Indonesia, Lake Toba, Samosir Island, Tuk Tuk, 19-02-2009.

Nets on the quay spread out in the early morning sun to dry and yellow colored plastic crates full with fish caught during the night, attracting huge number of gulls in search of free breakfast, screaming while flying overhead, diving down during a moment of inattention to steal a fat pike, his mates waiting up there in the air, gliding on their wings, waiting for the bold featherly fish thief, ready to discuss his prize....

I'm waiting for the ferry to depart for Samosir Island while making quick sketches in my scrap book of these winged fish pirates, admiring the freedom they have and the outright disregard they have for us mortal human beings, despicable we are in the beady eyes of a third world gull, just about good enough for free fat pike for breakfast.

I'm the only Ferringy aboard this ferry sharing it with several Batak women of varying ages, dressed in grimy dresses and eating Nasi Goreng with greasy fingers of the right hand - remember what you are supposed to use your left hand for in this part of the world? - from a unpacked banana

Parapat
on market day

leaf. The gaps in their yellow stained dental works are clearly visible while they stuff the Nasi down their throats, belching while they absent-mindedly throw a cleanly picked chicken bone into the dark waters of Lake Toba.

I'm in Batak territory now, a proud and stubborn tribe who can trace their origins back to the Karen villages in Northern Burma and Siam, are tradionally catholic in the Muslim stronghold of Sumatra but are rumoured to have cooked the first missionaries in the Batak cooking pots before bowing to the Roman Faith, bet that was an unexpected and unpleasant surprise to these so-called Men of God being eaten by those they came to convert, their white European flesh going down hungry native throats, being transformed into human energy and the remaining wastes sh*t out and used for fertiliser on their rice paddies.

Yeah the path of the God-Send doesn't always go across a road of rose petals!!!

Nowadays though, Europeans are warmly welcomed bringing in hard needed dough that can be used to send the brighteste of the village boys to college in Medan, or the even further away Jakarta on Java.

Laundry day
on Samosir Island

The origins of the Batak people
according to the Indonesian Handbook by Moon Publications, edition 1991 by Bill Danton.

The origins of the Batak people
according to Lonely Planet's guide on Indonesia, edition januari 1990.