West Sumatra - Padang, Bukittinggi and Danau Maninjau

Are you ready for this? Today's post is gonna be a good one. Grab your morning cup of coffee or a cold beer depending on the time on your side of the world and come along. 

Saturday morning (Aug 23) I woke up to the sound of thunder and managed to grab my laundry off the line before the sky opened up. Our flight out of Singapore was at noon and needed my jeans to be dry enough to take along in my bag. Luckily they were, and I saved them from getting soaked. I had my bag all packed up and headed over to pick up the girls at Hall 8. Just Alisa and Annie this time because the others were off on their own adventures. Annie gave us all an apple for breakfast and we jumped on the 199 to Boon Lay MRT station. From there we took the MRT from the far west end of Singapore all the way to the east end where Changi Airport is. Once we got to the airport, we had to take a transfer bus from Terminal 2 to the Budget Terminal where Tiger Airways flies out of. In total, it was a good 2+ hours of traveling... and we hadn't even boarded a plane yet! 

We grabbed breakfast after check-in, changed money over from Sing dollars to Indonesian Rupiah. I changed $200SGD and got about 1,400,000Rph. Crazy huh? For rough estimates throughout the trip I treated 10,000Rph to equal about 1USD, when really that was a bit off. 

Sorry... I just took a break from writing to look at my pictures (all 335 of them!) from this weekend and I lost my train of thought. 

Okay so we got on the plane and flew to Padang, Indonesia. It was only an hour flight because if you look on a map, Singapore is nestled right at the end of the Malaysian peninsula and is only separated from Indonesia by the Strait of Malacca. 

Check this map for an idea (http://www.caingram.info/Sumatra/Pix/sumatra_map_2.jpg).

We had to get a Visa on arrival. Normally this is pretty simple, but we made it awfully difficult. Annie checked the list of countries available for an arrival Visa and could not find Canada anywhere on it. After asking a few people we found that we were actually on the list, only Canada is spelt Kanada in Indonesian. We'reeeeeeee dumb. After immigration we had to find a ride into Padang. Talk about being thrown into a strange culture. As caucasians, we were a target of every single taksi, bus, opelet, ankot and moped driver in the airport. 

One thing I should mention here is that very few people had an understanding of English everywhere we went. This is probably because tourism in Sumatra has always been extremely small. It was only recently (10 years or so?) that the Indonesian government has allowed foreigners free passage in. The 2004 tsunami that devastated Banda Aceh on the west coast and most of Sumatra allowed many foreign aid workers in to the country which helped open the door for tourists like us.  

Being the friendly guy that I am, I attempted to communicate with these guys and find us a decently cheap ride into town. Annie went to find an information desk and somehow we all ended up on a mini-bus headed into Padang. The fare was only 15,000Rph each but for good reason. We ended up being shoved into the back corner of the bus into 2 seats (obviously there were 3 of us). 

I'll post a description of these buses from the Lonely Planet Travel Guide for Southeast Asia::

"Hike all the peaks, visit all the ethnic minorities and read all the anthropological studies you want, but nothing gets you closer to the real Sumatra than hopping on the sweltering, uncomfortable, yet somehow exhilarating economy buses. It's a cultural experience like no other. There will be chain smoking, deafeningly loud indo-pop tunes, visits from roadside troubadours, rampant breast feeding, hitchhiking coachroaches and yes, vomiting. The bus driver will stop at random to pray, eat and perhpas get laid, and you and your fellow passengers are at his mercy. The aisles are packed with cargo and absolutly overflowing with passengers - at least three to a seat. At home we'd be disgusted, but in Sumatra slow lane boudaries erode, you drop your hang-ups and begin to go with the flow. next thing you know, a smiling stranger is urging you to share some exotic fruit, you're buying lollipops for children and chatting with someone who speaks broken english and loves green day.  And you will laugh and smile like a Zen saint drunk on life."

After about 30 mins we were dropped off at a small broken down building close to Padang with 2 fold out tables in front where 3 people were sitting. This, I guess, was their bus terminal. I went and got us 3 tickets to Bukittinggi. While waiting, we were stared at by everyone. This happened everywhere we went. It was a really uncomfortable feeling, one that I didn't shake during the whole trip except for a few hours at Maninjau. 

The bus ride took almost 3 hours, even though it was only an 85km journey. 

Now's a good time to go over the rules of the road in Indonesia. Rule #1: ummmm attempt to stay on the road at all times and not hit anything? Thats about it... In Canada we have to study the rules and take a test before we can drive because there are so many!! It was unbelievable. First of all, there are all sorts of vehicles on the road. Larger buses, smaller buses, mini opelets, skinny Toyota vans, mopeds and motorcycles of all shapes and sizes, bicycles, pedal wagons, bikes with huge sacs of water or bags of fruits or other people attached on the back, even horse drawn carriages. Second, the road was never larger than 3 lanes of traffic across and in some areas was about a lane and a half of space for two directions of traffic. Third, most drivers will pass at will even if there is clearly not enough room by my Canadian standards. 

I think I figured out the driving etiquette after spending so much time traveling! Basically, you honk when you want to pass someone in front of you. You honk when you are acknowledging someone or when you want them to acknowledge that you are there. You honk when someone pulls out in front of you. You honk when you see someone you know or who works in the same company as you. You honk at girls you find attractive. You honk when you want a traffic jam to start moving. You high beam people who are coming at you head on to convince them to break. You high beam people who will not move out of your way when you want to pass. But you don't do anything except break when someone flies past you only to force their way into the spot between you and a vehicle in front in order to avoid being hit head on. It's fricken bizarre man.

Okay so, after seeing the countryside which had tons of rice fields, trees, hills, a few waterfalls, some monkeys, tons of small markets or stands along the road and so many broken down homes we finally made it to Bukittinggi. Our planned hotel was supposed to be fairly easy to walk to, since you can cross the city in about 30 minutes, so we spent about an hour trying to find it. After going down multiple wrong streets and being stared at by everyone as we went back and forth past their shops we finally decided to take one of the opelet's offers and get a ride with them. Turns out that was definitely the best choice to do as it had been raining and we were so lost. After a very indirect route, we were dropped off by our hotel. First hotel that is. After we checked into our room, I tried out the toilet and found out that it did not flush. After telling the guy who owned the place he reacted by saying "I know," so were like peace OUT. I should mention that overall, this place was really sketchy. We walked down the street a bit and tried out a much nicer hotel. After settling in, we grabbed dinner and beers at a little Cafe down the street called Apache Cafe. Delicious food, cheap huge beers (20,000Rph for a large Bintang) and good music. The bathroom was super gross, but looking back it was one of the cleaner ones we encountered. 

Next day we had two plans. To go to a place called Koto Gadang because it is known for its awesome (and cheap) silverwork and then to make our way to Danau Maninjau which is a lake made from an ancient crater. It wasn't quite that easy though. We took an opelet asking to head to the bus terminal. After getting there, we were told that we can't take a bus to Koto Gadang and we need to take another opelet. So we jumped in one asking to go there and the driver just shook his head like he understood? After doing at least one loop of the city, we got out because he said he did not know how to get to Koto Gadang. A local who kind of knew English helped us out and told us to grab a specific opelet with the number 6 on it. When we finally arrived at Koto Gadang we had been in the back of a opelet a total of like 3-4 hours and I had almost had enough. If you want to picture an opelet, picture a small shaggin' wagon that has been decorated on the outside however the owner wishes (usually consists of some sort of cartoony character and an indonesian/english hybrid name), complete with subwoofers, speakers, audio decks and/or video screens that blast a combination of rap, love songs, backstreet boys and random indonesian pop. The drivers are all young males of the same demographic and everyone chain smokes. 

At least we managed to buy some awesome silver in Koto Gadang. Annie bought the store out and borrowed 150000Rph from me which could have been very useful later on in the trip. 

From there we opeletted it back to Bukittingi and then caught another to a 'bus terminal to Maninjau' which was actually just a spot on the side of a road where a single bus was parked. Haha oh my God, at this point I didn't care what was going on. I just made sure that the bus was headed to Maninjau and I passed out in a seat at the front of the bus. I caught the end of the ride however, and its a good thing. Coming down from the top of one of the huge hills surrounding lake Maninjau there is an extremely sharp and steep road consisting of 44 horseshoe switchbacks which are only wide enough to fit one vehicle at a time. This bus driver was nuts, no holds barred as he ripped around the corners. I was in a window seat, so I had a full view of the consequences of a small mishap. If he had slipped one wheel off the road (of which there were no guardrails) the bus would have barrel rolled all the way down the hill into the town of Maninjau and then most likely straight into the lake. Scary stuff kids...

Maninjau town and Lake Maninjau were beautiful. See the pics :)

We found a place to stay along the lake which was actually such an awesome location. They were small cabins right by a small 'beach'. The cabins were very basic, consisting of 4 walls with a roof and a bed. Also, a small squat style toilet and a bucket of water out the back. The girls took the bed and I, well, got a mattress. There were wild animals everywhere and when we first got to the place we found a bunch of young kittens sleeping on a mat. This mat would soon be my mattress lol, with a sheet and a blanket on top. I slept in my clothes that night haha, especially because it was just laying on the floor in this cabin that most likely has things crawling around it at night. 

The next morning we got up and grabbed breakfast at a cafe in town. Good food, decent atmosphere. We managed to find a spot to rent some canoes for a toot around the lake, so we got 2 for an hour. These canoes were awesome even though they were nothing like ones back in North America. Picture a tree trunk that has been hollowed out and cut in half. You sit on the wood and there is one wooden paddle. Anyways, so Alisa and I got into the first canoe and Annie took the other one on her own. With us both in the canoe, the edges of the canoe only came about an inch above the water. We had to maintain our balance extremely well or else the canoe would tilt just a bit and let in water. I would have been okay if we went under, but Alisa had her money belt w/ passport on her. I figured it out pretty quick, thanks to my canoeing lesson on Mckenzie lake back when I was about 12. J-strokes and drags saved my life. I managed to get us out into the lake and around to our beach where I dropped Alisa off because she had had enough. Once I was on my own, it was actually really easy and super enjoyable. Definitely the highlight of my trip!! I had my shirt off however and the sun was out for the hour I was on the lake (which was rare, it was really rainy the whole weekend), so I ended up getting a pretty bad burn all over my upper body. Ouch. Oh and I met a monkey.

We managed to get a semi-private ride in a van back to Padang via one of the English speaking cafe owners which was nice. Insane ride again, and it took about 4 hours to get all the way into town. Not to mention we dropped off 3 other people at their houses beforehand haha. The driver was really nice though and after dropping us off at Hotel Immanuel he waited around to see if we could get a room. Since it was full, he drove us to the other Hotel Immanuel (yeah two different buildings, it was weird) and dropped us off there. That was awesome. The hotel was pretty seedy but we got a room with 3 separate beds which was nice! We walked around looking for a place to eat and ended up stopping at this nice little bakery since it was dark and we really had no clue where we were. Definitely wasn't the most comfortable feeling, walking around in the dark with everyone staring at us. Then we chilled on a balcony at the hotel while a storm went on around us. Pretty cool. 

Next morning we awoke at 5am to a mans voice on a loudspeaker doing some sort of a muslim prayer.  We were awoken similarly the previous night. It's some sort of a chant where the dude takes a deep breath and does this ominous "ooooooohhhhhhhh" sound while increasing and decreasing the pitch. Any info on this anyone? All I know is that it is extremely annoying to someone who is trying to sleep! The girls couldn't get back to sleep until it was over and sure enough, 8am rolled around and it started again. I have a habit where I fall asleep listening to my ipod, so luckily it was close and I just drowned out the sound with some Jack Johnson.

 

Rolled out of bed, hit the bakery for breakfast and attempted to walk to a bus station and catch a cheap bus to the airport because we literally were almost out of money. An option was to pay a cab driver around 120000Rph to take us directly there but we only really had 75000 left! Anyways long story short, I ended up getting fed up because we were lost and I just wanted to go home that I pulled out my emergency US dollars and found us a cab. Oh and once we got to the airport we had to pay an 'airport fee' of 75000Rph each. What a bunch of crap! I used up the rest of my USD to pay for my fare and half of Annie's. We literally boarded the plane with no money left... Wow. 

Okay so there you have it. That was easily the biggest culture shock experience of my life and now that its over, I'm glad that I have it. Let's just say it's not likely that I will be going back to Padang any time soon. Its funny, when I got on the plane I told the girls, "Man I have had enough of this country for a while." I just got an invite to go to Bali next weekend though, so we will see if I can do that. The only problem is that my 2 week break starts the following weekend and I'm not sure if I can handle that much traveling in that little time so I might just have to pass. 

My Thailand/Laos trip is going to be absolutely amazing though!! I am trying to figure out how I will blog/picture take while I am there though, since my camera will fill up and I won't have access to a computer. Maybe I will just bring my laptop since it is small? I'll have to see. I am only bringing my backpack. 

So friends, let me know what you think :) I'm out for a bit. Stay safe. 

Todays Spin: Search Party - Wintersleep