pick up my laundry. i was having some breakfast in turret café when he came up to me and told me there was a traditional wedding reception he got invited to and he 
asked me if I wanted to come. i picked up my camera and we walked to the house where the festivities would take place. the wedding itself had already happened, so now everybody got together at the girl’s parents house to eat. the newlyweds were sitting in a corner wearing traditional marriage clothing and the whole house was decorated in bright red an gold. i was the only foreigner there so i felt a little bit out of place, but everybody was very nice and hospitable. we sat down and had some rice with fish, veggies, chicken and rendang. it was the spiciest fish i’ve ever had in my life, tears were running down my face and the old ladies sitting across from me laughed and said ‘spicy huh!’. 
i went back for my stuff and we drove to lake maninjau. it was a beautiful day and i
was just chilling on the back of the bike, enjoying everything there was to see around me. lake maninjau is only two hours away from bukittinggi. to get there, you have to drive down a mountain with 44 sharp turns, really sharp turns. for the people who’ve never been to indonesia: people there drive like maniacs!! around turn 12 (there’s a sign at every turn, with the number on it) there were monkeys sitting on the crash barriers. and a dead one lying on the road :(
the lake was formed by a volcanic eruption estimated to have occurred around 52,000 years ago. the natural outlet for excess water is the antokan river, located on the west side of the lake. this water is used to generate hydroelectric power for west sumatra. most of the people who live around lake maninjau are minangkabau and they use the lake for aquaculture, using karamba floating net cages.
lala took me to his new zealand friend lili, who owns a home stay right next to the lake and has been living in indonesia for about 11 years. the home stay is hidden away behind trees and the road leading up to it is nothing but a narrow sandy path. from the moment i arrived there, i felt totally at home. lili said that i would probably like the tree house and she was absolutely right. from the balcony I could see the lake and the rest of the home stay, which has wooden cottages and a lot of flowers and trees. the lake was just a couple of meters away and the first night we (the staff, other guests and us) sat down in front of the lake, playing guitar, talking and having a drink.
the tree house, the stairs and a sort of basket thingy where lili's pet monkey used to sit in when she used to stay at the tree house
some other cottages, view from my balcony, chill out spot in front of the lake
fishermen, sunset
below some pics while walking around:
the next day lala wanted to show me a beach that was nearby (and apparently the most gorgeous one in sumatra), but after a while the road got very shitty, so we couldn't go further. he took me to another one instead and although the weather was very bad, it was still very nice. 
on the way back it started to rain tropical style, so we arrived completely soaked. we got back at lili’s around dinner time. lala and me played chess and she had a friend over who plays guitar very well and they jammed all night with the staff, singing indonesian songs. it was so awesome, guitars, congas and an egg shaker haha.
i finally swam in the lake the next morning, couldn’t leave without doing that of course. i also went to rizal, a place 5 minutes from lili's which used to be a very popular restaurant and homestay, but was now abandonded for a while. such a shame, since the location is absolutely perfect and with a little bit of renovation it would be an awesome place. the guy who owns it wants to sell it, because he's never around anymore. 
we drove back up the mountain with the 44 turns and arrived in bukittinggi in the afternoon. i had left my stuff at orchid and when i got there ronnie (who works there) was talking to a girl, malin, who was traveling by herself for a while and we started talking and had some dinner and a couple of drinks at apache café (i recommend the apache cocktail), an awesome, laid back place where they always play rock. there are a lot of emo’s and alternative teenagers walking around in bukittinggi anyway, so most places are like this. and because many surfers go to the mentawai islands, because apparently it’s the place to surf the best waves on the planet (but I really don’t know much about that), and stop at bukittinggi, most bars and restaurant have a laid back surfers vibe going on, and you will also find many surfboards/posters/stickers around as decoration. 
i ran into eric and he would take me on a three day trip to harau valley the next morning, since i told him i already went to lake maninjau. when we arrived there, it was incredibly crowded! it was the day before ramadan and a sunday, so i guess most locals had the idea to chill out at the valley. we went to this enormous waterfall, which had grown to this size due to much rain in august. we had lunch at a gorgeous eco lodge and eric convinced me to leave the valley and go to his uncle’s home stay (called anas home stay, everybody knows it) in the mountain near lake maninjau. the valley was all right, but three days is way to long, so chilling out in the middle of a mountain sounded like a better plan.
guy selling icecream (or 'indoeskrim'), the waterfall (those tiny little stripes are people)
it was a long journey, because we had to go back to bukittinggi (to pick up a bottle of indonesian whiskey, hehe) and then to lake maninjau. there were loads of sugarcane plantations along the way and we stopped at a place where they make (the very tasty) brown sugar:
the sugarcane is squeezed so the juice comes out; the remains are used to keep the fire burning which boils the juice for about seven hours; the thick paste is removed from the fire and scooped into molds; when it's dry the sugar goes into a bag and is shipped away
the home stay is located halfway down a mountain and we had to walk down for about an hour through the jungle to get there (here left is the beginning of the trek). i was wearing sandals (big mistake!) and my feet we covered in tiny leeches (which i didn’t even notice at first). when the top of my backpack hit a low hanging branch, my neck started to itch. i took of my backpack and saw a bunch of red ants walking around...ouch...after slapping them of me, we continued and made it to the home stay right before dark. i dumped my stuff inside, said hi to ellie (the guy who lives there) and walked
up to the cottage with the hammock on the balcony and just could not stop staring at the spectacular view of the lake. the sun had set behind the mountains, the water looked peacefully stretched out and the soft vanilla sky was breathtaking. when i was walking to the home stay, with splashes of mud on my legs, blood on my feet and sweat everywhere, all i wanted to do when i’d arrive was take a shower and put on clean clothes, but when i was standing there on the balcony i didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything else but just stand there and take it all in.
when it got darker i washed up and had some dinner. me eric and ellie spent the evening playing guitar and singing songs, drinking sea horse (the so called whiskey) and playing games. ellie makes the most delicious banana pancakes in the world, i discovered that the next morning. i was supposed to head down to a waterfall to take a shower, but it was raining like crazy the whole day, so it was to dangerous to go into the jungle. i chilled on the balcony of the highest cottage and looked at monkeys climbing in the trees and clouds passing by. i’ve never actually been inside a cloud before. was very cool. i learned how to play the two most addictive games ever: milipit and chonkak (pronounced as tsjonkaa).
my feet after taking of the leeches, views from balcony with hammock
hammock, cloud, rain
view in daylight, the main cottage seen from the highest cottage, chonkak
milipit, ellie trying to fix the light (there is no electricity there and the water comes from a spring in the mountain), the inside of the main cottage
my bus to parapat the next day left at 5pm. malin, the girl i met in orchid, also wanted to go to lake toba and she would maybe join me on that 17 hour journey, but she was still at lili’s and decided to stay longer. we would meet up at lake toba two days later.
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