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Kampung Girsang: Where Nature, Culture and Village Life Come Alive

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  Just a few minutes from Parapat and Lake Toba, there is a village where you can slow down, walk through rice terraces, meet local farmers, discover traditional Batak houses and experience a way of life closely connected to nature. Looking for a Different Side of Lake Toba? Most travellers come to Lake Toba for its spectacular scenery. But what if you could go beyond the famous viewpoints and experience how people actually live in the landscape ? Welcome to Kampung Girsang . Located in Simalungun, close to Parapat, Kampung Girsang is only around 2 kilometres from Parapat and about seven minutes from Pantai Bebas . Yet once you enter the village, the atmosphere feels completely different from the busy tourist areas. Here, forests, farms, traditional houses, streams, rice terraces and village life exist side by side. This is not a place you visit simply to take a photograph. It is a place to experience. A Living Landscape Around Lake Toba Kampung Girsang sits within the Toba Caldera...

All About Batak: From Their Rich Culture to Myths of Cannibalism

Gambar
      NINNA.ID -The Batak is the name for a group of sub-societies that live in the rugged highlands and plains around Lake Toba in northern Sumatra. The word Batak is believed to have originally been a derogatory term meaning “primitive” used by lowland Muslims to describe highland people. Today there is little stigma attached to the word. [Source: “Encyclopedia of World Cultures, East and Southeast Asia” edited by Paul Hockings (G.K. Hall & Company, 1993) Living in a beautiful part of North Sumatra around Lake Toba, the Batak people are divided into six main cultures, each with its language and traditions. [caption id="attachment_3459" align="alignnone" width="600"]  The view that can be seen if you visit Bukit Burung[/caption] Although geographically isolated, the Bataks have a history of regular contact with the outside world. Trade between the highlands and other regions saw the exchange of goods such as salt, cloth and iron for gold, rice, and ca...