Toba Earth Discovery

       When I received the assignment from Ravelino Tours Travel to take care of six Belgian guests during their journey in North Sumatra, I knew this would not be an ordinary tour. They were three married couples who had been close friends for many years. They decided to travel together in Indonesia, and I was assigned to be their Sumatra Tour Guide during their six-day journey through North Sumatra. From the beginning, I tried not to make our journey only about visiting places and taking pictures. I wanted to create conversations with them. I wanted them to feel that travelling with a local guide was also an opportunity to understand how people live in Sumatra. The six of them had different professional backgrounds. Among the husbands, one worked as a banker , another was an entrepreneur , and another was a police officer . The banker was interested in many things, especially when we talked about the economy and the palm oil industry in Sumatra. The entrepreneur ...

    When I first received the information about my guests, Martin, Anke and Lilian, I thought they were Singaporean, because their flight from Singapore. I did not know much about them because I was only assigned as their tour guide for their journey in Sumatra. I received the job from a travel agent in Sumatra, and my responsibility was to take care of their trip during their time here. Their journey was a five-day, four-night trip covering Medan, Bukit Lawang, Berastagi and Samosir Island. The program included jungle trekking in Bukit Lawang, visiting Batak villages, enjoying the scenery around Lake Toba and exploring several places in Samosir. When I finally met them, I noticed that their faces looked a little mixed. I became curious and intentionally asked whether they had Indonesian ancestry. My guess was right. They told me that they have German-Indonesian heritage. I still did not know exactly where their family originally came from. For me, it was not really important ...