The beautiful Northern Sumatera

      Lake Toba, Brastagi, Sumasir and Paraphat, these are the  Places that   would enchant anyone who would   visit Northern Sumatera. Medan is a very heaty town with concrete buildings and with the highest rate of population.     The climate at these places is Mountain cool, so it’s best throughout the year. For the first time I saw avocado trees with fruits near the shore of  lakeToba. Which looked like an ocean?    

     The trip with my teenage nephew whose name is Vin and my nieces Dine and Dharshinee with their mum, gave a pleasant moment to my heart and soul. Our trips were on 2 different days. Due to the very tiring and long journey. Our first trip was to Paraphat and Lake Toba, and the second trip was to Brastagi.

     Brastagi reminded me of the western countries due to the cool climate and the farms with the farmers who dressed more like westerners in their worn out coats and blazers, but these farmers were much smaller in size. The sumaterans are much smaller in size compared with people from other nations.      Their food is very simple food. I mean the daily meal. We managed to buy fresh oranges that were just plucked from the trees for a cheap Price. 
       
     The spiky cucumber was very cheap each was sold for only 10cents . My niece’s landlord was asked to arrange for transport for the second time. A ’angkut” a vehicle which is commonly used there as a mode of transport. Its like a coaster suppose to accommodate only 6 people but the

landlords relatives squeezed in with us. So 12 of us travelled in that angkut to Brastagi and to another hill which was very popular for visitors.

         Some thing I would like to share here is the mother toungue of these Northern Sumatra's Indians has been forgotten. Only the 'seniour citizens’ converse in the language, but the younger generations spoke only Indonesians. Even their way of dressing is more like westerners.

    The oldies who came to visit us wore skirts and gowns. None of them wore chudithars or sarees. I was a bit sad to observe the culture. They are still Hindus who practice all the customs and festivals but  mother language has been forgotten.

    But these Northern Sumatrans are very capable of taking care of themselves and to look good always. These women here consume a soup or liquid prepared from cumin, coriander and turmeric every morning when they get up. According to them, this herbal drink make them look slimmer and avoid them to have flabby thighs and tummy.  “Jamu” is sold at the roadsides by middle-aged women and each glass cost around 5 cents.

    So prefernce given for  beauty  and out look which is something that disturbed my mind and soul, during my eight days stay in North Sumatra, I was unable to find a bookshop or book vendor or even  any  Newspapers in English. Reading materials in English could not be found there. That’s the most sad news. People seemed to be very friendlier to outsiders.