I love nature especially mountain. I don't know why, but mountain give me a satisfaction and other feeling mixed together when I am on the top. I think anyone who love hiking have same experience with me.
This is my short story where it's all begin.
THE BEGINNING
I've never been travel outside of Malaysia before but I am eager to have some adventures. Luckily around 2010 I met with some great friends that called their group as a Luarbiasa Fotografi (Extraordinary Photography in English) where they are very passionate in nature photography.
They planned a photo trip to Lake Toba, Indonesia. Lake Toba is an immense volcanic lake covering an area of 1,707 km² with an island in its centre. That's really a very big lake. I wonder what kind of creature lurking on the bottom of the lake🙄🐉. Actually, Lake Toba is located in Prapat area in North Sumatra. You can read more about Lake Toba in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Toba.
Photo source from http://www.indonesia.travel
I've never been out side of country, so I went to make a passport. I am very excited to start my very first journey. From Kuala Lumpur International Airport we fly to Polonia International Airport, Medan. This airport has been closed and replaced with Kualanamu International Airport on 2013.
From the airport our Supir (chauffeur) drove us to our first stop which is a small town at the foot of a mountain called Berastagi. The road from Medan to Berastagi is very windy and challenging road. With a cramped ride while on the van, it's very scary but also a new experience for me (LOL).
LOVE STRUCK AT FIRST SIGHT
Berastagi town is located around 66 kilometers south of Medan and about 1,300 meters above sea level. During the day, the temperature rises over 25 °C; but at night to early morning it could drop to as low as 12 to 16 °C, it is also could be reach 9 °C on rainy season. You can read more about this small unique town here.
We spent a night there because in the early morning we will hike Sibayak Mountain. This mountain is located just north from Berastagi.
On the morning around 4am, our supir drove us to the mountain trail where it is northwest of Berastagi just past the Sibayak Multinational Guesthouse. This is the easiest and shortest trail to climb Mount Sibayak. This trail took us averagely 2-3 hours only. This volcano is still active, so you will see a lot of sulfur with some smoke coming out from holes on the ground.
Local people hike this mountain with just rubber sandal!
Although this mountain is only 2094m, it very cold on the summit. But I am amazed with the view. This is my first time hike a mountain and very first time I stand above cloud.
Sinabung Mountain in front of our view
Panaroma view from Sibayak Summit by stitching 9 images
Since that I fall in love with mountain. This moment and this view is what I am looking for. We took around couple of hours on the summit to take some pictures. After that went down of the mountain and back to our hotel.