North Sumatra: the province that has everything and admits nothing

North Sumatra is the province people accidentally see: most travellers land in Medan, spend one night, and leave for Lake Toba without noticing that the airport is also the door to a rainforest full of orangutans, a Karo highland of volcanoes and fruit markets, and a coastline almost no foreigner visits.

The distances are what make it work. Kualanamu airport sits between Medan and the highlands, Lake Toba is a half-day drive east, and Bukit Lawang is three hours north-west. You can land at lunchtime and be on a boat across the lake by dinner, which is not true of most Indonesian provinces.

Medan is the gate, and it is not the point

Kualanamu International Airport is 40 kilometres east of the city and connected by the Railink airport train, which takes roughly 35 minutes to Medan station. The train is the reason not to accept one of the taxi touts at arrivals: it is faster, fixed-price and drops you in the middle of town.

Medan is hot, loud and unbothered by tourism, which makes it useful rather than charming. Two things are worth the stop. The Maimun Palace, built in the 1880s for the Sultan of Deli, is a yellow and green building that still belongs to the royal family and costs almost nothing to enter. And the food: mie gomak in a thick coconut broth, bika ambon from the shops along Jalan Mojopahit, and coffee from Sidikalang that is better than most of what is sold as Sumatran coffee abroad.

Give the city one afternoon. Then pick a direction.

Lake Toba, and the island in the middle

The drive from Medan to Parapat takes four to five hours depending on traffic out of the city and how often the bus stops. Parapat is the ferry port; from there, boats cross to Tuk Tuk on Samosir island in about 30 to 45 minutes, and a car ferry runs to the Ambarita side for people bringing vehicles.

Samosir is almost the size of Singapore and sits inside a caldera formed by a supervolcano eruption roughly 74,000 years ago. The water is 500 metres deep in places and cold enough that the first swim is a decision rather than an impulse. Tuk Tuk is the tourist strip: guesthouses on the lake, motorbikes for rent, restaurants that close early.

The Batak villages are the reason to keep moving. Tomok has the stone tombs of the Sidabutar kings and a market that sells wood carvings between the tour buses. Ambarita has a circle of stone chairs where disputes were once settled. Neither takes more than an hour, and both are better in the early morning before the groups arrive.

Rent a motorbike and ride round the island in a day. The road along the northern shore climbs through pine and coffee, and the viewpoints above Pangururan look back across the water to the mainland mountains. Fuel is sold in litre bottles by the roadside; fill up whenever you see them.

Sipiso-piso and the Karo highlands

Between Medan and Lake Toba, the road climbs through Berastagi, a hill town at about 1,300 metres where the air changes and the market sells passion fruit, avocado and enormous bunches of something you will not recognise. Sinabung, the volcano above the town, has been erupting on and off since 2010 and is best viewed from a distance and with local advice.

Sipiso-piso is the set piece: a single ribbon of water falling roughly 120 metres into the northern end of the Toba caldera. There is a viewpoint from the car park and a staircase down to the base that takes twenty minutes and rather longer coming back. Go before ten, when the cloud has not yet filled the gorge.

Most people do this as a long transfer day: Medan to Berastagi for lunch, Sipiso-piso in the afternoon, and down to Parapat by evening. It works, but two nights in Berastagi is better if you want the morning light and the hot springs at Lau Sidebuk-debuk.

Bukit Lawang and the orangutans

Bukit Lawang is a village on the Bahorok river, three to four hours north-west of Medan, at the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park. It exists because of the orangutan rehabilitation centre that operated here from 1973, and the feeding platform across the river is still the easiest place in Indonesia to see a Sumatran orangutan at close range.

The twice-daily feeding is a spectacle and a compromise: semi-wild animals arrive for fruit, tourists photograph them from a viewing area, and the rangers keep the crowd back. It is not the same as a trek. For that, hire a licensed guide and walk into the park for a half day or, better, an overnight camp. You will see fewer orangutans but you will see them in forest rather than at a platform.

The river is also the evening entertainment: inner tubes, a shallow rapid, and a line of guesthouses with decks over the water. Prices are low, wifi is unreliable, and the whole place shuts down by ten.

What it costs

North Sumatra is cheap once you are out of Medan. A simple guesthouse room on Samosir or in Bukit Lawang runs roughly IDR 250,000 to 500,000 a night, with the upper end buying a lake view and hot water. A car with driver for a full transfer day is usually quoted at IDR 800,000 to 1,200,000, fuel included; agree the total and the stops before you set off.

The airport train is the one fixed price worth knowing, and the Lake Toba ferry is the one fare that changes: foreigners sometimes pay a tourist rate at Parapat, and the ticket window is a better source than any sign. Budget on cash for Samosir and Bukit Lawang. Medan has ATMs everywhere; the villages mostly do not.

When to go

May to September is the driest stretch and the best time for the lake and the jungle. Rain falls year-round in the highlands, so a wet afternoon is normal even in the dry season; what changes is how many days in a row it happens.

Ramadan slows Medan during the day and fills the food streets after dark. Christmas and the Indonesian New Year holidays make Samosir busy with domestic visitors, which is worth knowing if you want the island to yourself.

• Days 1 and 2: Medan — Maimun Palace, mie gomak, airport train.
• Days 3 to 5: Lake Toba — Parapat ferry, Tuk Tuk base, Samosir by motorbike.
• Day 6: Berastagi and Sipiso-piso on the way back down.
• Days 7 and 8: Bukit Lawang — feeding platform, half-day trek, river.

Questions people actually ask

Can I visit Lake Toba without a tour?

Yes. Take the airport train or a bus to Medan, a shared car or bus to Parapat, and the public ferry to Tuk Tuk. The only part worth arranging ahead is a car for the Sipiso-piso and Berastagi leg.

Where do I see orangutans near Medan?

Bukit Lawang, three to four hours north-west of the city, has a feeding platform at the old rehabilitation centre and licensed guides for Gunung Leuser treks. Book the trek through a guesthouse or the park office, not from a tout in Medan.

Is Samosir worth more than two nights?

If you ride a motorbike, yes. The island is large, the roads are slow, and the villages and viewpoints take a full day. Two nights gives you one full day on the island; three lets you slow down.