This is the first in a 10-part series highlighting trips Erik Fearn has taken that have gone wrong, sometimes very wrong.

Christmas in Medan

I know I have countless shortcomings. One thing I am good at though is travelling. I'm not talking about the follow-the-flag-waving-tourguide sort here. My form of travel is devoid of itinerary or real purpose. It's more an exercise in breaking out of my comfort zone, and seeing what vivid experiences lie outside my boundaries. I ricochet haphazardly from adventure to adventure like a pinball, and have been enriched by a fair few amazing experiences along the way, from the sublime to the extreme 'someone check my pulse please. I think I'm dead' variety.

But along the way, I've also dipped my toes in the dark undercurrents of adventure travel. I have been mugged, starved, poisoned, injured, imprisoned and ripped off. And I regret none of it. An Indian Saddhu, or wise man, once told me "If you crawl to the edge of your Life and look over the edge, you may not like everything you see."

The worst trips are the ones that look deviously promising but end up as nothing more than a long inexorable slide into hell. Like dating white chicks, but cheaper.

In the week before Christmas 2004, my chiropractor buddy Wade and I decided to visit Sumatra's famed Lake Toba, to get away from the madness that is KL.

Our plans were adolescent in their simplicity: Take the ferry from Penang to Medan, bus up to the lakeside town of Tuktuk, drink beer, swim in the lukewarm volcanic lake, and generally bask in the well-known hospitality of the Batak culture. And do it all for less than RM400. Ambitious but doable, you say? Not really, but thanks anyway.

Wade bears an uncanny resemblance to Rick Moranes in 'Honey, I shrunk the kids". Being a passionate bone-doctor and very sociable, he is forever offering to crack people's necks mere minutes after meeting them. People skills, I thought. Good. This could come in handy in smoothing out any 'situations' we might encounter along the way.

The ferry ride over was promisingly smooth. Perhaps an omen of things to come? Five hours after leaving Penang, we were on a bus leaving the urban mayhem of Medan in our dust, chasing the cool mountains on the horizon.

Lake Toba, a body of water roughly the size of Singapore, lies hidden in the central Sumatran highlands, guarded by handsome volcanoes on all sides. The green flanks of these volcanoes drop steeply into the deep lake, with charming Batak fishing villages clinging to its fringes. It's a swath of deliriously beautiful land, unknown enough to be untrammeled - yet only a half day's journey from KL if you fly into Medan.