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Published: September 21st 2012
The minibus from Pagaralam to Padang takes 18 hours. I'll spare you the finer details of the journey - it's 18 hours on a bus; it's boring, exasperating and atrocious. The poor driver has to stop and ask several times until we finally find the right tiny alley where my hotel is located. In my infinite youthful naïvety, I believe that I might make it on a boat to Mentawai that same day. I should have done my research - the boat leaves twice weekly, which means I'm stuck in Padang for three days.
It turns out not to be the worst place to while away a few days. The locals are friendly, smiles and 'Hello, Mister!'s are the norm. The distinctive Padang cuisine can be heavenly, if you find the right place. There's no menu, you'll be sitting down and the waiter will put a dozen or so small plates in front of you, plus a big plate of rice, which serves as the base for the saucy dishes. I tell the guy I don't eat meat, and get tofu, water spinach, gherkins and several types of beans, all in more or less spicy sauces. I scoop a bit
of each onto the rice and do as the locals - I eat using my right hand to mix everything, pick up a small handful and use my thumb to shove it into my gob. It's messy, there's no way around it. A bit of dexterity serves as damage control, but even the experienced locals have rice and sauce all over their fingers.
Walking around town, I get invited by warung kopi-owners to come sit with them and have a drink. They ask a few questions in IndoEnglish, but the language gap is too big, so they mostly talk amongst themselves about my peculiar appearance, while I sit there smiling and nodding. One family in particular is very surprised when I order a teh telur. Not something that tourists usually request. It's sweet tea blended together with egg to make a frothy concoction that tastes a helluva lot better than it sounds.
When I pass a school, a massive number of kids starts closing in on me, some wanting to take pictures of me on their mobile phones. Even the girls, all wearing the hijab, are anything but shy; they wave and shout "Hello Mister! How are you?
What is your name?". Some of them even blow me air kisses, running away laughing after fulfilling this very un-Islamic deed.
In the hotel, I see my first white people in Sumatra. Quite a lot of them, actually. Most of them speak Portuguese, and it doesn't take me long to figure out that they go on surfing trips to Mentawai with the Portuguese husband of the hotel owner. They hand over large wads of cash (red notes - 100,000 rupiah, the highest Indonesian banknote) to the owner, or more like they throw it at her without a care in the world. One small, baldy bloke gets nervous for a second because he thinks he left five million rupiah at the ATM, but then he discovers it in his backpocket. Who puts five million into the backpocket of their pants?
Also, there's one Portuguese chick with partially shaved hair. She acts as though she lives at the hotel, and during the whole time I stay there, I never see her doing anything else but skype with people in Portugal. Why is she in Indonesia then?
There are a few memorable character hanging out there, the most interesting of
which being a 50-something Australian guy who looks like an alcoholic surfie-version of Crocodile Dundee. He's got a few fun stories up his sleeve, and he knows a lot about Mentawai. He's been there many times on surf trips, and the last time he went he contracted a mean virus by the name of Chigunkunya. Having originated in Africa, that virus made its way to Southeast Asia, with outbreaks occurring in Mentawai. He goes on to elaborate, taking sips from a big bottle of Bintang in between:
"It's a nasty thing, I can tell ya. You get red spots and rashes all over your body. It's on your arms and legs, on your hands, on your balls and penis. I was bed-ridden for over a month. Took me two to completely recover from it. There's also Dengue Fever on Mentawai, and Malaria, of course. But I've never contracted Malaria, never took a tablet. I think it's because I drink a lot of beer. That's a theory. Whether or not it's true, I can't testify. Because the beer seeps out of your pores, and the mosquitoes don't like it. But I've had Golden Staph three or four times. You get
it from the smallest cuts, on your fingers, on your feet. But I never want that Chigunkunya again. That's for sure. Even my wife, she was pregnant at that time, and she started getting the symptoms. Nasty, nasty thing."
I meet some local emo kids in the street, and sit with them for a bit. They have home-made scratchy tattoos, one guy of Sponge Bob, whom I don't believe can be remotely described as emo. They also have a couple of piercings, mostly eyebrow and lip, something very unusual in Sumatra. One of them asks if I wanna join them later for karaoke. I think 'Why not?' and ask them for the address. When I try to find the place later, a torrential rain starts to pour down. And doesn't stop for a few hours. I take refuge at a small eatery, where I order some fried kuey tiaw. A few guys come up to chat to me after I finish eating, and it's all quite friendly and chilled out. Together we watch as the rain keeps falling down persistently, flooding the streets. I end up not making it to the karaoke place. Instead, I wade back to my
hotel in the knee-high water, not an easy task, especially not in the dark.
***
The next day, my last one in Padang, I spend planning and preparing for my Mentawai trip. I buy my ferry ticket, I talk to more people, including the owner of the hotel, about guides and routes. I write down a few names and numbers of Mentawai guides, hoping I can contact one of them in particular once I get to Pulau Siberut, my port of call on the Mentawai Islands.
I have a last dinner, an unspectacular gado-gado, at a small restaurant. While I'm eating, a three-piece busker band, all pierced and tattooed, start setting up for a few songs. When they see me, they smile and all come up to high-five me, a wonderful international display of solidarity between society's outcasts. I guess that in their case, it's more of a fact than in mine. Their leader sports a mohawk and wears a shirt with an illegible band logo on it, always a good sign. He plays acoustic guitar and sings, while the drummer has a home-made kit consisting of a snare drumhead next to a
bass drumhead and a small, completely broken splash cymbal, all mounted on a wonky rack. He plays the bass with his right and the snare with his left hand, and manages to produce a nice, punky rhythm. The singing and guitar playing is more folksy, though, and doesn't really match the beat, but it all fits their impromptu, spontaneous approach. After two short songs, the guitarist walks around collecting money in his hat. I'm surprised that most, if not all, people donate despite looking rather disgusted at their outward appearance. I throw in a few small notes as well, and after paying for my meal, I go up to talk to them for a minute. They have some home-made brew in a plastic bag with them, and offer me a sip. It's quite a strong beer-liquor-mix, not bad at all, in fact. I wave them goodbye as they move on to the next place, and make my way to the hotel to get my things for the ferry.
I chat to two young German girls, who want to go to Mentawai for the surfing and for humanitarian reasons. They actually started their own NGO to improve sanitary conditions for
women giving birth. It all sounds quite idealistic and a bit convoluted, and I can't imagine anyone on the islands being remotely interested in what these two young white chicks from far away want to achieve.
Together with an English girl, we are given a ride by a guy from the hotel, which turns out to be a big mistake. I should have just walked to the harbour. Once we arrive there, a rather large group of rough-looking local men flocks to our van, blocking the way to the boot. What do they want? Mullah! They want to be the porters for all those surfboards and cartons containing biscuits and two-minute noodles. Lucky I only took my small day pack and camera. The German girls are a bit overwhelmed by the situation, and start negotiating with them, which is futile, as it's all a big scam. They demand 200,000, an extortionate sum for a service we don't want. Alas, they are drunk and aggressive, and not knowing how to proceed, we drive back to the hotel to ask the owner. She just tells us we should park a hundred metres or so away from the harbour and carry everything
in. The Germans don't think it's a good idea, and they have a point. Probably the scumbags would just take the surfboards from them. So they decide to pay for it. I am appalled and disgusted at the whole situation. We drive back, they storm the van again, and the German girls tell them to carry our stuff in for the arranged price, which they won't lower.
Needless to say, there's no way I would have paid for it. But I can understand where the German girls are coming from. They are young and intimidated, they don't want any trouble, and certainly don't want to miss the ferry. I walk onto the ferry with all of my belongings, going straight to my assigned cabin. Once the fake porters have finished carrying everything on board, they show up in front of the cabin to demand payment. One of the German girls give them the 200,000, but upon receiving it, the leader says: "No. You pay more. 250,000." I have to restrain myself from not exploding, and I tell him as calmly and menacingly as I can muster: "I don't think so. You said 200,000, you got 200,000. Not one rupiah
more. You better piss off, right fucking now." Fortunately, they oblige, probably laughing all the way to the next bar.
So there I am, cramped into a tiny cabin with five other people in a wooden, descrepit-looking boat, about to embark on a 10-hour boat ride overnight to a remote island where I have no idea whether or not I'll find a guide. It takes a good two hours until I calm down enough from that highly unpleasant experience before to lie down and get some sleep. The boat doesn't leave until 2am due to low tide. Thus begins the biggest adventure of this trip...
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The Travel Camel
Shane Dallas
This looks a fantastic meal!