City people love going to rural nature seeking a hidden truth they believe buried in that nature. Rural people in turn love making money off these city people.

It was this exchange I became part of as the plane descended into Raja Sisingamangaraja XII Airport. You read that right. Raja is a royal title so I get he was the ruler. Why is there another raja at the end of his name? It’s like if there was an old king of England named King Edwardking. Sorry, King Edwardking XII.

So I was the city person and the nature I sought was Lake Toba, on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. This giant lake formed when a supervolcano erupted 74,000 years ago and just about ruined everyone’s week. According to one theory, the eruption was so cataclysmic it wiped out all but 1,000 humans off the face of the Earth, from whom sprang every living person today. Now, this scenario is under a lot of debate so I don’t want to pass it off as scientific fact. But it is amusing there’s a theory out there implying we’re the products of heavy inbreeding. I don’t know, did we always have this many fingers?

These days Lake Toba is positively chilled out, no species-ending eruptions around the corner. It’s just a big old lake with a big old island in the middle where I stayed. Driving from the airport, you pass little villages nestled on the lakeshore. This is the homeland of the Batak people, who you may know from their distinctive roofs being featured on some old cover of National Geographic. The main activity in these villages seems to be watching your goofy non-Batak face pass by as it makes the briefest of cameos from the car window.

I mentioned seeking a hidden truth. The problem is, I didn’t really know what truth I was even looking for. What I did know is I felt stuck. I took a career break to live abroad on a budget and sort my shit out but a year in, I didn’t feel like I had any more answers than at the beginning. You ever scroll through LinkedIn and get the sense everyone else is way more assured about what direction their life is moving in? Meanwhile here I was, floating aimlessly in the wind somewhere in Southeast Asia.

I was attracted to Lake Toba because I had read online that it was the perfect place to “do nothing.” As someone who plans every trip like it’s the jewel heist at the Louvre, this sounded enticing. I wasn’t sure I would find any truth here, but I would at least quiet the mind so that if it were here, I would hear it.

And wow, what a place to do nothing. Every morning, I opened my curtains to the thick clouds rolling low over the lush green cliffs. Light cool breezes reminded me I was a thousand meters up in the Sumatran highlands. The extent of the day’s action was that the lake would flow right to left in the morning, sit glassy still at midday, and flow left to right in the afternoon. At sunset I could hear the local kids try to out-splash each other as they dove into the water.

Twice a day I would saunter down the street to a lady making Batak food. No matter the dish, she lit me up with mouth-numbing andaliman peppers that she put on everything. Food mostly serves as a pepper delivery mechanism here. Special shout-out to the raw fish caught from the lake and served in lime juice, covered with peppers of course.

Ok I lied, I didn’t do nothing. One day I drove a scooter around the island. But with no particular itinerary your brain goes on autopilot, like during showers or walks. Time to quiet the mind. Off I went.

Except…shit. My phone is in my shorts pocket and I’m suddenly aware I’m not in an enclosed car, but a moving seat outdoors going 55 kilometers an hour. If my phone slipped out it would be a shattered mess on the asphalt. With that image in my head it’s hard to focus on much else.

Later, I’ve parked by the shore for a swim. This being a freshwater highland lake, there’s nothing in there that can hurt me. And yet once my feet no longer touch the ground, I can’t help but imagine the lakebed plummeting hundreds of feet into the murky depths and me, a speck on the surface about to be swallowed up by the vastness. I’m floating like I’m chill but my heart is beating so loud I can hear it.

Turns out quieting my mind is hard, even at middle of nowhere Lake Toba. It’s fixated on how things could go wrong, and once the moment passes it moves to the next thing that could go wrong. I’d like to think this trait served some prehistoric ancestor of mine, who knew to store just a little extra bison meat in case winter lasted long. But it’s long stopped serving me. If you’re constantly watching for danger, you don’t notice possibilities.

Fortunately, I’ve recently gotten to know two guys smarter than myself: Past Me and Future Me. Past Me reminds me I’ve been on countless motorbikes in Southeast Asia without my phone shattering, and countless bodies of water without being attacked by Cthulhu or the Loch Ness Monster. And Future Me? Future Me is a cool hand. He doesn’t say much, and I can’t predict what he’s going to do. But if shit hits the fan I trust him to take the helm and get me to safety. With these two by my side, I can live with the anxiety.

I eventually drove all the way to a lookout point nicknamed Teletubbie Hill, I guess because it looks like that hill they live on. It’s missing an omnipresent white baby looking down from the sun, but I sort of see it. Lake Toba is a sight to behold. For a moment I forgot about life’s worries and stood in quiet admiration of the planet we live on. Then the bugs began to attack. Well, a moment is better than nothing.

On the long drive back, it started to get dark. The sun disappears early behind these hills, both Teletubbie and non-Teletubbie. Shit. I told the scooter guy I’d be back by 6. Is he going to be pissed? Or charge me extra?

You know what, the view’s too nice to worry right now. Past Me says I’ll be all right, and Future Me has yet to let me down.

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Yours,

Bryan