This is a short clip that I took when I was at Lake Toba a few months ago. During the visit, I stayed in Carolina Cottage, a clean and affordable lodge in Tuk Tuk. This cottage features beautiful view, overseeing the lake and surrounding hills. It has around 20-something number of rooms, shore or lake front. I took a lake front room which has double beds and a modest bathroom without heater. It's situated at the utmost right of the cottage.

There's a restaurant in the center of the cottage serving Western and Indonesian food. And they have this kind of unique payment that you just order the food during your stay and they'll only bill when you are checking-out, which is convenient for longer staying travellers. Just recently I heard they begin accepting credit cards.

To the left of the restaurant, there are some other rooms near the shore with a few long chairs and a jumping board and a hut by the side of the lake. A few trees surround the hut and a small fish pond just right beside, making it shady. A totem pole stands in front of the pond. I am not sure what it is but it must mean something for the Batak.

The clip was taken in the corner of the shore. It was a windy afternoon and the sun can hardly be seen. A boat has just made crossing from the opposite island to fetch and aboard travelers before heading back again.

I stayed two nights in this cottage. The first day, as I arrived late in the afternoon I immersed myself around the lake until dark. Early morning the next day, I rented a motorbike and toured around the coastline of Samosir which is some fifty kilometers long. I made a few stops along the way, first to the Museum of Batak. It was almost noon when I reached the museum and I was the only visitor. Inside the museum you can see ancient tools, weapons and boat used by the Batak. Nearby, there are granaries, tombs and a dancing ground which has a two meters high totem pole in the center.

I proceeded to Pangururan after museum and it took almost half of the journey before I got there. A few hot springs can be seen up until I travelled out of Samosir Island, not far from Pangururan. I was travelling alone in this trip so I didn't visit any hot spring as most of them were empty. I took a last view of the surrounding before I headed back to the cottage.

You can see more of my Lake Toba pictures on Flickr.

I spent 2 weeks in China a few months ago and had a chance to visit Hangzhou, a renowned city famous for its beautiful natural scenery. One of the popular places is West Lake (西湖), a name that I've heard many times both in historical dramas and music performances.

Being part of a tour group and a conversational mandarin speaker myself although not a very good one, I was able to understand most of what the tour guide was saying. Along the journey, he spoke a number of proverbs and one that stick to my head is the following:

生在苏州, 活在杭州, 吃在广州, 死在柳州

Which roughly translates to "Be born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in Guangzhou and die in Liuzhou". The meaning behind the proverb is that for the most of ancient times, Suzhou has been renowned for its educated scholars, Guangzhou for its food delicacies, Liuzhou for its wooden coffins used for the resting of the dead. And Hangzhou had been a prosper and livable city with scenic landscapes.

The galery above contains some pictures that I took around the lake. I especially like the first one where the willow leaves hang from above against the background of hills and calm water. It feels peaceful.