Oh dear god why did we do this?

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Got train and bus to airport this morning. Once at airport we waited to check in in the slowest moving queue EVER. Think this was partially due to some of the passengers fault (one family had too much luggage and had to start moving it about) and partly the woman servings fault (she sent the bloke in front of us's luggage to the wrong island).

They went a little crazy with the air cooler when we first got on (as you can see from the pic) and we couldn't even see the end of the aisle. The journey went really quick as it was only just over an hour. Padang airport is teeny tiny. Visa on arrival costs $25 . Got through immigration OK and I even had a chat with the guy about where we were going. Customs obviously though I looked particularly suspicious as they insisted on scanning all my luggage (just mine not Rob's pah). We changed some good old GBP's at a money changer as there were no ATM's. Got a mental taxi driver who slammed the brakes on quite a few times and nearly crashed quite a few more. One cool thing we've noticed about Padang is the pimped up minivan's (opulets - local transport) with their big speakers, funky music and funky decorated exteriors.

Anyhoo taxi driver pulled up outside the hotel we'd asked him to take us to, Nuansa, well not exactly the hotel more like a pile of rubble. He pointed at the pile and said, Hotel Immanuel?? Then said this would cost us 20,000 more, we agreed and he drove us literally round the corner and we were at the hotel- PAH. The hotel said they only had a family room available which would cost 340,000, we said no thanks, paid mr taxi man and set off wandering down the road in the hope of finding a cheaper alternative.

Padang really isn't a touristy place (and we were expecting this), it was just a little bit of a surprise at how expensive seems to be. Apparently after a drop in competition due to various natural disasters, the hoteliers increased their prices even though Padang is not really worthy of a high price tag. We bumped into an American guy on our search (this was pure luck as we didn't see any other tourists) and he told us where to go for cheap accommodation (he'd already been ripped of by Immanuel Hotel). A bit further up the road we spotted a hotel and took a double here for 175,000 with a fan, double bed and bathroom. Not one of the better places we've stayed but it was near an ATM, a supermarket and a tour shop so we figured at least location was good.

We bought tea from supermarket walking back to our hotel over a very rusty, rickety footbridge We're back to getting a lot of attention again aka standing out like sore thumbs and everywhere we go people say 'hello' or do a double take or smile or shout 'lady' or 'mister' or beep or holler something at you from their car!

We're not sure how the hell we'll get to our next destination, supposed to be going to Bukittinggi tomorrow but god knows how you get there......!?!

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