Introduction :
The Lake Toba is a volcanic lake situated in the northern part of Sumatra in Indonesia. It is the largest lake in the whole of Indonesia and the largest volcanic lake in the world measuring 100 km in length and 30 km in width with a depth of up to 500 metres. The area of the Lake is 1707 square km. The attractions in Lake Toba are the beautiful sceneries at the lake and the ancient Bakak settlements around the area.
The landscape and shape of Lake Toba
Image attribution to drriss @ Flickr
Permanent fishing nets at the lake
Image attribution to drriss @ Flickr
Ancient tomb beside the lake
Image attribution to azwegers @ Flickr
History :
Lake Toba is the region and remains of a super volcano eruption which happened some 70,000 years ago known as the largest eruption on Earth over the last 25 million years leading to a global climate change killing most humans existing at that time. The currenly settlers around Lake Toba are the Batak people and was believed to be from Austronesian people who first reached Sumatra from Taiwan and Philipines about 2500 years ago.
A scenic view of the lake
Image attribution to maxgrabert @ Flickr
Judegement place of the Batak people
Sibandang Island inside Lake Toba
Getting there :
The nearest internationl airport to Laka Toba is the Polonia International Airport located in Medan. This is followed by a 4-6 hour journey to the town of Parapat which is just beside Lake Toba. Another option is to fly from the Medan Polonia Airport to the domestic airport Silangit Airport which takes around 30 minutes and shrinks the road journey to around 2 hours to Parapat.