On seeing beautiful Sumatra

While millions of Americans celebrated Thanksgiving last Thursday and enjoyed their four day weekend, here in Indonesia people celebrated Friday’s Idul Adha by killing lots of cows and goats during their slightly shorter three day holiday.  On a last minute spur, Carolyn and I decided to use those days to get out of Jambi for a change.  Judging that a night bus would give us the most waking hours to enjoy our “liburan,” we jumped on a night bus to Bukittinggi in West Sumatra.  Unfortunately that bus was booked full so we resorted to taking a bus headed for Padang and then suffered the 3am rough wake up shake by our bus driver telling us to get out and join the other bus that was also pulled over on the side of the road, that one going to Bukittingi.  We complied and tried to catch a few more hours of sleep in this thankfully less air-conditioned bus.  After the 5am stop to let our fellow travelers pray at a roadside mosque I managed to get an hour’s sleep before we arrived in the hill town of Bukittingi.

Our plan to tour around the quaint city led us to an old hilltop fort used by the former Dutch colonial rulers and then to the saddest zoo I have ever seen on the adjacent hill.  The animals were kept in such poor environments that I don’t wish to describe them, but it still didn’t seem to put off the many families there enjoying their day off.  In the evening we found a café with a nice view of the town, had some good Western fare, and realized we were finally in a town that had more than the four foreigners of Jambi; we saw seven buleh and were so shocked by the sight we just had to stare at them like the Indonesians do to us.

One of the animals kept at the zoo: a seagull

The next morning Carolyn and I caught a bus to Danau Maninjau, a small sleepy town on the edge of lake surrounded on all sides by steep hills.  The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and as our cramped bus descended the 44 switchback turns to the bottom, I realized that this was what I would spend the rest of my year in Indonesia seeking: beautiful, peaceful and remote landscapes.

Our bus headed north along the lake and eventually stopped at a small road sign indicating that we had reached “Arlen’s Beach Paradise.”  The short trek through rice paddies soon opened up to our little piece of lakefront paradise. 

Even though all the cabins were occupied by a noisy group of foreigners on vacation from Pekanbaru, we managed to have a relaxing stay full of swimming, napping in the warm sun on the grassy lawn, eating good food while the rain pattered on the tin roof above us, and laughing at the three local boys swimming that demanded our attention.  To top it all off there was privacy- something almost unheard of for foreigners here and I enjoyed it immensely by reading an entire book.

Well it was a short trip and we headed back to Bukittingi the next day for our return bus that ended up leaving two hours after the time we were told.  This bus ride turned out to be even more miserable as I had an extra friendly male passenger sitting a little too close to me that kept me from sleeping most of the night.  But oh well, you have to be tough here and I am back in Jambi now holding back a desire to swear off night buses and am just looking forward to my next escape to a remote piece of nature.