Lake Toba

View of Lake Toba from Tele

This post has got nothing to do with diving and I am not ready to start another blog for travel. It was a detour from Banda Aceh before I fly home from Medan. So I might as well go look at Lake Toba from Samosir Island.

After hours of waiting at Iboih beach for the driver who did not turn up, ended up riding on a motorbike to Balohan port, waited an hour to board the plane then looking for the driver whom Romlan's Marion arranged but did not turn up, then finding a car pool at the airport and waited another two hours, four hours of stressful journey with traffic jams, pollution (driver smoking endlessly with windows wind down) with backache and discomfort in the car, finally arrived Parapat. The ticket kiosk was right in front of the port's entrance where I paid IDR4000 for one ticket. It was about 2115 hrs with a temperature of about 23 degrees C. Due to the cooler temperature, I forgot how tired I was but felt kind of euphoria "rushing" in with the anticipation of waking up with the beautiful scenery of Lake Toba from my bed.

Lower deck of ferry

Upper deck of ferry

The ferry was huge ... meant to transport cars/motorbikes on the lower deck. Not sure where I should settle, I went up to sit on the upper deck. It is dirty with empty cup noodle cups everywhere, small and had limited number of seats. However, there were less than 20 people on the upper deck. For those who need to eat, there is a small self-service kiosk for instant noodles and snacks can be bought over the counter. Felt uncomfortable on the upper deck so went down and saw a few cars and motorbikes and the passengers standing around enjoying the cool breeze of Lake Toba. It was nice smoking in cool air! There are two reasonably decent toilets (Gents & Ladies) with a tub of clean water.

Romlan Guesthouse

Arrived Romlan Guest House at 2230 hrs ... finally! After a long day since 0630 hrs, I was tired, cold and hungry! I could not walk anymore to find food, even though there is a restaurant still open. There was no more food at Romlan's restaurant so I only had a cake and two cans of Bintang beer I missed at Pulau Weh. I did not know that the hot/cold taps were not working so well that I had to take cold shower.  I was freezing in icy waters! Anyway, it worked the next day after some time getting used to it.

The room is well furnished and clean. There is a wardrobe, bedside lamp, side table with two settees and queen sized bed with two pillows and comforter. Even though there were many ants at the entrance of the bathroom, it did not crawl up the bed or bothered me. From the terrace of my room, I have a good view of the beautiful lake. I woke up with the beauty right before my eyes ... how enchanting ... the largest volcanic lake in the world. 

I had most of my meals at the restaurant. Whatever the guests consumed were recorded in the individual books which will be calculated upon check out. The alfresco restaurant faces the lake but part of it were blocked by the batak room. Anyway, it was so relaxing to sit, eat and watch the calm waters and clear blue sky.

After a relaxing breakfast, I walked out the main road and got a driver to bring me around.

By the time it was about 1100 hrs temperature was rising. It was quite warm compared to the temperature in the evening. It took about 30 minutes to reach the ancient batak village where you can look the the traditional batak house and the tomb of the king. This is the place with stone table and chairs and head-chopping block can be found in the nearby village of Ambarita. Ambarita is located three miles northwest of Tuk-tuk along the main road.

The stone chairs were used for meetings by the local king, and both a torture stone and chopping block were once used for brutal executions.

There is also a souvenir shop where they sell handicrafts and such. I was also encouraged to donate a token for visiting the museum.

We walked through an alley of tacky souvenir stalls before arriving at the King's tomb. Upon entering, we had to put on a batak piece of cloth over our shoulders which have to be returned prior to leaving. Legend has it that King Sidabutar was the first settler of Samosir Island with the indigenous belief called Parmalim which is basically another form of animism. However, in the 19th century European missionaries successfully converted this society into Christianity, which occurred during the reign of the third king of Sidabutar family. The royal graveyard at Tomok is the evident to this.

Next we went up the hill to Tele for a panoramic view where we past by some plantations of rice, chilli, cocoa etc. We had a relaxing bottle of Bintang beer and took some pictures.

 

The sightseeing took only 3 hours including a quick lunch at Tomok on the way back. It was warm at mid-day and I sat and relaxed at Romlan's restaurant where I chatted up with David from Berlin. He's a funny guy with lots of stories to tell. The next day we took the ferry together to Parapat where he went to the ATM while I took the bagus taxi (shared car) to Medan.

So that was the end of my trip to Lake Toba which also marks the end of my 10 day holiday. It was indeed an experience visiting places of a different culture and traditions.

It was tiring but worth the journey.

Diving Pulau Weh ... second trip

I decided this return trip to satisfy my hunger for the beautiful reefs, abundance of marine life and adrenalin rush I missed so much. I love but hate the strong currents ... love it for the presence of pelagics but hate it for not being able to shoot good videos.

Singapore - Medan - Banda Aceh

This time round I went via the Medan route with a detour to Lake Toba on my return journey. Even though it cost more but everything went smoothly. No flight delays, missed flights, re-timing etc.. It was swift flying with Silkair (Singapore-Medan) and Garuda (Medan-Banda Aceh). I will do that again for my next trip.

Masjid Raya Baiturrahman - Banda Aceh

Highland view of Pulau Weh

Iboih Beach

Met a young English lady, Bryone on the ferry and we shared a car and paid IDR100,000 to Iboih beach. She was the one who actually bargained from IDR150,000! 

While we stopped to take some pictures, now I realized how beautiful this island is!

When I reached Erick's Green House, I went up to the terrace to say hello to Erick and the other guests. I was told all the guesthouses were full during that weekend due to the Chinese New Year holiday. The room with hot shower were occupied and I can only move in four days later. I was freezing in cold shower for the next few nights after diving !

Me vs Honeycomb Moray

Diving

My first day we dived Pantee Pernateung, Batu Tokong and Arus Palee but the visibility was bad (15m). I was quite disappointed. It was difficult to capture images and it was cold ... 26 degrees Celsius and no hot shower in the room ... sad. We anticipate the visibility will improve over the next few days ... luckily I have the whole week ahead! 

Indeed the visibility got much better in the next two days I could shoot some schooling fishes, though not so clear but it was good enough. I was glad I encounter many different kind of morays ... white-eyed, blue-eyed, white spotted, giant, honeycomb, different kinds of lionfish and scorpionfish, octopus, cuttlefish and nudibranch during this trip. Pulau Weh is indeed the capital for moray eels. During our night dive at Gapang House Reef, we found Robust Ghost pipe fish, ghost pipe fish and twin-spotted lionfish for the first time since I started diving. Of course, I felt great that this trip has been fruitful to me, at least.

This is the first time shooting with a strobe. I was struggling with the settings of my new camera switching between photos and videos, adjusting the strobe power, exchanging lens, putting on and removing red filters (i'm using two filters - one for the wide angle lens and the other for the main housing). At times, I had to hold on to one lens with one hand while shooting the next object. What a mess! Fortunately, some of my creation are still acceptable, at least for a serious amateur photographer/videographer. Looking my pictures, it is obvious that the strobe was not positioned aiming at the object, either way out or creating much shadows. I believe it will take some time to be able to get used to using a strobe, changing settings during the dive and shooting both pictures and videos. Not easy man!

Spiny Devil Scorpionfish

Honeycomb Moray

Robust Ghost Pipefish

Squat Shrimp

Waspfish

Ghost Pipefish

Twin-spotted Lionfish

Juvenile Emperor Angel fish

Mantis Shrimp

Schooling Glassfish

Getting to Pulau Weh, North Sumatra ... what a journey!

From Singapore to Kuala Lumpur 0n 14 November 2013

Took an evening Firefly flight to Kuala Lumpur to stay one night at Puchong Setiawalk before catching the morning flight to Banda Aceh though, with the long taxi queue at Subang airport and traffic jam, finally had my dinner just below the hotel at 8.30 pm.

I was surprised to be in such an interesting place at Setiawalk. A long stretch of bars and restaurants, Japanese, Korean, European and local food along a good stretch of pond in the middle. The environment seems pleasant and relaxed. The bars offer promotions at an incredible price for beer towers and mugs. There are one or two boutiques for ladies who like to shop. I settled at "Muzeum" to listen to live Mandarin songs, this kind of entertainment I have not come across in Singapore. So I had two pints of Kilkeny before bedtime.

Think I was confused with too many air tickets, made a stupid mistake by going to KLIA instead of LCCT. Fortunately, there was no morning traffic and not too late to check in on time. 

Banda Aceh on 15 November 2013

Me riding a Becak

\

Finally reach Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport at Banda Aceh at 1050 am (local time) , took a becak for IDR120000 to Uleu Ule and as expected, the 1400 hrs ferry was cancelled and the next ferry was 1600 hrs for a Friday. I walked around and found a driver/guide who brought me for a short tour instead of wasting time sitting at the pier. He offered the price of IDR100,000 which I think was reasonable for a private tour. We went to a couple of Tsunami memorial sites and took some pictures.

Cemetery of Tsunami victims

Pulau Weh

Entrance to Iboih Beach

I arrived Balohan port at about 1715 hrs and took a becak (IDR60,000) to Iboih beach. The long, cool and bumpy journey lasted 50 minutes.  From this experience, I would not advise ladies taking becak all the way to the beaches. When I arrived at Iboih village, I had to carry my 16 kg trolley bag + 7 kg photography equipment and regulator set all the way to Erick's bungalow just about 100 metres from the entrance of village. Fortunately, a staff from Rubiah Divers came by to help. Along the whole stretch are full of steps... your leg muscles really got hit after few days of climbing up and down.

Erick's Green House sea-front bungalow

I went up to the third floor at Erick's Green House, said hello to Erick, a friendly owner and stayed for two nights at a room without attached bathroom. There were too many movements of toilet goers just next to my room and noise that I could not have a good sleep, the terrace have frequent visitors and a meeting place for the friendly folks, I managed to move to a better room @ IDR200,000/night for the next two nights with hot water and balcony facing the sea.  It was a beautiful site though I did not have much time during this trip to seriously enjoy the ambience and tranquility.

Rubiah Tirta Divers

I changed into my swim gear, got my equipment ready for night dive and ran to the dive centre.  It was disappointing when Iskandar said they were short of dive torch for the guide and there were a group of eight divers already with booking. But so DID I!!! I did not want to take the risk of the guide without a torch even though I had one. So I missed one dive for the first day. I had left with three diving days with the hope of doing at least four dives a day. I ended up with only nine dives doing three dives a day because after the third dive Moon (my guide) and myself were cold and tired. Those wicked currents around full moon really got on us! So I decided to chill out with the guys at Erick's instead. I had a great time.

Had a good shower after a full day of travelling and started to search for a nice restaurant to chill out.  I found Olala as it was recommended by some folks on the forum that the food is marvellous but I was not impressed at all instead the prices surprised me.  It cost IDR 35,000 (SGD3.70) for a plate of white rice with fried fish and stir-fried vegetables and IDR25,000 (SGD2.70) for a can of Bintang beer. As the lady boss Eka was away, her brother Bob did the cooking ... that was why it fell below standard.  For the next few nights, I bought fried rice and french fries from Home High, the restaurant next to Erick's and it tasted home cooked and much cheaper.

Diving

So I started my first diving day on my first morning. Arrived at the dive centre at 0800 hrs to set up my equipment and waited until about 0900 hrs before we set off to the dive site:

Dive Sites:  Diving was spectacular and I was not at all disappointed.  The visibility was better than I expected. The variety of marine life was rich and rare as it lies between the channel of the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean, you will find rare critters to pelagics and feel the adrenaline rush diving in wicked currents. I could say it is quite dangerous for an inexperienced diver if he does not know how to handle unpredictable situations in such dive sites with strong currents. It could be upper current which will send you up all the way to the surface or bring you deeper and deeper into the blue and leave you in an out-of-air situation. You could be drifted away from your buddy and left all alone.  So ... be very calm, do not panic and always check your depth and deco time.

I had to test my new underwater housing without the camera for fear of leaks as it have not done any pressure check before. On the first dive at Pantee Peunateung, I saw schooling barracudas, schooling Jacks, schooling blue-fin trevallies, black tip reef sharks, honeycomb morays etc... all the wonderful pictures of these creatures and good wide-angle pictures were missed! Sadly enough, I did not see the honeycomb moray or big school of barracudas again. 

We start most dives with negative descent and were deep, almost 28 to 30 m in strong and unpredictable currents and you got to watch your dive computer all the time as you drift with the currents which may unconsciously bring you all the way to 65 m. I almost drifted far away during my fourth dive at Batu Tokong. My dive computer was reading 36.5 m. I remain calm as I was all alone in the sea of planktons and thermocline. I inflated and moved upwards to 27 m, banged my tank repeatedly and finally saw my buddy. I was relieved!

The worst currents were on full moon when I dived Batu Tokong for the third time. Moon and myself had to grab and crawl on the corals in order to move up the wall. It was only the beginning of the dive and holding the corals until our air was left 100 psi. While fighting against the currents, schools of fishes swam by. It was a good experience though.

I loved the muck diving at Gapang House Reef as I found my favourite twin leaf scorpionfish, ribbon eel, hermit crab, yellow boxfish, big mantis shrimp and some other common critters. The dive sites were full of orange red anthias, lionfish, angel fish and butterfly fish. Sadly, I could not spot any nudibranch or devil rays. I was regretfully too busy fiddling with my new camera and white balance settings. The underwater volcano experience is unforgettable though, feeling the hot bubbles from the sand with your hands and legs was fun and interesting, it was like having a hot jacuzzi underwater!.

Another interesting part is that you can find many giants diving Pulau Weh, giant porcupine fish, giant morays, giant pufferfish, giant octopus, giant black sweetlips, giant trevallies (Jacks) and many variety of schooling fusiliers. Since it was my first attempt with a new camera, I did missed out a lot sadly. However, I will have to plan to be back again with a strobe at least. The next trip here I will be more ready to take good pictures. Of course, please do not forget my gloves again ... definitely will have to grab the corals. 

I did a total of 9 dives, honestly not enough to satisfy my hunger but they were all awesome dives ... no regret though. The least dives I have done in a single trip yet one of my best trip so far. 

On the day of departure, I got up at 5 a.m. to pack everything and set off to the village at 6.15 a.m. After waiting for the rest of the guests, we left the village almost 7 a.m. and arrived the port at 7.40 a.m. just on time to board to ferry.  The ferry left on time and arrived Uleu Ule at 8.45 a.m. As I got off, I saw Heri, the same driver who will bring me on his becak again for another tour around Banda Aceh Tsunami sites.  Went to the Tsunami museum where I could see and understand the lifetime tragedy of the Acehnese. You could feel the enormous grief and emotional turmoil suffered for the loss of lives, homes and shelter. The short video at the auditorium will leave all walking out in tears.

Heri brought me to Lhonga beach with a beautiful panorama and relaxed near the beach resort. Went to another nearby resort and had a beer and a short nap before proceeding to another site. It was a small and quiet place good for small groups or solo travellers for a night's stay before catching the morning flight or ferry. I did not notice the name of this resort, but if you need help, please send an email to Heri Faudi heribulek@gmail.com.

He will be delighted to pick you to and from the airport with a short tour in between. He speaks good English and is an honest man. On my next trip, he will definitely be the one I will call on.

Well, it has been a long but fruitful journey, as it took me one and a half day to get to/fro Pulau Weh and touring the Tsunami hit areas on my birthday, I can conclude that this trip is really worth it and a good birthday present for myself. This is probably not a place many people will want to go to due to its frequent earthquakes and volcano eruption. But Pulau Weh is well protected due to its higher ground. If you are in for adventure, understanding the misfortune of the world and reality of life, this place should be in your bucket list. On my next trip I hope to stay at least 7 to 14 days to explore the island. If I am allowed a long break,  taking the Divemaster course will be most ideal on this island.

Underwater Volcano

Porcupine Fish

Juvenile Catfish

Twin Leaf Scorpionfish

Moon & Me

Scorpionfish