Lake Toba
Lake Toba fills the caldera of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the geological record. Around seventy-four thousand years ago the Toba supervolcano ejected an estimated two thousand eight hundred cubic kilometres of material, spread ash across South Asia and, on one contested hypothesis, pushed the human population through a genetic bottleneck. What is left is a lake roughly a hundred kilometres long and thirty wide, up to five hundred metres deep, at four hundred metres above sea level in the North Sumatra highlands — cool, clean, swimmable, and with an island in the middle the size of Singapore. It is the homeland of the Toba Batak, whose carved saddle-roofed houses, megalithic sites, weaving and choral singing are the cultural half of a visit.
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All Lake Toba Guides
12 in-depth guides to Lake Toba — food, nightlife, beaches, transport, money and the practical detail that is hard to find.