The Siberut experience
The first thing I saw was green. Green grass, green leaves, green trees, there was earth everywhere. Between short scraggly grasses and luxuriant ferns, palm trees rose from the ground, uniformly arched; their leaves languidly reaching to the sky in perfect circles. Enhanced by the pale steamy sky, the smell of rain and grass emanated [...]
The North Sumatra Triangle
The North Sumatra Triangle — a paradise for budget tourists. “Unity in Diversity” is the national motto of Indonesia. There are over 300 tribal-ethnic groups living on 6,000 islands. The remaining 11,000 islands are uninhabited. The larger islands are Java, Sumatra, Irian Jaya and Kalimantan. Kalimantan comprises two-thirds of the island of Borneo, the other [...]
The Orangutan
The name Orangutan can be translated to “man from the forest”. In the Malay language (the official language of Malaysia and Indonesia) “orang” means man and “hutan” means forest. Today the orangutans are only found on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, but once they probably inhabited all of South-East Asia. Their natural habitat is [...]
Trekking in Gunung Leuser National Park
The Gunung Leuser national park is covering an area of about 9.000 sq km, and Bukit Lawang is today the main point of access to this impressive habitat, which wildlife includes tigers, rhinos, tapirs, elephants, gibbons, reptiles and of course the orangutan. There are more than 380 species of birds and a huge number of [...]
Going ape in Bukit Lawang
Bukit Lawang is a pleasant getaway from the polluted streets of Medan. The village sits on the eastern outskirts of Gunung Leuser National Park, a huge sanctuary for the flora and fauna of the region, but BL is maybe most famous for the Bohorok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. These attractions has made Bukit Lawang one of [...]
Lake Toba
Lake Toba (or Danau Toba in Indonesian) is a lake and former supervolcano, 100 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide, and 505 metres at its deepest point. Toba is located in the middle of the northern part of Sumatra with a surface elevation of about 900 metres. It is the largest volcanic lake in the [...]
Aceh
Aceh is the northernmost province on Sumatra and in Indonesia, the provincial capital is Banda Aceh with a population of approx. 150.000. The province is rich on resources, mainly oil and natural gas. The most important agricultural products are rice, coconuts, rubber, tea and coffee. Aceh has because of it’s location always been one the [...]
Padang
Padang on Sumatra’s west coast is the island’s third largest city with a population of about 700.000. It is the provincial capital of West Sumatra and most of the products from this region is exported through Padang. The major export articles are coal, rubber, coffee, spice, tobacco, rattan and tea. Padang is situated at the [...]
The high hills of Bukittinggi
Bukittinggi, north of Padang in the Minangkabau highlands, sits at an altitude of approx. 920 m. The name Bukittinggi means high hill or top. This is a charming city with a cooler climate than Padang, and is one of the most important cities of the Minang people, greatly influenced by their traditional culture. The name [...]
Minangkabau identity
The Minangkabau–who predominate along the coasts of Sumatera Utara and Sumatera Barat, interior Riau, and northern Bengkulu provinces–in the early 1990s numbered more than 3.5 million. Like the Batak, they have large corporate descent groups, but unlike the Batak, the Minangkabau traditionally reckon descent matrilineally. In this system, a child is regarded as descended from [...]
Acehnese identity
Situated in the Special Region of Aceh the northernmost provincial-level unit of Sumatra, the more than 3.4 million Acehnese are most famous throughout the archipelago for their devotion to Islam and their militant resistance to colonial and republican rule. Renowned throughout the nineteenth century for their pepper plantations, most Acehnese were rice growers in the [...]
Sumatra facts
Sumatra is the fifth largest island in the world and the third largest in Indonesia. Population is about 40 million. The island is divided in the Aceh, Riau, Jambi, Bengkulu and Lampung provinces, and North, South and West Sumatra. It borders the Indian Ocean to the west and Malaysia to the east, separated from the [...]
Batak identity
The term Batak designates any one of several groups inhabiting the interior of Sumatera Utara Province south of Aceh: Angkola, Karo, Mandailing, Pakpak, Simelungen, Toba, and others. The Batak number around 3 million. Culturally, they lack the complex etiquette and social hierarchy of the Hinduized peoples of Indonesia.
