Episode Details

What is it really like travelling through Sumatra with three young children?

In this episode of Travel More Adventurously, Pete is back for part two of our family travel adventure through Northern Sumatra, Indonesia - and this part of the trip involved volcanoes, Lake Toba, a terrifying boat journey, traditional Batak tuak, hungry children, remote islands and more than one moment when we wondered whether we had completely lost the plot.

We pick up the story after returning from the Mentawai Islands, when a chance meeting with a local driver called Harley ended up shaping the next few weeks of our travels.

From Berastagi, we climbed Mount Sibayak before sunrise with three young children, walking through the dark past steaming volcanic craters before reaching the summit as the sun came up. There was also the slightly surreal moment when a group of local children became convinced that one of our sons was Justin Bieber.

From there we travelled on to Lake Toba, the enormous volcanic lake in North Sumatra, where we ate extraordinary local food, bought fresh fish and crayfish from fishermen, and experienced one of those frightening parenting moments that feels much bigger when you are a long way from home.

We also talk about tuak, the traditional Batak palm wine we tried in Northern Sumatra. Made from fermented palm sap, it was cloudy, milky-white and considerably more alcoholic than we were expecting. Looking back, it is one of those tiny details of travelling that has stayed vividly in our memories.

Then came the journey to the Banyak Islands.

We set off from Singkil in a tiny boat in torrential rain and rough seas, unable to see land and bouncing across the water for hours. At one point I remember looking at Pete and genuinely thinking: we must be absolutely mental.

And then, somehow, we arrived in paradise.

The Banyak Islands were remote, beautiful and completely unlike anywhere we had stayed before. We swam over coral reefs straight from the beach, watched the children invent games with hermit crabs and experienced what happens when you take three children somewhere so remote that there simply aren't any snacks.

As storms prevented fishermen from bringing in food, our meals became smaller and smaller. The children, who could once be particular about how a fish finger was cooked, suddenly discovered that hunger makes you remarkably adventurous - including enthusiastically eating chicken legs when they finally appeared.

We also saw first-hand the enormous amount of plastic pollution washing onto these remote beaches and heard about the devastating impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the islands and the people who lived there. It was one of those travel experiences that was simultaneously beautiful, uncomfortable, funny and thought-provoking.

And after several days of increasingly small meals, our stay ended with an unforgettable surprise