bukittinggi and around

before i go on with indonesia, i really need to tell you that my new zealand visa application has been approved!!! woohoo!! so now i'm trying to figure out what the plan will be and what i still need to do in order to get all my documents right. health insurance stuff is very annoying and i will need to arrange everything before i leave, what a hassle, but it just has to be done.

anyway, let's go on.

from padang it's a 2 hour drive to bukittinggi by minibus (just 20.000 rp 1,5 euros). i left somewhere late in the morning and arrived in the afternoon. katherine (the girl from the homestay in padang) told me to go to bedudal cafe, where all the tours can be arranged, so i got a cab there when i got to town. the driver didn't have any change (that happens a lot) so i waited in the cab while he went to get some small money and lala (the guide i was talking about in an earlier post) opened the door and asked me where i was going. i told him dunno, do you know a cheap place? and he got in and told the driver to go to merdeka homestay. ginormous room, western toilet, cheap as hell (60.000 rp a night which is about 4 euros) cold shower though and some tiny ants, but you can find those in more places, trust me. lala was telling me about a tour i could do to siberut island, to stay with the mentawai tribe for a while in the jungle and he asked me if i wanted to go that thursday. i remembered a flyer i found in padang, from a company that also does these tours, and a trip for a week costing 950 US dollars, so i first asked him the price, which was waaaaaaaay cheaper and i decided to just go for it. when he left i unpacked, took a shower, powernapped and when i went out to get some dinner, there was eric, another guide, sitting on the couch and apparently waiting for me. he is very funny and always happy and enthusiastic, so when i got out of my room he turned around and said helloooooo!!!! with a big smile. we sat down and he pulled out this notebook, which was his comment book. everyone who does a trek with him writes in it and there were only very positive stories in there from all nationalities possible (ok maybe not all, but a lot), so from reading the stories i found out he is a really smart guy and likes to talk about his culture and jungle stuff. he told me about some places i could go to, but since i had to leave to go to siberut thursday (this was on a tuesday) i told him i only had one day. he said i was in luck, because the rafflesia was blooming in the jungle and he could take me there by bike and later on show me some small villages around bukittinggi. i accepted and went into town. there's this tower in the center (jam gadang or the big ben, left) where most young people hang out, where the market starts and the mall is located. i was walking around and got approached by this girl who wanted to practise her english (this also, happens a lot). and after that by a guy who just started working as a guide and also wanted to practise his english. bukittinggi is a lot colder than padang, which is very humid and hot, so i had to get a sweater, seriously. we had a couple of beers after dinner and i went back to merdeka.


one of the three mountains surrounding the city, the bridge (this street is where all the tour restaurants and bars are) a guy with a lot of stuff on his bike (he is sitting on the other side just fyi)
here left a bamboo chair in turret cafe (nice food and internet) and the other one is a menu from apache cafe, for the dutch people: check out the fourth line from below (click to enlarge)).

when i got out the next morning eric was already there and i hopped on the bike and we left. it was really really nice. i already like to sit on a bike anyway, but now i was able to look around and see all these gorgeous views and just feel completely chill and peaceful. we arrived at a tiny town where another guide was waiting and he brought me into the jungle, since he knows it better than eric. it took us about 2 hours to go there and get back. it was really steep, wet and slippery and i almost fell on my ass a couple of times, but i really liked walking around there.


jungle: in there somewhere was the flower, on the way to the jungle were all these rice fields and it was just so incredibly beautiful


guy working, rice field, old rice man

we got to the rafflesia, which is this giant parasitic flower and the biggest solitary flower on earth (see pic). it smells like rotting meat (that's why i'm smelling it) and has no stems, leaves or true roots. there are 26 species all found in southeast asia. when i got back to eric we had a drink and drove on to some minangkabau towns known for making silver jewellery, woodcarving and weaving. he also showed me some traditional minangkabau architecture, which can be recognized by the roof and woodcarvings. the minangkabau are a west sumatran tribe, with a matrilinial culture, which means that property and land are passed down from mother to daughter. the name minangkabau has various interpretations. one is that the name comes from the phrase "winning water buffalo" ("menang kerbau" in indonesian). the story is that in ancient times, there was a war between the people of west sumatra and a javanese kingdom. to resolve the conflict, the west sumatrans proposed a contest: each side would provide a water buffalo, the two water buffaloes would fight to the death, and whichever side's water buffalo won the fight would be considered the winner of the war. the javanese accepted the proposal and on the appointed day, they produced the largest, meanest, most aggressive water buffalo anyone had ever seen. the west sumatran champion was a hungry baby buffalo with sharp knives attached to the nubs of his horns that were just starting to grow. seeing the adult buffalo across the field, the baby ran forward, hoping for some milk. the big javanese buffalo saw no threat in the little baby buffalo and paid no attention to it, looking around for a worthy opponent. but when the baby thrust his head under the big bull's belly, looking for an udder, of course, the knives stabbed the bull and killed him, and the west sumatrans won the contest and the war.this is why the roof line is curved upward from the middle and ends in points, in imitation of the water buffalo's upward-curving horns.

making silver jewellery, wood carving and weaving (one design takes about 6 months!)

mountain, street, your usual on the road toilet

that evening we got back to bukittinggi and i had some dinner and when i got back to the homestay eric was sitting there again and we chilled on the couch and talked. i was supposed to meet the other people who were also going to siberut the next morning, but lala came in and told me i had to go that evening. so i did. i met our guide indra and my fellow travelers, saar and kris from belgium and michael and julia from germany. all in their twenties so that was good, since you never know who you'll end up with. we went over the schedule, had a couple of drinks and decided to meet each other at twelve the next day, have some lunch and leave for padang at two (the ferry to the island leaves from padang).