Padang - Travel in Sumatra II

Having spent a lazy week or so in Bukkittinggi we travelled back via taxi to Padang. (apparently the lonely planet tells us that there is a tourist train that does this trip, on sundays only, we arrived sunday, left.... hmmm. friday I guess.....)

Padang is supposedly a largish centre on the ocean, so much hotter, but it rained almost every day.

Public travel is quite easy in small vans called Angcots. They like to 'pimp' them up a bit....(though why spend good money on spoilers, body kits, deafeningly loud stereos and large exhausts etc on a clapped out van that is prolly worth less than $1000 is beyond me...

the waterfront in padang had some stalls that you could eat lunch by the seaside (where is the whoopee-doo smilie?) they were not real nice. beach was dirty and rocky.

scenery was lovely, the town was a dump. and quite provincial, dozens of people stared at me, and called out Bule. I just called out Indo and pointed back at them.

I read in the lonely planet that you could get a boat across the river at the south part of town and then walk around past a chinese cemetery (whoopi-doo) to Air Manis ( a famous beach area 10km south )

10 km sounded a bit far for us to walk.... we found a taxi and began negotiating. ( I physically had to pull my partner away from the first one, who insulted her after she told him what she thought of his fare costs...)

agreed with the 2nd one for 120,000 rupiah ($12 return) who told us it would take over an hour each way ( 10kms? turns out LP was wrong) and indeed it did, over a winding mountain road and much traffic, including us driving over a 2 metre embankment after begin stuck on a railway line with train bearing down on us but nowhere else to go due to traffic jams!)

once there, we joined a million other Indonesian tourists to wander in between the cars and stalls selling mama noodles, coral :( or hermit crabs..... :(

Not relishing the prospect of the taxi ride home (no aircon either) we found a boat doing 10 minute joy rides and negotiated a price to take us back tp padang beach instead (200,000 Rupiah or $20) my partner had a fit when I told her the price, but i wasnt too concerned.

was ok but We hired the same boat guys again the next day and spent the day on Palua pisang besar - an almost deserted island (apart from 3 families who rent it for $300 per year) - i'd love to buy it.

one of the local kids climbed the tree and cut down some cocnuts for us to drink from ( 10,000 rupiah or $1)

Padang has a large, well all areas in Indonesia have a chinese influence or area. Kampung Cina Kota (Chinatown). This included a rather picturesque Chinese temple.

outside of Padang (about 10 minutes in a car) we stopped at a little roadside stall for a drink and a wee gander at the view....

Bukkitinggi - travelling in Sumatra

Sumatra is famous for it's spicey food (Masakan Padang) and buildings. Loads of buildings have the above pictured style of roof, it is said to represent the cow horns that are so ubiquitous here, look quite interesting too.

Travel costs double due to end of Ramadam holiday (idul fitri). :(

You can go via the TransSumatran Hwy, but due to the holiday traffic was mental and the ferry from Java, was severly clogged, [pic to come] flying was a much better option. So we flew to Padang, (no idea of cost my partner paid, I think about 1 million rupiah return, about $100 and then booked a taxi to bukit tinggi via airport travel desk (350,000 Rupiah or $35).

So far so good....I suspected things may not be so good when the two kids driving the car

"two drivers, whaddya we need two drivers for!!!?"

"Jaow!" (=long distance) 2-3 hours? ok, whateva!


anyway they put it into reverse and crashed into the car parked behind them before we even left the airport. :(

in the end they were not too bad…. Apart from playing the same 2 songs on a cassette tape over and over the entire trip.

The scenery along this mountainous road was fantastic, all mountains and winding roads. (just watch out for the crazy buses overtaking at any point they feel like.)

We stopped at a waterfall, just as it started to rain….

Bukkitinggi is surrounded by 27 mountains, or so the local bureaucrat on the front cover of the tourist guide at the front desk tells me. Certainly pretty, right on the equator but at 950metres elevation reasonably cool and pleasant, in fact first night we walked down the street and I froze my ass off. (well shivered a little bit)

Aint really much to do in town itself. A center clock tower. Woopeedoo some clapped out old zoo, (didn’t go there) some broken down old dutch fort. (4,000 rupiah (40 cents) to enter but 100,000 rupiah ($10) to take photos, and another 100,000 ($10) for video)

But it is an interesting town to wander, split level town, little alleys, a couple of mosques. There was a bridge across the main street connecting the old fort and crappy zoo. A busy market place, food stalls. 2 or 3 quiet touristy style cafes and that’s about it. Plenty of horse carts to give you a ride.

Bukit Tinggi is described in the Lonely Planet as the biggest tourist stopover point in west Sumatra….? I think I saw a total of 10 bule here over the past week….local tourists perhaps…it is a small town in the mountains, with not much to do, expect wander. there is plenty of cheap accomodation, but we stayed at the The Hills

+62-752 35 000 hotel[at]thehillsbukittinggi.com used to be the novotel,
good location. Ok rooms. nice gardens

About 750,000 p/n, ($75) good location. there was 2 or 3 backpacker style cafe/beer shops, other than that, nothing to cater for western tastes, plenty of street stalls, sate and fried rice etc.

Due to being the end of ramadan you could buy fireworks all over the place, and the locals having nothing better to do set off fireworks every 5 minutes every night from the main square centred around a stupid clock tower....… got tiresome after the first 5 minutes. I can tell you!

A friendly guy/Travel agent resided at one of the Cafes and ran trips

– sightseeing, trekking, jungle lakes 150,000 rp /day. (on the back of a motorbike, I said no - we wanted a car. he could do it, cost about 500,000 Rupiah a day.

Located at Bedual café

+62 813 7453 7413 or fikar_bkt[at]hotmail.com or uda_karl[at]hotmail.com or Picasa Web Albums - "Fikar" LITE'n'EASY

I didnt use him because he was on holidays while we where there.... in the end we hired a car and driver and exorbitant cost from the hotel (750,000 Rupiah/day due to Ramadan holiday) and followed the tourist trail outlined in the brochures....


you could hire bicycles and ride around this lake (70kms). I wasn't organised enough this time though. definitely an option for next time. Here is the number of a place with accomodation - no doubt they may be able to help, but you'll probably need good BI skills.....

Pasir Panjang Permai
Maninjai
tel (0752) 611111
fax (0752) 61255

there is a few accommodation places around the lake also. we had lunch here.

The area of Bukkitinggi is famous for silver

and worth a visit in town was some quite extensive Japanese war tunnels, complete with Ammo bunkers, mess halls, movie theatre etc. It only cost (3,000 or 4,000 Rupiah to get in (30 cents) and thus was a bit run down and crap.

Harua Valley

The car and driver dropped us off and let us walk a few kilometres up the road, really nice walk and peaceful trip. just watch the traffic.

Lunch spot at a convention centre (100% empty) in the Harau valley, really beautiful spot. lunch was ok. had beer. total price was about ($5) - it was called Lembah Echo (Homestay, cafe, convention) - sorry no number.

there was some big bat cave... quite large and extensive, it had lights, and boardwalks and ladders all over the place. crap photos, so I will not bore you. Entry was about 3,000 or 4,000 rupiah again (30 cents US). some kid wandered into this pic, but too lazy to retake. we had a 'guide' attach himself to us, and we paid good money for some stupid pics inside

of course low entry price means low maintainance and of course the Indo tourists scramble all over the stalagmites....

Cricket in Puncak - mountains outside of Jakarta.

Global Jaya Cricket Team Report

SGJ entered a team into the International Maddogs Cricket 6’s tournament, played on a very well maintained purpose built cricket ground in the imposing hills and leafy plantations of puncak.

Despite some difficulties in getting a team together due to work commitments, transportation problems, early morning rising issues and the flu, SGJ scrapped together some students, teachers, and a cricket mad librarian, with the addition of a couple of ring-ins in the form of a sinetron star and some local street kids we were a competitive side.

Travelling remained an issue, a certain 16 year old, or was it 17 year old? strike bowler slept in, not answering his phone and having avoided giving out his house number, the cricketers resorted to driving around his complex contemplating knocking on every door, or just shouting out ‘Mark, Maaaaaaaaark, Marky? Luckily, Chief organizer and navigator, Bu Keyren had a better idea; just ask the sapam’s, even then having found his house we were told he was not home! (by his little sister, clearly trying to buy him a few more minutes of well needed sleep.) Fortunately, our coach and captain, has 4 little sisters himself and just said “BS, go and wake him up, NOW!”

Some speedy driving had as arrive at puncak just on time. Alas, the opposition team were the ones who had given us a map of the ground location, should we have been suspicious? An hour and a half, several tours of 4wheel drive roads (poor low-slung BMW) and some interesting turn arounds (think narrow road, cliff side, and 16 point turns) later we were rescued by a bule wife returning from the ground.

A rearranged schedule allowed us time for a few warm ups from the younger and keener members of the team while the older members headed straight for fluid replenishments. WE won the toss, and having a very strong bowling side (in comparison to our batting strength) elected to bowl.

Strike bowler, Mark, lives up to his name getting out their dangerous opening batsman with a superb first ball, cutting in to smash his off and middle stump out of the ground. The remaining balls restricted the opposition to a low score with very tidy opening over.

Bring on Mark II! He gains us a second wicket, then another, the captain brings the field right in, applying pressure for the hat-trick, a slightly slower and looser ball tricks the batsmen into hitting it high and straight to a catcher in a deep backwards square position. Cheers all round as Mark gains his hat-trick, Maddogs were in tatters now, and it was only the second over. A couple of dot balls, and with the final ball of his over cleans up the last of the surviving Maddogs.

First innings complete in 2 overs, we had hardly worked up a sweat. We needed to chase 12 runs. Mark and Liam opened the batting, a single and a few boundaries had us close until Mark lost his wicket, Sledge was facing, planning a big hit to win the game in style was thwarted with a mix up with in the number of runs required, thus letting a legside wide win us the game instead.

The next and last game of the pool, was against the jungle team, don’t let the name fool you, this was a competitive side. We opened the bowling again, and although the heroics of a 4 wicket haul in a single over were not repeated, Mark and Mark did pick us up a couple of wickets. Sledge, no doubt dazed combination of the success of the previous win, fading in the heat of the day and a lack of liquids? managed another record, 6 consecutive leg side wides, (each of which cost us 2 extra runs) apologizing to the team each time!

The remaining bowlers learned that they should do as the captain says not as he does and steadied the ship, though our wicket keeper/Libarian discovered that the job is a lot harder when the bowlers aint hitting the wickets, cos you have to stop the ball, though in fairness, he only let a couple through to the boundary. A fine display of keeping and fielding, was nto enough as we still needed 63 to win! (the 2^nd highest score of the day, thus far!)

Some slight changes to the line up, to accommodate slightly stiffer batsmen, Mark, Yoko, Mark and Sledge all contributed runs to the board, but with several wickets falling we still required 12 runs in the last over, unable to get the ball in the air for boundaries, the remaining batsmen decided the only way to win was run, and run they did. The opposition panicked, a couple of wild overthrows, allowed them to run 5 on one occasion. The target looked closer, 3 balls to go, 3 runs needed, a combination of superb bowling and fielding stopped some great balls, that should have been boundaries! Suddenly the last ball, 3 runs needed, 2 runs was all we could get.

The opposition cheered until they realized that the score on the board was the target, not their score, we had a tie! A count back of lost wickets had Global Jaya as pool champions! We were now due to play in the semi finals, some controversial lunch timing decisions, meant that we were forced to snack on rabbit food and play on empty stomachs,

We tried our best but were clearly out classed, some tactical changes in the bowling line up, did not help us restrict their score as much as we would have hoped, the opening batsmen tore apart our lineup, though Dick should have scored more than 20 off sledge. (he had nothing!)

Facing an imposing target of 80 runs, the openers Mark and Yoko, just could not get the ball in the air often enough and with long grass all over the filed were unable to reach the boundaries often enough to charge down the total. However, they played well and neither lost their wicket, another success story as far as I am concerned!

Well down on those who played, thanks to our wonderful supporters, Keyren and Otin, Globaljaya team will be putting on our pads again for the Jakarta 6’s in early November, and are definitely a team to watch!

New Kittens...

New additions to the family, Cha cha and Tango.

Driving in Jakarta

Driving in Jakarta can be quite stressful for those not new to it. Often appearing to have a lack of road rules, it is not for the unwary.

YouTube - Jakarta driving - roundabouts and bikes.3gp

YouTube - Jakarta driving - red & white flags line the streets.3gp

YouTube - Jakarta driving - pedestrians walk all over the road.3gp

YouTube - Jakarta driving - off the main road- motorbikes and vendors.

These driving definitions may be of some help, originally published on 4/11/1988 in the San Francisco Chronicle, written by Jon Carroll.

THE ROAD. Includes not only the paved portion of the highway, but also what we might call “the verge”, “the curb”, “the sidewalk”, “the front yard”, “the roadside restaurant”, and “the monastery”. The paved portion of the roadway is generally one lane wide. Not one lane in each direction: one lane.

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RESPECT. All animals are granted the greatest respect in Asia. It is presumed that being highly evolved creatures, chickens and dogs and the like know how to sidestep a Mitsubishi going 78 mph on a for-shrouded road during a national religious holiday.

This same position of honor is granted to small children, cripples, men with 30 pounds of hay on their heads, unattended oxcarts and elderly women in mystic trances. Slowing or swerving to avoid these beings would cause them dishonor.

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DISHONOR. Getting from morning to evening while remaining in the same incarnation.

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LANES. These colorful white and yellow markings wish a hearty “Selamat datang” (Welcome) or “Hi!” to every traveler. They have no other function.

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PASSING. The national sport of Asian drivers. Observant motorists may encounter the vertical triple (passing three vehicles in one acceleratory movement,) the horizontal triple ( passing a vehicle that itself is in the process of passing a vehicle,) or even the rare double-double (passing a vehicle at precisely the same time that another vehicle, coming in the other direction, is also engaged in the act of passing.)

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TAILGATING. What to do when not passing.

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BEING PASSED. An insult not to be endured. The greater the differential between your vehicle (say, a broken tricycle) and the passing vehicle (say, a Boeing 747,) the greater the potential loss of prestige. The owner of the less powerful vehicle must always do everything in his/her power to thwart the attempt to overtake.

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SEATBELTS. Absolutely unnecessary. Not only are they not worn, they are not even provided. Passengers are fully protected by the horn (see below)

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LIGHTS. Rapidly blinking the headlights can mean many things, including “OK to pass now,” “dangerous to pass now,” or “may you find the thread of gold in the linen of existence.” It takes years, sometimes entire lifetimes, to learn this subtle and intriguing intuitive nonverbal communication skill. Generally, however, you have about three seconds.

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THE HORN. When sounded loudly and frequently, the horn sets up an invisible energy barrier protecting the vehicle and its inhabitants from all harm. The faster the vehicle is going, the better the horn works. This is the central concept of Asian motoring.

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ACCIDENTS. Rare. Usually the result of a malfunctioning horn.