Being on good terms with Pak Hendryk, the Branch Parts manager at PekanBaru, I managed to convince him to cancel our plane tickets to Padang, and instead, to supply us with a Jeep for the trip. Between PekanBaru and Padang lay the Tanjung Pao, a huge mountain range. Sumatra, the island we were currently on, was reknowned for the beauty of its mountains, Sumatra Barat, and I didn't want to miss the trip across them. Since this was anyway going to be cheaper than plane tickets, price would not be a problem, but it might require a trifle of persuasion to alter our travel plans. Luckily, our relationship with Pak Hendryk served us in good stead, and we were given permission to take a Jeep. Besides the driver, and the three of us, Ravi's Data Conversion assistant would also accompany us on this trip.
Morning broke, and the five of us set off along the road. It wasn't long before we entered the foothills of the Tanjung Pao. The Jeep's motion slowed as we negotiated one steep, winding road after another. The early morning sunlight cast a tinge of flame to the lush, green landscape, a gorgeous sight. As we rolled up the curve of the mountain, a dizzying stretch of the valley was displayed before us. The winding, criss-crossing roads looked nothing more than a bucket of noodles tipped across the mountainside.
Indonesia _is_ a gorgeous country, to begin with. Once you step outside the capital city of Jakarta, you notice a great deal more greenery. Jakarta's own heavy levels of industrialization make it a trifle more grey than the rest of the country, a difference that becomes much more evident as you move away from it. The countryside is rich and green tropical rain forests. In addition to this, the majesty of the mountain ranges makes for an unforgettable experience.
We passed through several small mountain villages, with an architecture uniquely Indonesian in nature. Several of the houses were perched on long, thin stilts. Most others had the typical moon-curved roofs of the region. I wondered how anyone could go out on the corners of those roofs to effect repairs; they were just too elaborate and delicate in appearance to allow for that.
Indonesia has a weird method of discouraging speeders. Huge warning monuments, cautioning against the danger of speeding, are seen along the roads. Each of these monuments are composed of the wreckage of several dozen cars, crushed together and put up on display as a warning to reckless drivers. We passed several of these on our way.
By noon, we rolled into the mountain town of Bukit Tinggi. As we drove around the town on an initial reconnaisance, I saw a small theatre just off the main road. What surprised me was the film running there: "Aadmi", starring Mithun Chakraborti !
I had always known that Indian films had a huge penetration in Indonesia, but to see it in such a small and remote town was definitely surprising ! I wonder if Mithun knew that he was still popular in Indonesia, long after fading from the Indian scene.
We stopped at a statue to take a photograph. The statue was a mammoth and extremely weird construct, consisting of a huge amorphous body covered with several gloopy body parts: a combination of several human bodies crushed together in an odd amalgam. I had no clue as to what this was intended to represent, but a small sign below mentioned "Merdeka" (which is Bahasa for Freedom, or Independence), so I assumed it had something to do with their Dutch colonial history. It was certainly worth a photograph; we were unlikely to come across anything like this again !
Bukit Tinggi is a tourist town, well known as a resort. There were colourful shops (and even more colourful tourists) all around. We drove around the Town Square and the Bukit Tinggi Bell Tower. Ravi smiled in beatific joy as he saw the shops.
"We must check them out, yaar ! There will be good bargains !"
Recognizing the hopelessness of attempting to stop this force of nature from shopping, we got out of the car and agreed to meet back in a while. Abhinav and I walked away to lunch in a Padang restaurant, while Ravi and the rest of the group went off to enrich the shopkeepers.
As I've described before, Padang cuisine doesn't believe in menus. The waiter placed a bowl of steaming rice and about seventeen little side-dishes in front of us (you only pay for what you eat). Abby and I, having no qualms about exotic food, dug in with relish. After we were satiated, we departed the restaurant and looked around the town. It was a warm summer afternoon, with the weather just right for walking around, so we did.
It wasn't long before we met Ravi, his face covered with a wreath of smiles and carrying a load of caps in his arms.
"It is fabulous, yaar, look at the great deals I got !"
By which we assumed that he had made some shopkeeper very happy. Ravi's joy bubbled over like a child on Christmas morning. The group gathered together and we got back into the Jeep.
The driver took us around to another famous Bukit Tinggi attraction, the Japanese mine-shafts. During World War II, the Japanese had taken over Bukit Tinggi, and enslaved the entire population, forcing them to dig huge tunnels underground, which served as the Japanese HQ at the time. This was supposed to keep them safe from Allied bombing. The tunnels still survived, and were preserved as a part of the Indonesian war heritage.
We walked through long passages that curved several furlongs underground. Despite the summer day, it was extremely cold within the tunnels. A complete Japanese encampment (armoury, officer's quarters, kitchen, soldier's barracks, etc) had been set up within. A great deal of the population had died during the tunneling, which remained a sore point with the Indonesians.
For a small town, Bukit Tinggi had an excellent zoo, yet another of the many tourist attractions that it boasted. Bukit Tinggi's zoo held a wide assortment of animals and animal exhibits, ranging all the way up to a huge dinosaur skeleton, assembled together painstakingly from the component parts.
Abhinav's and my attention was captivated by a huge orangutan in a cage. The "Orang" "utan", literally Old Man (of the Jungle), is a huge anthropoid, with extremely long and deft arms. At that point, this beautiful golden beast was reaching outside its cage towards a packet of peanuts which was lying on top of a plastic bag. The peanuts were out of its reach, so it was tugging on the plastic bag to draw it nearer. To our dismay, a last sharp tug pulled the plastic bag out from under the peanuts, leaving the bag in the orangutan's hands, and the peanuts sadly out of reach. As we were watching the ape in pity (and preparing to buy it some more peanuts), it surprised us. It took the plastic bag over to its water tank, scooped up a bagful of water, and held the bag in its hands as it slowly sipped. The plastic bag had always been its target, not the peanuts !
We passed a group of crocodiles, lazily tanning themselves in the sun. These seemed to win the reward for the laziest beast in the zoo, hands down; all they did was soak in the sun, or in odd moments of energy, slowly roll over into the shallow pool. Another notable beast was the Komodo dragon, a huge lizard that slowly prowled its cage.
We stepped out of the zoo, and into an Indonesian museum, which depicted several aspects of Indonesian culture, including a Padang house, complete with ceremonial bridal chamber and intricate wedding garb, historical photographs, instruments of worship and so on. It was a thorough immersion in the history of the place.
But we were running out of time, and still had to make it in to Padang, so we got back into the Jeep and continued our drive through the Tanjung Pao. We trundled into Padang in the evening, at about 5 p.m. It was a beautiful little town, well deserving of its title, the Cultural Capital of Sumatra.
We checked in at the hotel. This was a huge rambling house, run by two old women. It consisted of two buildings, with a large garden in between. The inhabitants of the garden included several cats, and some monkeys in cages. Several garden chairs were scattered around, for the benefit of the guests. A very old-world atmosphere prevailed. Indonesia's countryside often presents the image of a place cut off from the rest of the world: calm and slow, living without any hurry. It's an extremely relaxed environment to live in.
Abby and I were a trifle too perked up with energy to remain in the hotel (as Ravi's plans went), so we walked outside, soaking in the atmosphere of Padang. It was twilight, and the streets appeared to be almost devoid of human life (though this was probably due to the fact that we were wandering away from the town green and the beaches, which is where most of the population could be found on these lazy evenings). We found a bajji-seller and promptly bought most of his stock for hotel consumption (something that Ravi was deeply thankful for).
It was going to be a busy day tomorrow; we were going to have an influx of new people (Radhe, Shanti, Satish) in the next week or so; but for that moment, we settled down in the quiet garden and forgot the world.
That's enough travel ... now let's head back home