A visit to Tuktuk Siadong Village and Tomok Village on Samosir Island is a refreshing treat if visiting Indonesia. Very scenic and undeveloped, there’s a lot of farming on the island. The coast is dotted with local homes, tourist hotels and shops. It is very peaceful and quite inexpensive. I was surprised to find many Europeans vacationing here as most of the guests we had at Timan Simalem were mostly Indonesian visitors. Where is Samosir Island? Samosir Island is in Lake Toba, the world’s largest volcanic lake. It’s a caldera formed by a supervolcanic eruption around 75,000 years ago. Some think it was the largest volcanic eruption in the last…

Not long after getting my yoga teaching certification, I looked for roles to volunteer teaching yoga around the world. Sumatra was my first role teaching yoga and I was super excited to fly there (at my own expense) to see Medan and teach. I taught yoga for 1 month at a beautiful resort called Taman Simalem. My role was voluntary, receiving room and board (food) in exchange for teaching yoga to the guests (as well as other volunteer duties). The resort is huge, sitting on over 500 acres at the top of a mountain. The draw is the view of Lake Toba, over 1,000’ (300 m) below. It was so…