Bukittingi and Lake Maninjau

---

Again, the piccies are unsorted, but we hope you enjoy! Should be another one in the next 48 hours too!

The journey from Bukit Lawang involved going back into Medan, which we did with Calvin (who was following us to an ATM to collect the rest of our bill!) and Penny who was heading to Lake Toba another travellers favourite in Sumatra. We decided to skip Toba and go straight down to Bukit tinggi and Lake Maninjau. We were dropped off at a bus stop after sorting Calvin out and saying our goodbyes and then jumped on a local bus with Penny to take us to the bus station where we had tickets which had been reserved for us by Nora for the Bukit Tinggi bus. Or so we thought... When we arrived the the place was mayhem with people everywhere and no sign of a queue in sight. When we eventually worked out which window was dealing with the BT bus we were told that the only 2 seats available were the 2 right at the back, in the middle of the isle. No space, no window and they didn't recline which didn't sound like much fun for a 24 hour marathon. So we declined those seats and a little bloke told us there was another company up the road which also went to BT. We sweated up the road to the next place and found there was an “executive bus” leaving in the next 20 mins and it was cheaper than the other place! We had a quick chicken satay and rice, stocked up with drinks and snacks and then boarded the bus. We found our seats and then discovered they were permanently reclined all the way, which would not be too comfortable for the long journey. We swapped seats and found that one was permanently upright and the other always reclined. We discovered there were spare wheels and other junk behind them propping them up so by moving the junk about, we could adjust your seat angles a bit. They were nice wide seats (only 3 per row rather than the usual 4) and the bus was OK and had aircon so we settled down for the journey ahead.

The afternoon slipped by as we watched the beautiful countryside slip by outside the window and soon it was dark as we made our winding way south towards the equator. We slept reasonably well but had to swap seats in the morning to save our backs and necks from permanently seizing up. We think Joe got the better deal as he was in the reclined seat at night and the upright one in the morning. We crossed the equator at around midday and there was no ceremony just a battered old sign... What did we expect? A big line I suppose and maybe a sink on each side so that you could see which way the water went down... Soon we were winding up and down mountains round hairpin bend after hairpin bend... It started to feel like a bad fairground ride. Mon wanted to get off and was soon puking into a plastic bag Joe had hastily removed his rambutans from (hairy red fruit - delcious a little bit like lychees). Joe was feeling a bit green round the gills too but managed to keep everything down. Mon puked a few more times but before long we were pulling into BT bus station. Phew!

We walked around the town for about 30 mins with our bug packs looking for the Hotel Asia and were told 5 different directions by 5 different people (it is the Asian way - if you don't know, just make something up to be polite!). We eventually found it and checked into a decent room for an OK price. The hotel was had gone for seventies style f aux-opulence with lots of tacky chandeliers mirrors with and glass along with giant vases and ornaments. It was all very kitsch. We moved rooms to one with a nicer view and then settled in and chilled for a bit, before venturing out for some food.

We checked out the view from the balcony outside our room which was nice just as the biggest, closest and loudest mosque of the 4 or 5 within earshot started their evening prayer call which didn't add much to the ambiance. Soon the others were trying to out do each other and the din was awful (sorry Allah).

We went off for food down the road and bumped into Laura and James who had been at the Rainforest Cafe with us in BL. That happens a lot when you are traveling. There tends to be a “circuit” in most countries and you keep bumping into the same people along the way. Sometimes you are pleased to see them, sometimes you try and hide. Luckily they fell into the former category and we chatted to them for a while and had some food and then went back to the hotel and vegged out in front of the movie channel.

We spent the next few days wandering around the town looking at the sights and markets. We were approached by 2 cute and innocent looking Muslim girls of about 10 years old who seemed really nice at first and we asked their names and told them ours. Then they started demanding ice creams and stalked us for the next hour or so. Where ever we went, they were there “Ice cream, ice cream!” We found a shop with 2 doors and managed to give them the slip out the back entrance but then spent the rest of the day looking over our shoulders and running from every Muslim headdress wearing child we saw, which was a lot of running.

We read about a place called Panorama park which had nice views over a nearby canyon and some tame monkeys which hung out there as well as some “Japanese tunnels” that were built during WWII. We decided to walk across town and eventually found the place after a few wrong turns. It was a few pence to get in and we admired the view and the cheeky moneys for a while, and then decided to check out the tunnels. We read that they had been built by the Japanese using Indonesian slave labour at the cost of many lives. We headed down the many stairs into the cool tunnels below which were a relief from the heat up above. We then wandered around as there was no real information about the tunnels so we just looked around. There were no maps, but we knew where we were, so that was OK. It looked like there used to be some exhibits down there like a museum but these were all gathering dust and inaccessible. There was hardly anyone else down there as it was past 4 o'clock and the tunnels shut at 5. We had taken various left and right turns and walked to the end of a long tunnel and found another entrance, but this was locked up. We looked at the time and decided it was time to start heading back. It was up to the end of this tunnel then right then... was it the first left or the second right..??? Hmmm... We wandered around for a while and Mon started to look a bit worried. We saw places we were sure we had passed, but were still not sure which direction the only open exit was. We realised at this point no one had actually see us go in and by the state of the cameras down there, they were probably the original Japanese ones. At this point we did start to get a little worried and our brows were a bit sweaty dispite the coolness of the tunnels. Eventually after a bit of searching we realised we were in a parallel tunnel to the one we wanted but it was a few hundred metres long (the tunnels were really big) and there was only one joining tunnel along the length, which we eventually found and then climbed the stairs with much relief. I think spending the night down there had crossed both of our minds and it would have been a long spooky night!

Up top it was nearly sunset and we were told lots of big flying foxes could be seen flying out of the canyon at this time, so we headed over to the viewing area, neatly side stepping the “friendly locals” i.e. touts. Joes camera was running low on batteries, but there was a beautiful sunset and lots of massive bats flying by which made for some good shots. There was even an almost full moon out but we failed to get a decent shot of a bat with the moon in the background and Joes battery ran out at this point. After the sun had set we decided to make a move before the touts made another offensive and headed back to town avoiding the usual crowd of taxi, horse and cart and bemo (bicycle taxi) drivers offering “Transport!?” and walked back to our hotel a more direct route than we had come.

After a few days in BT we headed to nearby lake Maninjau which was going to be a nice place to get back to nature and relax by a beautiful lake within a volcanic crater with beautiful farm lands and rice paddies all around. The morning we left there was an over the top Chinese style wedding going on in the main reception area which fitted in perfectly with the hotel decor. We quietly had breakfast in the corner then walked through proceedings in our grubby shorts and dusty packs probably getting some dirty looks from the wedding party for bringing the tone down. We got a little local taxi/bus thing which picks people up and drops them off where ever to the bus stop then got on a dodgy local bus. The conductor tried to charge us twice as we had our packs next to us on the EMPTY bus. So we had to have them tied on to the roof instead. There were some dodgy locals trying to talk to us so we ignored them as politely as possible and read our books. We might sound a little harsh when it comes to the locals and touts, but they are proper pests and annoying fuckers who won't take no for an answer. In most cases to ignore them, perhaps after one polite “no thanks” is the only way to avoid wasting time talking bollocks with them while they try to separate you from your money somehow. Occasionally you do get the odd authentic nice person in Indo but the vast majority of people who approach you out of the blue are wronguns.

The bus ride was ok, but took longer than it should have with several stops for no apparent reason. At one of them some fucker with a guitar got on and proceeded to play about 3 tunes and sing to the bus who wholly ignored him. He even stopped between songs to give some inane (presumably) spiel about the song he was about to play as if he was live on stage in front of his adoring fans. He eventually left after stopping for a few seconds in front of us and muttered something when we didn't drop anything in his cap before stropping off. The last few miles were made up of 44 numbered hair pin bends that took us down in to the crater where the lake was.

We were dropped outside of town near one of the popular guest houses, but couldn't decide where we wanted to stay... Joe wanted to go to a place well out of town in the middle of nowhere right on the lake called Arlens Paradise Bungalows which had a good write up in the book but Mon insisted on getting a little local bus back in to the town centre to look at the competition. We checked out about 3 or 4 place and they were either shit or expensive or both, so we stopped to get a drink and use the internet at a place in town until evening fell, still with our backpacks. We paid and left, only to discover the local transport stopped running at 5 and we were now a bit stuck, 8km from Arlen Paradise Bungalows where “we” had decided to stay now. Luckily the lovely lady from the internet place helped us accost a couple of locals with mopeds and jump on the back with our packs for a good price. They dropped us at the entrance to Arlens and we discovered it was another 500m along a narrow path which ran beside a stream and between rice paddies down to the lake side. We checked into a nice little room, stripped off and jumped in the lake to cool off. We then had food in the little restaurant then retire to our veranda for plenty of beers and some jungle weed we had left over from Bukit Lawang.

Lake Maninjau was paradise indeed. Every morning we had a swim first thing in the lake, watched fisherman fish, watched the birds and butterflies flutter around the gardens and generally unwound. One day we hired a moped and rode around the lake which was nice and we got to see lots of people living their lives in this beautiful setting and everyone seemed to be happily getting on with things, even if that did mean spending most of the day knee deep in muddy water in a rice paddy... As the jungle weed was about to run out, as if by magic an actual friendly local in the restaurant asked us if we wanted any weed. So we asked for a little bit (50,000rp worth) and he went off to source it. He was only gone for half an hour. He told us it was actually 200,000rp for the whole package (which was pretty big) but we said we only had 50,000 to spend and he gave us almost half of it for that! Result.

The rest of the time there was more of the same and was nice. Eventually we decided it was time to leave Sumatra and had to head to Padang to book a flight: the local travel agents were just a bloke with an old type writer and a mobile phone who only took cash, and the closest atm was back in BT. We got a cheap ride to Padang and were soon arguing about which hotel to go to in the rain. We eventually found somewhere and booked in. We booked some cheap flights to Jakarta and were soon on our way there.

---