Hello Dan Thanks for your post. I found it both informative AND amusing. Now I have a question here. You said in your post: “On the way back it’s worth stopping to have a look at the King’s Tomb between Tomok and the turning for the Tuk Tuk peninsula.” Do you mind telling me more about this tomb via email? Thanks a bunch Dan.

-arya

This ‘hike’ is one of the stranger ones I’ve undertaken! From one of the bars in Tuk Tuk I arranged a guide/ojek for 400,000 for 4 hours (I thought enough time to get there and back plus an hour or so to explore the actual summit ridge). I didn’t have much time so we arranged to meet outside my hotel at 4am so we’d be at the top for dawn and I’d be back in time to get the ferry over to Parapat and bus back to Medan.
By 4.15am the guide still hadn’t shown up so I gave him a call. Still in bed! He arrived with a friend 20 minutes later and could barely stand up. He had been at a nightclub and was clearly drunk and under the influence of the local magic mushrooms or similar!!! Not the most reliable of people!
Anyway, his less drunk friend agreed to take me up to the top of the mountain (although they found it very odd and the first time they could remember that anyone had requested to go to the highest point of Samosir island).
I was armed with my GPS with the summit co-ordinates and in just under 90 minutes we were as close as I thought we could get to the summit – about 20 metres lower than the densely forested top which lay just over 100 metres away.
Looking on Google Earth, the trail actually loops round the true peak, so there is a very small chance that the true peak is accessible from the other side but I very much doubt it as there would be no logical reason for locals to make a trail through the jungle just to be at the true high point of the island. It’s a nice, peaceful summit ridge with some interesting wildlife and excellent views over the lake further down on the main road. Although it’s not the most amazing mountain I’ve ever visited it is a worthwhile objective for hikers holidaying in Tuk Tuk and the rate of logging sadly means that the summit will probably one day be accessible (the upside of this would be the tremendous views made available).
On the way back it’s worth stopping to have a look at the King’s Tomb between Tomok and the turning for the Tuk Tuk peninsula. The best views of the mountain itself are from the road round the Tuk Tuk peninsula or indeed from the boat crossing the lake from Parapat.
It’s interesting to note that Samosir is not a true island as on the west side near Pangururan the only thing which separates the ‘island’ from the ‘mainland’ is a narrow manmade canal.