Mentawai Islands, Sumatra

Advantages: The situation is peace, and you can enjoy nice sightseeing
Disadvantages: None

...Welcome to Sumatra Sumatra, one of Republic Indonesia's big island, is a nice island to make jurney. The journey should be started from Medan (North Sumatra), Bukit Tinggi (West Sumatra), Jambi, Palembang and then Java, Bali, etc. I encourage you to start from Medan, the province capital city, because there are a lot of tourism spots in North Sumatra. Another most important reason is the only one international flight port in Sumatra is found in Medan. It is called Polonia. In Medan you can visit national museums. For night entertainment, you can visit pubs or discotheque. What are other tourism spots to visit then ? You can visit Bukit Lawang, about 4 hours drive by bus or car (I have writen a short information about Bukit Lawang in CIAO, too). You must spend a day for the trip. Or you have the choice to visit Berastagi... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Lot to see and do. Generally cheap. Culture. Arts
Disadvantages: Internal travel is difficult. Bureaucracy. Corruption

...Sunmatra,just like the rest of Indonesia, in essence is still comparatively safe for foreign tourists.This huge island has a good deal to offer the inveterate traveller including the delights of Lake Toba, interesting cities such as Medan and Padang, the very attractive hill town of Bukit Tinngi and the "new town" of Pekan Baru. The main snag about travelling within Sumatra is the road network. If,eg,you want to travel from Pekan Baru to Padang,you will find the road journey is a very lengthy one, the roads are narrow and it is dangerous to speed on some stretches. There are ,of course,air services between the major cities in Sumatra but that is a much more expensive option. Indonesia’s tourism industry which received about 5.1 million foreign visitors last year is hoping to attract 5.4 million in 2001 and around 6... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Beautiful place, friendly people
Disadvantages: Take 3-4 hours from Medan

...Lake toba is one of the biggest lake in Sumatra island and in Indonesia, too. Lake Toba is about 285 km from Medan City, a capital of North Sumatra. Lake Toba is about 100 km long and about 30 km wide. Lake Toba is also called Parapat by a people of North Sumatra. From Jakarta, we needed a trip about 2.5 hours by plane, whereas from Medan to reach the lake Toba we needed 3-4 hours trip by car. To go to location of lake, we drive a car or a bus from Medan through an area of hill and It take about 3-4 hours until we arrive to lake Toba. . In a middle of lake, there is an island called Samosir island. To reach a samosir, we might use boat and there is also bigger ship which transports cars and busses sailing to Samosir. A cost to sail to Samosir is only Rp 25.000. When we are in Medan, we feel so hot, not like on Toba, cause... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful