Travel in Sumatra - Indonesia - Asia - Culture

Sumatra - Culture

Events
IMAGE:Batak dance A regional Calendar of Events listing national holidays, festivals particular to the region and other events throughout the year is available from tourist offices in Sumatra. The most important time for Muslims, of course, is Ramadan (Buluan Puasa), the traditional Muslim month of daily fasting, which falls around January to February. Idul Adha is another important Muslim holiday, commemorating Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, and it is celebrated around April to May.

Independence Day is celebrated on 17 August with a national public holiday, parades and special events. Further Muslim holidays are Muharram, the Islamic New Year in April-May; Hari Natal, the Prophet Muhammed's birthday in July; and Isra Miraj Nabi Muhammed, the ascencion of the prophet Mumammed in December.

Medan
Medan (pop 1.5 million) is the capital of north Sumatra and the third largest city in Indonesia. It is a huge, sprawling city and a popular entry/exit point for travellers. The solid Dutch buildings of the affluent older suburbs inspire images of bloated bureaucrats and burghers from the colonial era, while jerry-built lean-tos house the bulk of its population.

IMAGE:Traditional House The city's two finest buildings are the Istana Maimoon (Maimoun Palace) and the magnificent black-domed Mesjid Raya. There are some fine examples of European architecture along Jalan Sukarno-Hatta, such as Bank Indonesia and the High Court. There are a number of museums, including the Museum of North Sumatra, which has excellent coverage of the region's culture and history, and the weaponry-and-warfare-influenced Bukit Barisan Military Museum. You can see cultural performances at Taman Budaya.

Much of the budget accommodation is close to the city centre. Jalan Semarang, a small street between Jalan Pandu and Jalan Bandung, has great food stalls offering Indonesian and Chinese meals late into the night.

Berastagi
This picturesque hill town in the Karo Highlands, 70km from Medan, is dominated by two volcanoes: Gunung Sinabung and Gunung Sibayak. At 1300m above sea level, the climate is pleasantly cool and the atmosphere refreshingly relaxed. Travellers come to Berastagi to experience the culture of the Karo Batak people and to go trekking. There are guided treks into the Gunung Leuser National Park and to surrounding volcanoes and attractions.

Lake Toba
IMAGE:Lake Toba Lake Toba is another of the island's spectacular sights - a remarkable volcanic crater set in the middle of northern Sumatra, 176km from Medan. The lake is huge (the largest in South-East Asia), occupying the caldera of a giant volcano that collapsed on itself after a massive eruption 100,000 years ago. In comparison, Krakatau's 1883 effort was little more than a belch. The lake is surrounded by steep mountains, ridges and sandy, pine-sheltered beaches.

Samosir, the wedge-shaped island in the middle of the lake, is thought to have been created by subsequent upheavals between 30,000 and 75,000 years ago. Samosir has long been northern Sumatra's premier attraction for travellers and has an abundant supply of accommodation and eateries ringing the shoreline. The main town in the area is Parapat, on the eastern shore of Lake Toba.

Aceh
Few travellers make it to Sumatra's northernmost province. A pity, because it's a relaxed and friendly place with a rich history. Aceh's population is a melding of Indonesian, Arab, Tamil, Chinese and indigenous groups and, curiously, some of the tallest people in Indonesia live here. The state is the most staunchly Muslim in the country and is run under Islamic law. However, the Achenese also embrace animism, and offerings and rituals continue to play an important part in their lives.

Aceh's attractions range from the laid-back lifestyle of the island Pulau We, the deserted beaches of the rugged west coast and the jungle wilderness of Gunung Leuser National Park. The national park, which is one of the largest in the world, includes the Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre, an area containing orang-utans, gibbons, monkeys, elephants, tigers and the elusive Sumatran rhinoceros.

The Battlin' Bataks
The Bataks, that infamous tribe of former cannibals and headhunters, inhabit an interior plateau of north-central Sumatra, surrounded by mountain peaks and centred on Lake Toba.

For centuries the Batak lived a way of life which developed largely in isolation. Their bloody feuds and guerrilla attacks on each other's villages gained them an apparently well-earned reputation for ferocity, although they also had a remarkably developed culture as well as a system of writing. They also practised ritual cannibalism in which a token piece of flesh - of a slain enemy or of one judged guilty of a major violation of traditional laws - was eaten. The heads and hands of war captives were sometimes preserved as trophies.

Bataks are also renowned for their traditional architecture - houses built on stilts around two metres above the ground. The houses are made of wood, slotted and bound together without nails, with a concave roof made from sugar palm fibre. The gables of the roof are embellished with mosaics and carvings. Today there are more than six million Bataks, and their lands extend 200km north and 300km south of Danau Toba. Many Bataks have now converted to Islam or Christianity.

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