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(Matt) Another day another nightmare bus journey! We arrived at Bukittiniggi bus station and bought a ticket for the allegedly seven hour bus journey to Kersik Tua in the Kerinici Valley. By this point we'd realised we were travelling on some of the worst roads in the world.
The minibus should have left at 11am and was supposed to arrive at 6pm. This is what actually happened:
*11am until 11:15am - Driver and colleagues rush around trying to sell tickets for four empty seats
*11:15am until 11:30am - No-one else wants a ticket, so abandoning this the driver decides it's a good time to brush his hair (for 15 minutes!) while looking in the rear view mirror, at least the engine is now running!
*11:30am until 11:45am - Finished hair brushing, the engine is switched off and it's time to sit on a nearby kerb smoking.
*11:42am - For no apparent reason it's time to depart (typically Catherine had got out for 30 seconds to buy fruit), we're off at last ... well kind of, it takes almost 20 minutes to drive out of the busy bus station.
*12:00 - Open road for five
minutes... driver stops to drop off friend at a shop, a long goodbye ensues.
*12:30pm until 12:45pm - Fifteen minute stop to look for more passengers.
*1pm - Stop for lunch
You get the picture, the rest of the afternoon was punctuated with many more random stops (in no particular order): to buy peanuts, toilet breaks, to look for more passengers, to buy petrol and a separate stop to put air in the tyres.
In order to make up for our frequent breaks our driver drove like a maniac, overtaking everything on the road. This was slightly hair-raising especially as the road to Kersik Tua is winding and steep and our driver for no apparent reason liked driving with no headlights in the dark! Maybe he'd stopped earlier to buy carrots to help him see!
We thought this was going to be the most remote non-touristic part of our journey in Indonesia and maybe even in our whole trip, so when we were finally dropped off at a homestay (selected by our driver with no consultation with us) we were somewhat surprised to be ushered into an old fashioned living room and greeted by
the broad Lancashire accents of a homely middle aged couple and the friendly Indonesian owner.
It became apparent that we'd been dropped off at a reknowned homestay for birdwatchers. It was quite funny that on our 'off the beaten track' adventure we ended up staying with two english and four australian birders (as I heard them call themselves!). That night against a surreal background conversation about the 'pale headed frogmouth' and 'Schneider's Pitta' (which doesn't refer to bread!) we planned our trek up the biggest volcano in Indonesia - Gunung Kerinci.
We learnt the following things about climbing Gunung Kerinci: It's 3800 metres high, it takes two days with camping overnight, you don't actually have to have any climbing experience as it's more of a scramble up, loads of people have died up there after getting lost (with no guide) and you must be 'confident in your own fitness', whatever that means!
It's fair to say climbing volcanoes was never really near the top of Catherine's list of things to do, I'm not even sure it was on the list to start with. So there was definitely an element of relief when our guide told us
we were a few minutes away from the first big milestone, a lunch stop about three hours up the volcano (or base camp one as I kept thinking - I was in full-on mountain climbing mode by this point!). Just as we were congratulating ourselves on the steep climb to the lunch clearing we were greeted by our two northern birdwatching friends 'Allo, it's a nice walk ain't it?' Both were eating a sedate lunch, not a bead of sweat between them and the woman even had immaculate makeup on!
The area we were walking through 'Kerinci Semblat National Park' is the area where there have been many sightings of the Orang-Pendek (short person). This miniature jungle yeti is allegedly a cross between monkey and man, it lives on the ground, is shaggy haired, one metre tall and walks upright. Local tribes and villagers have no doubt of it's existence with hundreds of reported sightings. Intriguingly, in recent years a British scientist and photographer attempted to prove it's existence (in a 15 year study!) and while they claim to have found and seen it, they couldn't get it on film. My favorite story comes from 1932 when a reward
was posted for the capture of an 'Orang-Pendek' dead or alive. A group of enterprising locals took the body of a Langur Monkey and doctored it to look like an Orang-Pendek in the hope of collecting the reward, it didn't work but it did make world news.
Walking up the volcano with us (many hours behind) were two researchers (who had completed a big study on Eco-tourism and lost all the data, so were back to collect more!), someone who worked for the National Park and nine Indonesian tourists (with guides) who were doing it for fun.I was Orang-Pendek obsessed and asked everyone I could about it and was surprised by how many people believed in the short furry man monkey (including our guide).
After six and a half hours of steep uphill, lots of mud and much branch climbing we exhaustedly collapsed into our camp. We went to bed early as we had to get up at 3am and walk through the final jungle part of the volcano in the dark.
The next morning we made the incredibly hard three hour climb to the top. The view was fantastic with a massive crater (which I'm not
sure we were supposed to be on!). Catherine was so happy there was a flag at the top because it 'feels more like an achievement', I was too tired to even think! It took us six hours to get down and by the time we reached the bottom we were completely wiped out.
Heads or Tails? (Another day, yet another nightmare bus journey) We were sitting in the nearest bus station to Kersik Tua with a bus ticket to Bengkulu in our hands, We were discussing the five more long bus journeys we needed to take to get through Sumatra and Java when I came up with a proposal. We toss a coin once (and stick with the decision), if it's heads we make a relatively short 7 hour journey to Padang and get two flights to Bali, tails we stick with the original plan and push on through overland...
It's was heads, we're on our way to Bali (by plane) hurrah!
Sumatra wasn't about to let us go so easily, our last bus journey to Padang was terrible. Hours delayed, constant chain smoking from passengers, constant questions 'hello where you from?...you know Chelsea FC?', discomfort and
many many stops. After seven hours we were dropped in a town in the middle of nowhere and someone tried to rip us off with an extortionate taxi fair. However, as we'd experienced many times before, Indonesia came through good. We eventually got a lift with two brothers and their friend, they kept saying 'no charge, no charge, you're our friends', they took us to a large family gathering in honor of their friend who was getting married. We had food and were treated like celebrities, one teenage girl actually screamed with excitement when she saw us arrive in the car!
Sumatra is a beautiful country, it has provided us with some amazing experiences and we've met some of the friendliest people in the world, now if they could just put down a bit of tarmac! Next stop Bali, or maybe not...where did I put that coin?
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Guning Kerinci
As someone originally from Kerinci, i never dare to climb this mountain because so many mystic related to this mountain, and also i am not good at climbing (more to reason number two). I love traveling but i haven't got into the top of a mountain that only 600 kms from where i am not.. what a shame ! Good for you ! next time if you travel to sumatra again to Kerinci or jambi, just contact me, i might could help you somehow.. as traveler abroad i do feel thankful how other peopel help me out too ! so its like getting even things.. Good luck with the rest of your indonesia adventure.. good writing ! :)