‘GO BACK TO THE BATAK, IT'S SAFE THERE’: Tourism in North Sumatra during Perilous Times

For centuries, outsiders have associated the culture of the Toba Batak of Samosir Island (Lake Toba, North Sumatra, Indonesia) with cannibalism; the people themselves have been depicted as dangerous and unpredictable. Despite these characterisations, huge numbers of western tourists flocked to this secluded area from the 1960s until the late 1990s, when a series of local and international calamities ground tourism to a halt. The article discusses how events such as the Asian financial crisis and the Bali bombings have affected tourism on Samosir Island, also noting the irony that this place, once assumed dangerous is now, in the times of terrorism, considered safe.