Cempaka Culture and Tourism: Lake Toba: Samosir, world's largest island within an island

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Lake Toba: Samosir, world's largest island within an island

Andrew Greene, Contributor The Jakarta Post, Samosir, North Sumatra

Looking out over Lake Toba, it is evident that is a basin of superlatives.

With a surface area of 1,130 square kilometers and possessing a maximum depth of 529 meters, it is the world's largest and deepest crater lake.

Resting in the planet's largest caldera (collapsed volcano formation) on the world's fifth-largest island, the flat waters of Lake Toba belie the violence that gave it birth.

The Toba caldera is believed to have been created in stages by super eruptions taking place about 840,000, 700,000, and finally 74,000 years ago. The last, probably two weeks in length, is thought to be the world's largest in the last two million years.

The ash and gases it shot into the atmosphere triggered a six-year volcanic winter which, according to some geneticists, killed all but 10,000 humans worldwide.

The ash from the blast blanketed the entire Indian subcontinent with an approximately 15-centimeter-thick coating. The global climate did not to recover for a millennium. Fortunately for today's traveler much has changed in the last 74,000 years.

Now, embraced by a chain of mist-swaddled peaks, the lake is North Sumatra's leading tourist destination.

Stretching from northwest to southeast, its landscape sprinkled with Protestant Christian church steeples and ribbons of cascading waterfalls, Toba's setting is among the most spectacular in the archipelago.

Attached by an isthmus to the middle of the lake's west coast towers a testament to the lake's great size, Samosir Island. The peninsula-island's emerald walls climb a nearly vertical 700 meters straight out of the lake's surface, dominating the scene.

Nearly the size of Singapore, Samosir is the world's largest island within an island and serves as the area's main tourist hub.

Specifically, Tuk Tuk, a tiny circular peninsula hanging onto Samosir's east coast, is the foothold for most of Toba's visitors.

With restaurants pushing magic mushroom omelets, bookshops, bars, tourist shops and hotels strung along its circumference, Tuk Tuk is the ideal base for those wanting to explore Samosir or simply to relax.

The frequent ferries from Parapat on the lake's east coast stop at nearly all of Tuk Tuk's hotels. All a traveler needs to do is tell the ferry workers where one would like to stop and the ferry, colored like a Philippine truck, will pull up to that hotel's private dock.

Center of Batak culture

The rest of Samosir is well-worth investigating. The island is the heart of the Batak culture.

Originally Neolithic mountain peoples from northern Thailand and Burma, the Bataks were displaced by traveling Mongolian and Siamese populations.

Once they had found their way to Lake Toba the Batak lived, cocooned by the neighboring mountains, largely unaffected for centuries by the outside world.

Today, with a population of six million they are one of Indonesia's largest Christian communities. Lutheran German and Dutch Calvinists missionaries introduced the Batak to the faith in the 19th Century.

Though the majority of Bataks are practicing Christians, the area is replete with reminders of their animistic past. The ubiquitous traditional rough-hewn wooden-planked Batak houses, with their upswept roofs, have three levels.

Each represents a different plane of their world. The high roof corresponds to the home of the gods; the middle elevated level, where the family lives, represents the space that humans occupy; the final bottom space beneath the house is for the dogs, pigs and chickens and is the lair of a mythological dragon.

These houses are ornately decorated with large, carved animal heads at the ends of the side beams. These heads are protectors and, as is believed by some Bataks, are able to radiate positive energy, shielding the residents from disease and evil.

More common than the traditional houses are the family tombs. In fact, they are so widespread that it may be impossible to find a vista from which one cannot see at least one.

The tombs range from the simple to the elaborate. Some are whitewashed concrete boxes with the rounded tombstones that are ordinary in the west. Others are many meters in height, tiled and topped with large crosses and life-sized statues representing the departed.

These tombs are everywhere: in the rice fields, buffalo pastures, next to houses, beside the road. A day or longer could easily be spent just examining and photographing these extraordinary tombs in their picturesque surroundings.

There is no public transportation on the Tuk Tuk peninsula so to travel inland one needs to walk or rent a car, motorcycle or bicycle.

Traveling by foot is a pleasant way to experience the countryside and meet the outgoing people. Even with stopping to take photos and shake hands it should take no more than an hour from anywhere on Tuk Tuk to reach Samosir's main road.