This is my second trip to Medan-Lake Toba-Berastagi area. The first time I went there was in 1995 with my university friends. Normally when I went to visit the same city, I can appreciate their development over the years but somehow when I went to Lake Toba I personally think that the area was better looking back in 1995. The water was cleaner and greener. The area also felt more magical. Now, it just felt tired. It is no longer thriving with visitors.
President Joko Widodo recently announced that they have plans to revive the area. His first order was to dismantle all the fish cages that pollutes the lake. I hope he will succeed. It is such a waste not to optimise the tourism potential of the largest volcanic lake in the world.
This trip marked my flying with Air Asia after boycotting the airline for so long. The last time I flew Air Asia was in 2008. This was also my first trip flying via our new airport KLIA2. I was quite impressed with KLIA2, I did not expect that our new airport is so huge with many restaurants and retail outlets. The Air Asia flight was however delayed. Why am I not surprised?
For this trip I went with a group of friends, so it was great fun to reunite with old friends and make new friends even though everything else was lousy. We bought our own plane tickets and the hire a local tour for the ground arrangement. Our tour operator over promised but under delivered. The reason why I decided to join the trip was due to the visit to Batu Kapur Hot Spring, unfortunately that and a few others in the itinerary were conveniently forgotten due to lack of planning and time constraint.
The transport provided from Kualanamu Airport to Lake Toba was horrendous. They squeezed all twelve of us (with our bags!!) into a van for a five hours drive in a hot weather. The aircon was not strong enough for the weather. During the trip my friend's Delsey luggage was damaged due terrible stacking of the bags during the long journey.
Out of the three hotels, two was fortunately okay. One was very dated. Since this is a full board ground arrangement, the food provided was quite tasty but the portions were very stingy. Our last dinner, the restaurant's cleanliness was questionable. I was strucked with diarrhea for the first time during overseas travel. Luckily it was mild so by the time I reached home I was almost recovered. My stomach is usually very tough after going through a few boarding school and colleges :P I suspect it was the spicy sambal or the soursop drink that caused my downfall. Serve me right for eating uncooked dish and drink iced drinks at dodgy places!
For this trip the total damage was RM820. Air Asia flights (RM245), Man Togie ground arrangement (RM375) and shopping (RM200). Lessons learnt from this trip are cheap trips not necessarily value for money and I truly don't like to go on a shopping trip. So tiring.
Our itinerary:
28 May 2015 Kuala Lumpur - Kuala Namu - Lake Toba
29 May 2015 Lake Toba - Berastagi
30 May 2015 Berastagi - Medan
31 May 2015 Medan - Kuala Namu - Kuala Lumpur
I've uploaded 92 photos for your viewing pleasure. You can access them at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.
Njoy !!
