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Published: March 26th 2015
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On the plane from Padang to Jakarta March 24, 2015
The final part of the drive to the homestay was simply breathe-taking. We were each on the back of a bike with all our kit. Jane had the one helmet offered which added to my excitement. As we sped to the entrance of the Harau valley in Central Sumatra we were confronted with a wall of rock 100 metres high and a waterfall spumeing from the jungle at the top before it disappeared into the nearby rice paddies. Our bungalow was at the base of the waterfall. It loomed above you as you sat on the loo! The setting was truly spectacular.
It did finally make one feel that the tortuous journey we had had to get there was worth it. We had come by night bus 450km down the Trans Sumatran Highway. By my conservative estimate we had been around 3000 bends in the 16 hour journey and had felt everyone of them. The drivers overtake at every opportunity (visibly of oncoming traffic is not a consideration) and, to cap it all, insisted on playing loud karaoke DVDs throughout the night to keep themselves
awake. Luckily we had sleeping bags to combat the arctic air conditioning. Don't talk to me about leg room! Passing passengers just had to clamber over me.
We passed over the equator around 7am. I took a selfie to celebrate. We could smile, even after only a couple of hours sleep, because the GPS told us we were only 50km from Bukitinggi, our destination. What a relief to get off the bus. It was then a simple matter of getting a battered minibus to Payakumbuh 35km to the East and the motorbikes up to the Harau valley.
Abdi Homestay is really the only place to stay in the valley. You need to call Iqbal up (+62 852 63781842) as he does not use the internet. Yes, there is Echo Valley Lodge up the road and at 600,000INR it sounds expensive (Abdi's was 150,000INR and Echo don't have the waterfall!). Iqbal and Noni are the owners and have support from Iqbal's brother for guiding and Yoga, Noni's 25 year old youngest brother, for general help as well as guiding. They all make you feel most welcome. Be warned that the word is out via Lonely
Planet and they already have many bookings for peak season in July and August.
Each bungalow has a verandah where we had meals and watched the world go by around the lily pond and rice paddies. A pair of tiny sun birds danced around the many flowers of the hibiscus bush right outside our door. You can imagine Jane's surprise when a gecko fell from the ceiling on to her book as she read there one evening.
The valley is still at 500 metres altitude and we were happy in a fanless room. We even sought a cover sheet later in the night. The mornings were sunny with clouds and it rained both afternoons we were there.
When we first arrived Iqbal gave us breakfast and a spare bungalow to sleep off our bus journey as ours was not free until the afternoon. We felt a lot better after that.
On our one full day Yoga took us on a guided walk which turned out to be 19km. Jane, who is still recovering from sinusitis, would probably have backed out if she had known how far it was.
She did well to keep going and am sure now does not regret the decision.
Initially I was going to wear sandals. I changed to boots at the last minute when I saw other walkers were wearing boots. Initially I regretted my decision as the boots got wet on the soggy borders of the rice paddies. I realised what a wise decision it was when Yoga later picked two leeches off his bloodied ankles.
The paddy fields were full of life. They fatten up fish amongst the rice as it grows (3 months from planting to harvest). We saw two snakes, one of which was at least a metre long. An rusty orange bird, apparently a Cinnamon Bitten, swooped into a paddy occasionally.
It is a big agricultural area all worked by hand. We were clearly told that only women work in the fields. In fact it is not clear what a lot of men do besides smoke in road side houses and cafés. Ironically the local people, the Minangkabau, have a matrilineal social structure with land passed down the female line. All the village leaders are men. Most young people
like Yoga leave school at 18. As a young man he seemed to be the exception it having a good job. Other contemporaries seemed to live off their parents not doing very much at all. It clearly is a challenge for local leaders to find them inspiration before they get distracted by Islamic politics from elsewhere.
Besides rice we saw cultivation of aubergines, tomatoes, kangkung (known as morning glory in Vietnam and Thailand and also known as water spinach), beans, chillies, betel palm nuts and cucumber. There were coffee bean trees but no serious cultivation. Many farms had a few coco trees. Yoga showed us how to suck the sweetness off the raw beans inside. Each farm was drying a mat full of beans as we passed to sell at the local market.
Jack fruit and the smelly durian (Jane was glad the season was not until July) were scattered around on the paddy borders.
An important crop is Gambia. The leaves from the Gambia bush are picked and fermented/oxidised like tea before being extracted and boiled down. The resulting gel is finally dried inside a bamboo tube. The cylindrical blocks
The leech on Yoga's arm after he had pulled it from his ankle
He was convinced they were good for you. His ankle was clearly irritated for about 30 minutes after he had pulled the leeches off. are used as hair dye in India and China and as a medicine in China, making it a valuable export.
The high waterfalls are a feature of the area. They cascade off the high cliffs and are caught in swimming pools in some cases which locals tourists like to frequent at the weekends.
Our walking tour took us through several villages. We stopped at one house to see them boiling down palm sugar to sell in blocks at the market. They were also using a handed turned rotary fan machine to winnow dried rice to remove the chaff and debris.
At another village we were shown round a local noddle factory. They granulate rice flour with water and yellow food colouring and then press it through a series of rollers before it is sliced into noodles. These are then steamed for three hours in tray ovens. The steam was created in a large wood fuelled boiler outside the main shed. The steamed noodles are put on drying racks in discrete whorls by teams of women before being left in the sun. Finally they are packed for market. It was
an open and friendly atmosphere and tough work day after day.
As we walked on the humidity rose. When the sun was out it was just like the hot house at Kew Gardens. As we got to the gorge at the head of the Harau valley the heavens opened and we we were well and truly soaked by the time we got back. Our trusty pack macs had helped but we had to pack several wet things when we moved on this morning.
Jane spent the early evening watching Iqbal and Noni cook the evening meal. A local speciality is a coconut milk based chicken curry with jack fruit. She also watch them make a dry fish curry with chillies and fried tempe, a fermented soya product.
The next morning it was time to move on. We were so glad we had made the effort to get to this wonderful place. If you are anywhere near then we recommend you do too.
We have now taken the decision to fly from Padang to Jakarta. Sumatra is on its own is 2000 km long and the bus ride from
Parapet showed how testing it can be overland. (We took a private car to Padang for 500,000INR (£25).) We are taking the night train immediately down to Yogyakarta so we can spend more time at the temples and volcanoes of Eastern Java. I am not expecting any spectacular waterfall views from the loo.
PostScript: While we were there a French Indonesian resident of many years was using a drone to take photos for a new website for Abdi homestay. You can follow this link:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Abdi-homestay-Ikbal-Noni/135899863151120?ref=br_rs
to see the results. It also shows a nice picture of the sun bird and the bungalow we stayed in.
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