Going to Silangit, the Day 2

It was Tuesday. The Red-9 Tuesday-3 (Selasa Pahing 12). In the morning at 06:30 we had been ready in the dining room for having breakfast. The menu was simple: rice, chicken curry, chaomian, and crackers. Coffee and tea were also provided. At 07:00 we were ready to go.

We left the hotel at 07:15. The traced the national road: Balige and Silangit. Silangit is a village of Subdistrict Siborongborong, Regency of North Tapanuli. It was just the border to Toba Samosir Regency where Balige was the capital. At Silangit an airport was located.

We were welcomed by the manager of the airport, Mr. Edward Rajagukguk. Mahardi presented our plan to compose a master plan. It was needed to cover the detailed engineering design beeing composed. The master plan would be approved by Minister of Transportation to enable covering the design.

The manager explained that the airport was built for the first time by Japanese Colonial Government. Then, it was expanded many times to come to this time length of 2.400m. Right now there were 2 carriers operating on this airport: Wing Air to Batam and Susi Air to Medan. The passangers reached 22.000 per annum this year and he was optimistic the passangers would be soaring if the airport was upgraded especially, the providing of VOR. The Toba Geopark, The Toba Pulp Industry, and The Sarula Geothermal Project would be the primemover.

We then took a field seeing to the terminal building and runway. The manager provided us a lunch at the Wita Resto, at the edge of Lake Toba near Balige. We then visited the National Statistics Agengy of North Tapanuli to get several statistics data. We also visited Transportation Agency and Tourism Agency for the same purposes. We reached a mosque to pray at about maghrib time. We ended the day business by having dinner in a padangese resto. We arrived at the hotel at about 08:30.

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