Unexpected Trip

Yesterday, I joined my sister and her secretary friends in their one holiday trip because it was a ‘red date’. We call the holiday here in Indonesia with ‘red date’ because it was signed by red tint on calendar. And the holiday was for anniversary of Prophet Muhammad’s Maulid (Our Prophet’s birth). By renting car from one of the teachers in their school, we had our trip that day. As the first plan, we would just visit Animal Park in Siantar and maybe just went around in the city.
 To reach the zoo, it need more or less two hours whereas we chose to use the ‘back road’, it meant we didn’t use the usual road that usually be passed by other vehicles but we chose the road in a plantation. So we saw plantation of palm, rubber and cocoa in almost all the way. We went at 8 and arrived there at almost 11 maybe. My mom cooked chicken stew and beans and carrots sauteed with chicken giblets.

It was quite cheap for the zoo ticket, just Rp 10.000 for each and there were 9 people in our group. This animal park was owned by Rahmat Foundation. For your information, Rahmat Shah is the Chairman of The Red Cross of North Sumatra Province, Senator of Regional Representatives Council Republic of Indonesia, Honorary Consulate General of Republic of Turkey for Sumatra, Chairman of Indonesian Zoological Parks Association and other occupational LOL

Siantar or Pematangsiantar itself is an independent city in North Sumatra, Indonesia, surrounded by, but not part of, the Simalungun Regency. Pematangsiantar formerly had the status of a second level district and it is the second largest city in the province after the provincial capital Medan (Wikipedia). While Simalungun tribe is one of the original tribes of North Sumatra province, Indonesia, who settled in Simalungun District and surrounding areas. Some sources claimed that the ancestors of this tribe from the South Indian region. Throughout the history of this tribe is divided into several kingdoms. Original clan is Damanik Simalungun population, and newcomers are 3 clans, Saragih, Sinaga, and Ancient. Then the clan surname (family name) is a large clan in 4 Simalungun. So, you can see that there is 'Damanik' in my last name. It means I am from Simalungun tribe.

Because it was almost entered the lunch hour, my sister asked us to had it first before explore the zoo. The first reason, it would be enjoyable for us if we did it with full tummy and the second was we need not to take the heavy food box in our zoo exploring. So we had lunch first in the some benches in the park and then continue our looking around.

Please don't laugh at my shameless confession.. It was the first time for me to see black swans LOL.

Every time I visited zoo or saw a circus, there always a pity feeling for the animals. The animals in the cage seemed like show us a sign of ‘set me free, please’. We could see they were not happy. Who will? Wild animals’ instinct was hunting in the jungle, monkeys’ instinct was hanging and swinging from one tree to another one and live in group with their community but they should be shut in the small cages for their body size with only one or two to accompany them with the rationed foods. My sister’s friend said that even there was a tiger which seemed like crying. So sad!

 

Okay. Whatever it was, we just continued our exploring and took many photos. From what I saw, peacocks are the favourite for the birds species.

What a beautiful bird!

And we found something funny at first sight. There was an animal named Sincan. We laughed because the name was same with Nohara Shinosuke (Shincan), after we read more, apparently Sincan/Liger was for ‘singa macan’ or ‘lion tiger’. This is one example of genetic aberrations of lion mating tigers that should not be done by the animals breeder for violating ethics. But I don’t know from where this park got this liger.

I don’t know the liger was lazy or what. I had made some noise to attract its attention so it would face my camera but the result was nothing. It just gave me a ‘mweekk’ (mocking with tongue)
The park was so green. There were so many big trees there. Luckily it was not rain at that time because it had been hard rain almost the whole night before that day.

 I can't capture the whole part of the tree because it's so high..

One of my sister’s friend whose boyfriend is from Siantar suggested us to go to Tanjung Unta (Camel Cape). They said that we could see Lake Toba there. So after having our Dzuhur Shalaat in Mushollah Rahmat (Rahmat itself has the meaning of bless) in the park, we decided to go out from the park and continue our trip. 

I hope I could make a photo with the wild animals but they were close.

They said it need 1 hour to reach Tanjung Unta but it was not true. So we passed Sidamanik to reach there. We stopped by in tea garden which I never saw before. It was really fresh there. 

Took some photos, we continued our trip again. Soooo long trip. Till one of my sister’s friend said, “Whoaaa..  Lake Toba”. It was not true for what they said that we would see Lake Toba from Tanjung Unta because the fact was we were indeed in  Lake Toba. Lake Toba also known as Danau Toba in Indonesia is the largest volcanic lake ( crater lake ) in the world. At 100 km long and 30 km wide, measuring 505 m at its deepest point, it is situated in the middle of the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Surrounded by tall mountains, it cradles the large island of Samosir in its middle.

Those two pictures were taken two years ago when we visited my cousin in Samosir. It is the traditional house there.

We just didn’t reach Parapat (the major tourist destination) in Lake Toba . We were in other side of the lake. It was really too late if we should go to Parapat because we had no much time. It was really a waste to take long time in our drive just to stay only for some minutes, right? They said why the place named with Tanjung Unta was because one of the hills there, like the hump of a camel. We didn’t expect we would drive that far because it was really out of the plan. 

I searched what is ‘Huan In Kuang Lin’ in Google and the machine told that it is a greeting in Chinese. Okay.. What else if not ‘Welcome’ Hhehee..
Tanjung Unta  is the name given in 1954 by the first vice president of Indonesia, Mr. Mohammad Hatta. Its real name is Silumonggur.

Okay.. I’m not a nature adventure junkie. So this place is really not recommended for people like me. We must down sooooooo longggg stairs to reach something I never know what it was. I don’t know it was only because of my weakness or what but I was really tired. Moreover, the steps are too high for the size of the steps. They were really hard for my short legs LOL. 
And theennnnn. 
You want to know what we got after the really hard fight with the stairs, everybody? It was only edge of the Lake Toba surrounded by so many trashes. Almost cry! The location was full of gravels which hurt my feet while walking in the water. If you have rheumatic, maybe you can get therapy there. But we could still see the great landscape.

Okay.. experience is the most valuable teacher. So for the next time if there is someone who persuades me to Tanjung Unta, I need not to think twice to say NO!!! To climb back up we should climb stairs which was of course not shorter then what we did before. The stair was twisted so after I had passed a curve, I thought maybe the next was the last. But it was not!! I felt like someone who saw an oasis in a desert LOL. I really despair. Almost cry! I felt my breath was almost severed. And I was not the only one who felt that so don’t think I was overacting.

Maybe we just got the wrong place of Tanjung Unta. Because we never go there before, we asked a native woman about the place and she said we just need to drive straight ahead and we just chose the first announcement board of ‘Welcome to Tanjung Unta’ and we direct parking our car in the road side.
Satisfied with the fatigue which we got from the place, we turned back to Siantar to buy Ganda. It is a brand of bread. People said that you haven’t been in Siantar if you don’t buy this bread. Just common loaf bread with various combinations, sugar-apple jam, mocha, or cream with chocolate rice. But of course there is something which make it special. My sister said that the bread was so soft but for me nothing special for the bread softness. I often eat softer bread then Ganda. For me, the best part of Ganda is their sugar-apple jam. I ever tried so many kinds of sugar-apple jams but theirs is the best. Btw, Ganda means double in English. I don’t know what its relation with their bread.

Finish with Ganda bread, we searched Bakso for diner. Bakso (Meatball) is one of Indonesians’ favourite foods. If you visit Indonesia, it’s really easy to find it whether it is sold in luxury place or hawkers.Many American mass medias preached about bakso because Obama mentioned it in his speech while he visited Indonesia. He imitated the way how we call the man selling bakso in pushing cart, “Baksooo!!”.. The man selling bakso in pushing cart usually walk around people's house and make sound by hitting his fork to his bowl without saying anything. So if you hear the sound of typical fork and bowl, it must be the bakso seller is not far from where you are LOL.

We stopped in Bakso Pak H.Mangun. The place was really simple but quite wide. The building was built from woods but really comfortable to eat. The taste? So damn good!! I really love it. There were so many visitors eat there which proved the tasty meatball. The scallop satay was also tasty. I love them.

Have full tummy, we went home happily. But we had our Shalaat Maghrib first in Al-Mukhlisin Mosque in Siantar before we continued our way home. They dropped us first and then they went home.

A mosque usually has a spherical dome but this one use the typical architect of Simalungun. It would not change its major function.

The result from last holiday beside the knowledge if there will be no the second visit to Tanjung Unta was now, it’s really hard for me just to walk properly. My body is so stiff.

But, I may not lie if the trip was excited.

Snowy mosque!
No.. No.. It's only the dirty rear glass.