity is buried in Tomok, a village southeast of Tuk Tuk. The king's image is carved on his tombstone, along with those of his bodyguard and Anteng Melila Senega, the woman the king is said to have loved for many years without fulfilment. The tomb is also decorated with carvings of singa, mythical creatures with grotesque three-horned heads and bulging eyes. Next door in death is the missionary who converted the tribe, the career equivalent of boy band stardom.
Next in the row is an older Batak royal tomb, which is used as a multilingual fertility shrine for childless couples, according to souvenir vendors. The tombs are 500m up a narrow …
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Gunung Sibayak
Gunung Sibayak is probably the most accessible of Indonesia's volcanoes and on Sundays day-trippers from Medan are out in force. You need good walking boots because the path can be steep and slippery, and a layer of warm clothing as it gets cold at the summit. If doing the five-hour hike alone, it is recommended you hire a guide through the guesthouses.
There are three ways to tackle the climb, depending on your energy level. The easiest way is to take the track that starts to the northwest of town, a 10-minute walk past the Sibayak Multinational Resthouse. Take the left-hand path beside the entrance fee hut. From here it's 7km (4mi)- about three hours - to the top. On th…
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Mesjid Raya Baiturrahman
With its brilliant white walls and liquorice-black domes, the Mesjid Raya Baiturrahman is a dazzling sight on a sunny day. The first section of the mosque was built by the Dutch in 1879 as a conciliatory gesture towards the Acehnese after the original one had been burnt down.
Two more domes - one on either side of the first - were added by the Dutch in 1936 and another two by the Indonesian government in 1957. The mosque survived intact after the 2004 earthquake and tsunami, a sign interpreted by many residents as direct intervention from the divine. The best time to catch the mosque is during Friday afternoon prayers, when the entire building and yard are filled with peo…
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Stone Chairs
More traditional Batak artistry and legend is on view in Ambarita, 5km north of Tanjung Tuk Tuk. The 300-year-old stone chairs is where village matters were discussed and wrongdoers were tried. A second set of megaliths in an adjoining courtyard was where the accused were bound, blindfolded, sliced and rubbed with chilli and garlic before being beheaded. Ambarita, 5km north of Tanjung Tuk Tuk. Guides love to play up the story and ask for volunteers to demonstrate the process.
It is customary to pay a small fee for the tale, or risk meeting a savoury death (just kidding). There is a small market in Ambarita on Thursday (07:00 to 10:00) to the right of the T-junction.
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Gunongan
All that remains today of Aceh's powerful sultanates are on view at Gunongan. Built by Sultan Iskandar Muda (r 1607-36) as a gift for his Malay princess wife, it was intended as a private playground and bathing place. The building consists of a series of frosty peaks with narrow stairways and a walkway leading to ridges, which represent the hills of the princess' native land.
Directly across from the Gunongan is a low, vaulted gate, in the traditional Pintu Aceh style, which gave access to the sultan's palace - supposedly for the use of royalty only.
To reach Gunongan, take a labi labi (opelet) bound for Jl Kota Alam.
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Maimoon Palace
Having recently received a much-needed lick of paint, the Maimoon Palace stands as grand as ever. Built by the sultan of Deli in 1888, the 30-room palace features Malay, Mogul and Italian influences. Only the main room is open to the public; it features the lavish inauguration throne. The back wing of the palace is occupied by members of the sultan’s family. The current sultan, Aria Mahmud Lamanjiji, was only eight years old when he was installed as the 14th Sultan of Deli in 2005, replacing his father, who died in a plane crash. He is the youngest sultan in Deli history. He currently resides in Sulawesi, and his role is purely ceremonial.
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Batak Graves
The road that follows the northern rind of Samosir between Simanindo and the town of Pangururan is a scenic ride through the Bataks' embrace of life and death. In the midst of the fertile rice fields are large multistorey graves decorated with the distinctive Batak-style house and a simple white cross. Reminiscent of Thai spirit houses, Batak graves reflect much of the animistic attitudes of sheltering the dead.
Cigarettes and cakes are offered to the deceased as memorials or as petitions for favours. Typical Christian holidays, such as Christmas, dictate special attention to the graves.
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Taman Panorama
Taman Panorama, on the southern edge of town, overlooks the deep Ngarai Sianok (Sianok Canyon). This is especially scenic at sunset, when fruit bats swoop through the canyon. Guides will approach visitors under the auspices of friendship; don't get confused, this is how business works in Indonesia and payment is expected, even if an explicit price is never discussed.
They'll lead you through Gua Jepang (Japanese caves), which was one of many feats of engineering that the Japanese accomplished with slave labour during WWII.
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Short Walks
There are a number of short walks around Bukit Lawang that don't require guides or permits, but you'll be lucky to escape town alone.
The canal that runs alongside the river is an easy stroll through the village. In the evening everything gets washed in the rushing waters: frolicking kids, soiled bums, dirty laundry. Activities usually considered private are social in the communal waters.
The most interesting is a 20-minute walk, signposted from the Bukit Lawang Eco Lodge, to a bat cave.
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Tjong A Fie Mansion
Tjong A Fie Mansion is the former residence of a famous Chinese merchant; his home, which mixes Victorian and Chinese styles, is intentionally similar to his cousin's (Cheong Fatt Tze) home in Penang. Across the street is Tip Top Restaurant, a historic spot for sipping colonial nostalgia. Further north is Lapangan Merdeka, a former parade ground surrounded by handsome Art Deco buildings, such as the Bank Indonesia, Balai Kota (Town Hall) and the post office.
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Kherkhof
Not far from the Gunongan is the Kherkhof, the last resting place of more than 2000 Dutch and Indonesian soldiers who died fighting the Acehnese. The entrance is about 250m from the clock tower on the road to Uleh-leh. Tablets set into the walls by the entrance gate are inscribed with the names of the dead soldiers. The cemetery suffered some flooding from the tsunami.
To reach the Kherkhof take labi labi 9 or 10.
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