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Tabo CottagesCulture, Art and Scenery |
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Explore the beauty of Samosir Island and see traditional villages and farming life by walking, motorbike or bicycle or take a guided trip around the island. Local handicrafts can be admired on the Batak houses in our resort or in numerous art galleries and souvenirshops around the Tuk Tuk peninsula.
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The Surroundings / The Climate
Lake Toba is the largest in Southeast Asia and one of the deepest and highest in the world with a depth of 1,400 feet / 425 m. The lake is about 100 km long and 10 km across. Lake-Toba is 175 miles from Medan and can be reached in 4 hours by bus. Formed by a stupendous prehistoric volcanic explosion, the lake is enormously impressive. The drama of that cataclysmic birth persist in 500 meter cliffs dropping into the blue-green waters. Surrounded by steep, pine covered sloped, the climate is fresh and pleasant, with just enough rain to support the lush vegetation.
The cool and dry climate makes Lake-Toba an ideal place to be compared to the tropical heat and humidity down in the costal plains. They have, though, a rainy season which lasts from october to march. In this period, you will have rainfalls almost every day coming up during the afternoon or early evening, the rest of the day is, hovever, dry and warm.
The island of Samosir is right in the middle of Lake-Toba, covering an area of 200 square km. This island is the home of the Toba Bataks. It can be reached in half an hour by boat from Parapat. The villages of Tomok, Tuk-tuk, Ambarita are recommended for traditional Batak houses.
It is a tourist paradise, with excellent resorts, beautiful waterfalls, and other tourist attractions.
The traditional villages of the Tobanese are also of great interest in this island.
The People
The Batak people live in the north of Sumatra, in the hilly region of lake Toba. At the beginning of this century the last Batak were placed under the authority of the Netherlands. Most of them were christianized. The Batak form the largest protestant community of Asia. Nevertheless a lot of old traditions were preserved. More than 4 million people are Batak; it is one of Indonesia’s largest population groups. Actually Batak is a general name for 5 groups with different cultural and linguistic characteristics, namely : Batak Toba, Batak Karo, Batak Simalungun, Batak Mandailing and Batak Dairi.
They all believe in a descent of a common ancestor. Moreover, all Batak have in common that they live on the growing of rice and have the same wedding system. The Batak are organized in ‘margas’, large family groups. The members of one marga can only marry a person of another marga. Upon her marriage the wife passes over into the husband’s marga.
Batak parties are very colourful and well worth seing
The Batak Toba group has gained some infamy because of their practice of cannibalism in former time, it is said that they ate missionaries.
Well informed people confirm, though, that they stopped doing so a few years ago.
Batak music is well known beyond the borders of Indonesia for its happy and romantic tunes. Almost everybody plays the guitar and there are music and dance performances a few times a week.
The Language
Bahasa Indonesia is a language used by over 200 million residents of Indonesia and millions more world-wide. Bahasa Indonesia or Indonesian Language is both an old and new language. It is based on Malay, which has been the lingua franca throughout much of Southeast Asia for centuries. As a symbol of national pride and unity, Bahasa Indonesia spread rapidly, incorporating many new words so that today, although similar, it is quite distinct from Malay.
There are, however, over 300 distinct languages or regional dialects which partly are very distinct from Bahasa Indonesia. Older people may speak some Dutch and the foreign language of choice for business, tourism and study is English.
While it is possible to live in Jakarta without speaking Bahasa Indonesia, it is highly recommended that you obtain a working knowledge of the language. An inability to communicate in Bahasa Indonesia will cut you off from the mainstream of society, and dealing with those who don’t speak a foreign language will be very difficult. You deny yourself as well the rich cultural experience of fully communicating with those from another culture.
A basic guide to Bahasa Indonesia
Although formal Bahasa Indonesia is a complex language, the construction of basic Indonesian sentences is relatively simple. With its phonetic spelling and uncomplicated grammar, Bahasa Indonesia is relatively easy to learn. Indonesian is written in the Roman alphabet. There are no articles in Indonesian. To make the plural, you simply double the noun: bahasa-bahasa means languages.
Bahasa Indonesia is also lack of complicated verbal tenses. To denote time, a few key adverbs are used. Sudah (already) denoting the past, belum (not yet) indicating what is about to or never to happen, akan (will)denoting the future.
Another basic rule in Bahasa Indonesia: adjectives always follow the noun. Indonesia indah means beautiful Indonesia, pasir putih means white sand(s).
The possessive is made by putting the personal pronoun after the noun. bahasa saya means my language, negara saya means my country.
Saya (sedang) belajar Bahasa Indonesia – I (am) learn(ing) Indonesian language.
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More information is available from the following sites:
A detailed and concise overvierw of the history of Sumatra and Indonesia:
http://www.gimonca.com/sejarah/sejarah.html
About Samosir Island:
http://samosir.go.id/eng/deafult.asp?jdl=Preface
About the language:
http://www.expat.or.id/info/bahasa.html
