After suffocatoing Brent with the deathgrip for the first hour to seeminly save my life, I realized the whole motorbike they is really not all that bad. We got an extremely late start, but was so well worth the money and time spent as was the perfect way to see the real deal! I'm going to include an excerpt here from my best friend's travlelogue who explains the whole thing so much better than I have time for right now in my sweaty bits of time in the computer room:
"After a breakfast of fruit (fresh cut pineapple, mango, & oranges), we explore the large island on which we are located (Samosir) via rented moped. They are called ‘motorbikes’ here, but I am reminded of a childhood bicycle with a banana seat and a lawnmower engine rather than my 750 cc behemoth back home. For two tourists, it suffices. I have seen families of up to 6 people (2 adults and 4 children) crowded onto a single moped throughout SE Asia, and laugh at the thought of western families struggling to get 3 kids into a minivan.
We follow the shoreline road that encircles Samosir island (same size as Singapore) in the middle of Lake Toba. It is a breath-taking road, but not because of my driving. There are multi-tiered rice paddies, each patch a different shade of green, and makeshift scarecrows with tattered work shirts and Chinese straw hats, scattered throughout the fields. We stop to photograph a lakeside scene of floating huts, cows with bells, a woman washing clothes in the lake, and a young child playing in the water. The landscape changes intermittently between rice paddies, forests, grassy hills, and rows of Batak houses with the apex of their roof culminating in a point that curves upward at each end. Children and even many adults, smile and wave to us, seemingly amused by the Asian man with his white woman. Or is it a white woman with her Asian man? Even though Faren wears a helmet, they know she’s not a local. But they’re not so sure about me.
The pothole-laden road winds along the lake for an hour, then turns upwards towards the hot springs, where Faren gets serenaded by 4 teenage boys singing and playing guitar. We decide against soaking in the springs as it is getting windy and cool and with no towels, we also have no bathing suits. We’re elevated high above the lake with a great vista of the surrounding landscape and the hot springs below. The boys are laughing and singing the whole time, at that last age where innocence becomes muddled in the transition to adulthood. We eventually bid adieu to our new friends and start making our way back. The sun is starting to set and with it, bugs take flight around the lake. I have no helmet & visor, so I pull my Buff headwear up to cover my mouth and nose and the flip the back up to cover my forehead, using my sunglasses to protect me from bug splatter in my eyes. Anywhere else in Islamic-dominated Sumatra, having my head completely covered would not be overly surprising. But Lake Toba is the only Christian pocket in Sumatra, and it confuses people to see what appears to be a Muslim (or a terrorist) riding a moped wearing shorts with a woman on the back with long blonde hair flapping in the wind from under a helmet. Children turn and stop halfway through a hand wave, their smile turning into a look of deep confusion."
