Notes on Lake Toba: The paradise lake of North Sumatra

Lake Toba is a volcanic lake in North Sumatra, Indonesia. It’s the largest lake in Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake in the world. It should be more famous, yet somehow it gets few visitors.

I first visited Lake Toba in 2009, and I ended up going back to spend a month there. The centre of. activity is in the town of Tiuk Tuk, which is on the island of Samosir (an island in a lake on the island of Sumatra).

Tuk Tuk is the sort of place you can easily relax, and after experiencing the road from Medan to Lake Toba I was happy not to be moving around for a while.

I returned to Lake Toba in 2023, partly to ride the train from Medan that covers half of the journey to Parapat (the town where you get the ferry to Samosir). I also just wanted to hang out by the lake again.

[Parapat Lake Toba.]

Lake Toba has been designated as one of the 10 New Balis, which is an initiative of the Indonesian government to try and spread the tourism love beyond Bali. Part of that plan includes extending the railway to the lake, and there is also a nearby airport that was expanded in 2005. Silangit was supposed to be the new international gateway for Lake Toba, but since my visit the government has revoked its status as an international airport.

I remembered Lake Toba to be beautiful, but memories are not always reliable. Once I got on the Parapat-Tuk Tuk ferry I was in awe again of how beautiful this lake is.

[Parapat – Tuk Tuk Ferry on Lake Toba.]

Tuk Tuk is on a bulbous peninsula that sticks out into the lake. This peninsula gives Tuk Tuk a sense of detachment from traffic (not that there is much traffic on the island).

The ferry goes around the peninsula, stopping at hotels that have a pier. If you tell the ticket seller where you are staying they will know what pier to drop you off at.

The ferry takes 30 minutes from Parapat, and then another 30 minutes of cruising around to the different piers. It’s a good way to check out the different hotels around the island.

[Zoes Paradise in Tuk Tuk.]

After checking into my hotel I walked around the peninsula to scout for cafes with a view. Most of the cafes (or restaurants serving coffee) serve the local style coffee of coffee grinds in the cup and a lot of sweetened condensed milk. I have to pace myself with this stuff, otherwise I would end up drinking a can of sweetened condensed milk per day.

I thought there might have been a hipster cafe scene here by now. I imagined that some burnt-out baristas from Medan (where there are great cafes) would have moved here by now. The main improvement has been with the internet.

I was in my first decade of being a digital nomad in 2009, and this was still an era when wifi wasn’t ubiquitous. There was no wifi in Tuk Tuk n 2009, so I would bring my laptop to a net cafe and plug my laptop to a spare cable. I would download my emails and other webpages that I wanted to read for that day, then go back to my room to write. Now of course there is wifi everywhere.

There is an ATM here, so there is no need to get cashed up in Parapat.

There is a road that does a loop around the peninsula which is about 3.6 km. It’s just the right distance for an evening lap around the town.

The inland section of the loop passes through farmland.

The Lake Toba area is the land of the Batak people. The Batak are Christian, so you can freely drink in this part of North Sumatra.

The Batak houses with the distinct curved roof is a landmark feature of this region.

[Roof of Leokap Homestay.]

Tuk Tuk had a forlorn feeling about it when I visited in 2009. There were signs that it used to be more popular, with an overabundance of hotels and guest houses that didn’t match the current number of visitors.

I stayed in two different places on this trip. The first place was so run-down that I doubt they have spent any money on renovations in the last decade.

I then moved to the Ambaroba Hotel, which is now called RedDoorz @ Tuktuk Danau Toba, though it still has the old branding. This is an old hotel that hints that there were once prosperous times. The hotel is on the lake front, and there is an extension on the hillside on the other side of the road that is connected by a pedestrian overpass. This section is now closed.

The reception area has a big tour group/conference space, but I saw perhaps 5 people staying here while I was here. When I arrived I had to walk around to find someone to check me in.

At least the view from the front section of the hotel is still as fabulous as ever.

There have been some hotels that have upgraded in the time I was away. I stayed at the Samosir Cottages when I was last in Lake Toba, and I was paying $6 USD a night. I was looking out for the cottages on the ferry but I didn’t recognise the place, as it’s now Samosir Cottages Resort.

Marianna Resort is a new hotel under construction, which is the most modern building on the peninsula so far. Needless to say, there are no hotel chains of any kind here.

I was here for nine nights, and were fewer tourists here than my visit in 2009. There was an influx of Indonesian visitors on the weekend, including a group of over 100 people from Jakarta. They were all wearing branded t-shirts for a company, and one of the days they were doing a run around the town.

Another sign that there used to be more travellers are the old travel agents. On my first trip to Indonesia, I was travelling in the backpacker style of going overland for much of the trip. There were already signs on that trip that overland travel was on the way out. AirAsia was on the ascendancy at that point, making it easier and cheaper to travel in Southeast Asia. After some gruelling bus trips across Sumatra, by the time I got to Padang I succumbed to the allure of a cheap flight and made my way to Jakarta by air.

There are some old travel agencies in Tuk Tuk that used to offer all kinds of overland travel options. Most of the travel agents are now gone. I also noticed this in Jalan Jaksa (Jakarta’s backpacker street). There were still enough overlanders to keep the travel businesses running when I first visited, but now the travel agents are mostly gone.

[Tuk Tuk travel agent]

A new addition to Tuk Tuk was this charging station for electric cars.

I’ve been to Lake Como in Italy, and I spent six months in Switzerland, where I visited and swam in many of the beautiful lakes there. It’s not hyperbole on my behalf when I way that Lake Toba should be more famous. Getting here is the biggest problem, so it’s not helpful that the train project isn’t going anywhere and the government is not supporting the airport.

After nine nights on sleepy Tuk Tuk I got the ferry back to Parapat, and back to the chaos of urban Indonesia.

[Parapat port transport.]

I got a bus to Siantar to get the train back to Medan. There is only one train a day, so I spent a day in Siantar before going back to Medan