July 2nd, 2009

On our last day together Rick took us to Lake Maninjau for a hike full of leeches and lime green lizards. The man knows all the best spots! Even the forest trails that have small local bars to have a cold beer on the way. We stopped to see if we could find some rafflesia flowers (biggest in the world) in Bukittinggi, but the only two we found were a dead one, and a bud that would take at least 2-3 weeks to open. Bummer.

Traveling with Rick we finally could stop and soak in the local architecture. Minangkabau, the local folks, are so obsessed with bulls that even the roofs of the houses are shaped as bullhorns. According to the old legend, a Javan prince once had a quarrel with a local princess. They were to get married, but she changed her mind, so he sent in the troops. But the smart Minangkabau suggested settling the dispute with a bullfight instead. Javans agreed and sent in a huge mean fighting bull, while Minangkabau sent a tiny little calf with razor sharp knifes strapped to its teensy horns. The story gets a little vague here, but apparently the calf was so hungry it tried to suckle from its male (!) opponent and slashed his belly open. Since then the bulls here are held in high regard as the symbol of Minangkabau cleverness.

West Sumatra Gallery

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July 1st, 2009

We were looking for a cheap guesthouse, but found a job. Well, almost. Being joined by new travel mates always opens up doors to new ways to travel that I’ve never even considered. In Padang, our search for cheap accommodation was coming up with nothing but tired feet and sweat stains, so I entered a school to ask them if they knew something useful. Masha came along. “Maybe we can give them an English lesson in exchange for accommodation,” she suggested. I grabbed the ball and ran with it. Soon everybody in the building knew about the two white girls who wanted to teach English. An English teacher was summoned, but before she got to us we were introduced to the principal and a physics professor. It was just as well – Ewan, the physics professor, spoke better English than the English teacher.

kindergarten children of Padang

The school day was over, and we were ready to exploit our natural gift of yakedy-yak (in three to four languages if needed) the next day, but it turned out that it would be a “teacher enrichment” day, and children wouldn’t have classes. Nevertheless, Ewan took us in. He lived on the outskirts of Padang in a nice house with his wife and parents-in-law. The house was a simple Muslim home with few decorations and a prayer or two on the walls. Ewan’s mother-in-law has decorated the thorny bushes outside the house with empty eggshells, and those, from afar, looked like bulbs of white flowers.

But our fraternizing with the locals didn’t end there.

Expats are often the most useful people in a foreign country. While waiting for the boat from the city of Padang to Siberut Island, we stumbled upon Rick, an ex-Australian, who usually takes people to a gibbon sanctuary and arranges surfing vacations. He told us the time we had allotted for exploring Siberut was insufficient as it takes a lot of time to get around the island on the little boats using rivers as highways and costs a pretty penny. The deeper you go in, the more interesting it is, but the rivers were quite dry and the indigenous tribes in the bush are pretty fed up with tourists. We had enough of that in Africa.

I was not against seeing gibbons, and Rick looked like he needed some post-Soviet drinking buddies who wouldn’t mind discussing politics over vodka - his boat mysteriously gone up in flames a few days ago, a short time after a disagreement with the local government over some touchy environmental issues. We got along great and spent two nights in Rick’s guesthouse while island hopping in the day and drinking Smirnoff and beer in the evenings. This is the first and last time I’m chasing vodka with salted limes.

another unexpected though welcome guest at Rick’s house

Padang Gallery

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June 30th, 2009

Bus to Bukitingi. Rest stop. Dinner time.
I came up to the waitress in a poorly lit eatery with plastic flowers on the tables. “Nasi goreng?” The restaurant owner stepped in immediately: “Yes? Please?”
-Do you have fried rice?
-Yes.
-Do you have fried noodles?
-Yes.
-Can I have two plates of fried noodles?
-Yes. Please.
-Terima kasih (thank you very much)
We waited but soon the waitress came back: “Sorry. No orange juice.” Um… I didn’t order that but whatever. “OK, I’ll have a coke.” The waitress brought the coke and we sipped on it waiting for our food. We waited and watched other bus passengers get, eat, and finish their meals. We waited until the bus driver came and told us to get back on the bus. And finally, we waited until next morning to get something to eat.