Flying out of Asia

Javan volcano [Enlarge]

Our three flights have gone smoothly so far today (actually yesterday—we're writing this at stupid o'clock in the morning somewhere over the Timor Sea), although it's been a very long day sitting around in badly organised airports. We had a final chuckle on the first plane from Padang to Jakarta. Garuda's inflight magazine for this month has a couple of interesting articles that the general population could do with reading. The first is a piece by one of the magazine's publishers (a Westerner) all about why corruption is such a bad thing for a country; the second is by an Indonesian journalist talking about how the current generation of 20-to-40 year olds have to stop blaming colonialism for what's wrong with their country and their lives, and taking some responsibility for fixing it. We have to agree. Korea fared much worse under Japanese colonialism than Indonesia did under the Dutch, and it has almost nothing in the way of natural resources, yet it's now a prosperous developed country investing heavily outside its boundaries. Because its people are hard working and forward looking. Same with Singapore and Malaysia. And yet in Indonesia, everything is always the fault of the Dutch, even though they left over sixty years ago. And amid the moaning nothing actually improves.

So anyway, there ends our Asian adventure which began on a short ferry ride across the Dardanelles in Turkey twenty months ago. We've had infinitely more good times than bad. It's a shame we've had to leave on such a low, though it does mean we have no qualms about moving on. Australasia, whatever it brings us, will be very different. At the moment we're most looking forward to eating our own kind of food and being able to converse easily with the natives for the first time in nearly two years. We just have to remember not to mention Olympic Gold Medals... You beaut!

Day 650
Padang to Jakarta to Denpasar

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

An uncouth place by the sea

Visit Indonesia?! [Enlarge]

After a couple of pleasant days in the mountain air of Bukittinggi we were cooled down and ready to continue south. Our research on flights suggested that the cheapest flights to Australia go from Denpasar airport on Bali, because Bali is one of the Aussies' favourite places for a holiday or short getaway. Getting to Bali by surface transport wouldn't be too much of a problem because the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali (part of the chain from Sumatra to Timor) are very close to each other, meaning short ferry hops from one island to the next. So the plan was to go overland to the southern tip of Sumatra, take a ferry to Java, down the length of Java and then another ferry to Bali. We thought we woudn't continue to the other islands like Lombok, Sumbawa and Flores because to be honest we were ready for a complete change of continent and were already looking forward to Aus.

So our next stop was Padang on the western coast of Sumatra, from where we planned to connect with road transport going south towards the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Java. Our guidebook painted a glowing picture of Padang. Most travellers rush straight from Padang airport to Bukittinggi and bypass Padang city, it told us. It went on to say that this is a mistake: Padang is well worth your while.

Hmmm... We think they got Padang confused with somewhere else. Penang in Malaysia, perhaps? Admittedly we arrived on a grey miserable day, blowing a gale and bucketing down with rain, during Ramadan, so we weren't seeing it at its best. Here's the story.

First stop as ever was the tourist office to try to get a city map. It was closed; the door bolted. The streets were almost un-walkable with diabolical pavements and big holes waiting to swallow the unwary traveller. And the locals were without a doubt the most uncouth, xenophobic and mercenary people we have met anywhere on our travels. We were trying hard to like the place, but Indonesia just wasn't weaving the same spell for us that Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia had done. It was beginning to seem more and more like India, even down to the legions of "where you go?" taxi and minibus touts. Indonesia is Greek for "Indian islands", so even the person who named the country saw the similarities. We were fed up, sick of being stared at and hungry, finding it even less possible to get food here than we did in Bukittinggi.

Eventually we had another 'sod it' moment and decided to fly out of Sumatra. We justified it to ourselves on the grounds that travelling by road here is guaranteed to bring on a near-death experience. Maybe Java would be better, we thought. We began a walk across town to the ticket office for Garuda Indonesia airline. We were both feeling disappointed, with ourselves and with the country. Every time we take a flight it feels like a small failure.

We weren't far from the airline office with Isla leading the way (we had to walk in single file most of the time in Padang) when a minibus tout decided to have a go at getting some money from the bedraggled locals approaching him. He obviously thought that, marching purposefully through the rain swept, mud-slick covered streets, we would just be in the market for a minibus ride. We weren't. And Isla wasn't in the mood to do battle with a tout either. As she moved sideways to give him a wide berth, he put out his arm to herd her towards his van. It was nearly full of locals, and these things never start moving until they're full. Everyone was impatient for us to get in. Isla's foot went onto the 45-degree angled part of the kerb, which was covered in wet mud. She slipped over and fell face first onto the pavement.

What did the tout do at this point? Apologise? Help the lady get up? Check that she was OK?

No, he laughed, as did his tout friends.

To say that being made to fall over in the rain, on a filthy pavement, by a lowlife piece of pond scum like this made Isla angry would be a world record breaking understatement. From that point on there was no doubt that we were not just leaving Sumatra, we were leaving Indonesia and getting a flight to anywhere, as long as it was a civilised country.

At Garuda Indonesia's office, we were able to start formulating a plan to get to Australia. We briefly considered stopping in Bali for a few days so that we didn't fly three times in one day (Bali is one big holiday resort and is nothing like the 'real' Indonesia, and certainly nothing like Sumatra), but then we came to our senses. There was no point putting it off any more, we should just get it over with and leave. As we stood at the counter Isla's tears (more from anger and hurt pride than the blossoming bruises on her hip, knee and elbow) seemed to make the ticket seller think that she was desperately trying to get home after some terrible tragedy had befallen her family. Magically, 171 US dollars came off the price of each of our tickets. After a lot of requests for various quotes we had put together an itinerary consisting of the first flight to Jakarta next morning, followed by an afternoon flight from Jakarta to Bali, and finally an overnight flight from Bali to Darwin in Australia. By the time the first sabbath of Ramadan came around, we'd be the hell out of here. It sounded perfect.

We walked back to our homestay accommodation via a disorganised supermarket where we bought some cold pizza slices, fruit juice and chocolate chip bread. Our purchases were tightly sealed inside their carrier bags by the staff, presumably in case we got an urge to snack before nightfall.

Imagine if being nice to visitors earned you points with Allah, rather than things like only eating at prescribed times... Then we suspect we'd want to see more of Indonesia.

Day 649
Bukittinggi to Padang

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Around Bukittinggi

A typical street scene in Bukittinggi [Enlarge]

Next day we took a tour of the area surrounding Bukittinggi. The itinerary included trips to a sugar cane farm, a peanut farm, a silversmiths' village (where we got to see some cool flying foxes), and so on, before a 44-hairpin descent down to the Lake Maninjau, a vast volcanic caldera (crater lake). Dono was a good guide and showed and told us plenty of interesting things. The volcanic soil and abundant sun and rain make the area highly fertile. Rice grows all year round, as do mangoes, bananas, pumpkins, cinnamon, coconuts, peanuts, sugar cane, ginger, and probably lots more. We sampled a cinnamon leaf straight from the tree, and also bought some peanuts which had just come out of the roasting pan.

Flying foxes [Enlarge]

The rich volcanic soils come at a price. This area is part of the Pacific ring of fire, constantly poised on the brink of seismic catastrophe. In 2007 Bukittinggi was hit by a significant earthquake. Many buildings were damaged, but few lives were lost because fortunately the big one was the last of a series of three shocks, increasing in magnitude. The first two made people get out of their homes and on to the streets, so that when the final, devastating quake struck, hardly anyone was inside the buildings to be buried in the collapse. The stunning Sianok Canyon was reshaped by the quake. The whole thing is made of a light sandstone, and whenever the ground shakes the walls of the canyon collapse a little more. The 2007 quake stripped the canyon walls of all the trees and vegetation and left one pinnacle bare except for a single tree clinging proudly to the top. Dono estimated that two or three more quakes will destroy the pinnacle completely.

Maninjau caldera lake [Enlarge]

Dono found us a homestay on the shores of Lake Maninjau where we could get a tasty and very welcome lunch. We ate it guiltily as the staff and Dono did everything they could to avoid watching us eating, hungry as they obviously were. Dono borrowed a prayer mat and went into an unoccupied chalet to pray. Being out with us he'd missed one or two of his appointments with Allah.

Back in town after an excellent day we had an hour in a friendly, cheap web cafe which had both wifi and beer. Indonesian Bintang beer is good. Why do muslim countries all seem to be so good at fermentation?

Ramadan retreat

Pekanbaru morning [Enlarge]

Next day, our mission was to take a bus—a proper, public bus—to the old Dutch colonial mountain retreat of Bukittinggi. Before we set off for the bus station we ate as much as we could at the all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast (all Glenn can eat is seven croissants in case you're wondering; Isla had a bit of everything except the bright turquoise 'pudding').

We got a hotel car to the Akap Terminal seven kilometres out of town which is described in our guidebook as 'uncharacteristically reserved and organised'. Those would not be our adjectives of choice. We'd go for something like 'weird, ghostly, confusing, tout-ridden, sleepy and purposelessly large'. We worried that if this place counts as uncharacteristically reserved and organised, we're going to have big problems catching buses in other Indonesian towns.

We just wanted a bus to Bukittinggi. The first bunch of touts tried to steer us towards the minivan station. When we successfully got past them and found the many bus desks, they were all devoid of staff, prices or timetables. And when we managed to round up the staff who were loitering outside, they seemed unconcerned about selling us a ticket. On closer inspection as we circled the desks, followed by a little crowd of touts, we saw that there were actually a few prices handwritten on some of the windows, but definitely no times.

The locals seemed to enjoy our confusion. I guess when you spend all day every day sitting around in this place, a couple of foreigners visiting counts as entertainment. Eventually someone suggested that there might be a 12:00 bus to Bukittinggi. It was 09:10 and we knew that buses are supposed to be hourly. After a while an 11:00 bus was suggested. Then a modern looking bus pulled up outside. On the windscreen it said 'Bukittinggi'. We bought a ticket. We got the price down a bit but failed to get close to the price marked on the window. We asked why we were not allowed to pay the marked price. 'This bus full AC, so more expensive.' Yeah, right.

(Not) fixing the road to Bukittinggi [Enlarge]

We had a go at negotiating further but we didn't want to wait in this godawful place any longer and they knew it. The inflated price was still pitifully small, and again, they knew it. We paid up.

To cut a long story short it was a truly awful journey. There was, of course, no AC (even though it was clearly and neatly painted on the very side of the bus!). The bus steward was a vile person, although interestingly only to the other Indonesians—he was OK to us. Every person we picked up as he strove to overfill the bus proffered a note or two and was sent back into their wallets for more. The more we saw the more we realised that we hadn't been ripped off just because we were foreign—being ripped off is a standard part of the service. The male passengers were all chain smokers, exhaling their toxic smoke literally all over the children crowded onto the seats with them. We were on the back seat, intended for five people. There were eight on the seat including us at one point, with a further three squatting in the luggage space behind us. Our sanity was salvaged when a nice woman named Lefi got on and sat next to us. She found the experience every bit as vile as we did as she chatted with us all the way to her village on the outskirts of Bukittinggi.

1.6 seconds south of the equator [Enlarge]

One of the things we'd been looking forward to on this journey was our first ever crossing of the equator. We've taken more flights on our round the world trip than we hoped we would, but we were not prepared to compromise on this: we were determined to cross the equator overland, whatever happened. This moment had been a long time coming, and we were teased to the last as the GPS told us the road was steering tantalisingly close, only to veer northward again around a sharp bend. But finally, without fanfare, flag or signpost the GPS's digits lapsed from N to S and our latitude began to move away from zero. In a brief moment we'd passed from the late summer northern hemisphere to the late winter southern hemisphere. It didn't feel any different. We shared our excitement with Lefi and the man who had woken from his slumber on top of Glenn's rucksack in the luggage space behind us. Both of them were under impressed—they've probably crossed the equator hundreds of times before.

The sun began to set and the Sumatran late-afternoon rain arrived on cue. Bukittinggi is a mountain town, 920 metres above sea level. The altitude makes the air cooler and the rain more frequent. We were dropped off on the edge of the town centre. The streets were awash with muddy puddles and full of people, motorcycles, tiny, rickety minivans called opelets which serve as shared taxis, and a few horse-drawn passenger carts. Tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan, the month of fasting which forms one of the five pillars of Islam. Everyone was out on the streets hurrying between the market and the mosque. Indonesia is supposed to be laid back and lazy but it certainly wasn't anything like that as we arrived in Bukittinggi. We cut through the crowded streets to find our hotel. From among the feet of the people a rat shot down a wide alley. It happened to be going the same way as us so we followed it and finally found our way to the door of the Kartini Hotel.

Roadside snack stall [Enlarge]

A warm shower and a cool bed would normally have restored our equilibrium, but in Bukittinggi you are never, it seems, more than 100 metres from a mosque. And a mosque that doesn't just broadcast the call to prayer five times a day from the minaret megaphones, but broadcasts the entire sermon. If we could understand Arabic and Bahasa Indonesia we would have been left in no doubt about the solemn importance of Ramadan after the three solid hours of lecturing that we received that night. Even our ear plugs didn't shut the noise out.

It was even less funny at 4:30 the next morning when the whole thing was repeated.

Bukittinggi changes its character depending on the time of day. The road layout stays the same, but from morning to evening different shops seem to appear, while others vanish; and the people seem to come out in shifts. We spent our first full day there walking around the town, seeing the sights and enjoying the simple fact that at 920 metres high, Bukittinggi is not mired in tropical heat—you can actually walk around all day if you want to. On one side of town is Panorama Park. For 3,000 rupiah each (GBP 0.18 / USD 0.32) you can wander through a long, narrow park with a great view over Sianok Canyon. The park is home to innumerable macaque monkeys who like to perch on the pillars between the railings, have play fights with each other, and climb into the litter bins to do huge, steaming wees. They're also more than happy to pose for photos. From the park, we walked down into the canyon. The river that formed this huge geological feature is now just a wide, shallow stream, lazily tumbling over a stony river bed. A woman was collecting sticks. She was the first person all day who we'd seen working. Everyone else seemed to be hanging around, doing nothing. We knew that the end of Ramadan was a big holiday, but it seemed like schools and businesses closed for the start of Ramadan too.

During Ramadan, healthy adult muslims don't eat, drink or smoke from sunrise to sunset. In a town with something like 95% muslims this means restaurants, cafes and food stalls close, all day, for the whole month. We didn't mind too much; non-Muslims are free to buy food to eat in their own homes, or hotel rooms. But we decided to respect the local culture and delay our own eating until after sunset at 18:20, expecting all the restaurants to fling wide their doors and usher in the crowds. But they didn't. It turns out that they had all gone home for a big family feast. Confused and hungry, we lapped town a couple of times before going back to our hotel to eat something there. We asked the manager what we could have for dinner, as he tucked into a large bowl of delicious looking something. "Not tonight," he shrugged. He sent us round the corner to a Chinese-owned restaurant, the Mona Lisa. One of its doors was open a little, and through the crack we could see a group of foreigners squeezed around a table, filling the tiny place. No joy. There was only one other place in town open: Texas Chicken—a KFC-esque fast food place. And that's where we spent our first evening of Ramadan 2008.

Day 646
Pekanbaru to Bukittinggi

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Return to the realm of the touts

Fenix Inn, Melaka [Enlarge]

The ferry terminal in Melaka is a small, single storey building just inside the river mouth. Tickets are not sold at the terminal. Instead you have to go to one of a handful of agents nearby. The one we'd bought our ticket from had told us to turn up at 09:30 for the 10:00 sailing, but we were characteristically early, and were glad to be so. When we arrived the covered area in front of the terminal building was already very crowded, and two queues snaked off in opposite directions. In the absence of any instructions we joined what looked like the shorter, quicker moving line and waited. Someone was in control somewhere because the queues kept taking it in turn to move forward as a few people at a time were let through to immigration.

To get onto our ferry we had to go into, across and out of another ferry. Paranoid about getting on the wrong one and ending up at the wrong Indonesian port we checked several times that we were definitely the boat for Dumai. Seats were unallocated so we nabbed the front ones with ample legroom. That also put us near to two exits in case of pirate attack or sudden sinking. For once the in-flight movie wasn't too loud or too bad, and free water and snacks were distributed.

Fifteen minutes or so into the journey, Malaysia was shrinking into the distance behind us, and we were settling into the movie quite nicely when we suddenly slowed down and the engines stopped. We spent a few stationary minutes looking out of the windows to see if there were any fluttering Jolly Rogers, or cutlasses glinting in the sunshine, but boringly it seemed to be some sort of mechanical problem... we started off again a bit slower than before.

The billed one and three quarter hour journey took more than three hours, but it wasn't too bad. As we neared the port we stood up and went over to the door area so we wouldn't have to wait while the mountains of luggage was gathered by our fellow passengers. As we came alongside we wondered just what sort of a country Indonesia was going to be.

The single door to the three-passenger-compartment ferry opened. At once the crowd around us surged forward toward the door in a fluid mass, suitcases flying. And then the mass stopped, as people in their misguided hurry to get out jammed the bags of the people in front of them. This made all forward movement by anyone impossible, and so everyone stopped, unable to make progress.

OK... It's going to be that sort of country.

Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. After we'd elbowed all the old women out of the way and pushed a few children overboard we found ourselves inside the terminal building wondering what to do next. We had no visa, but our research had told us that Dumai is one of the entry points where you can get a visa on arrival. There was an immigration office, but the door said staff only. Luckily a 'friendly local' was on hand to help us out. He sent us through the door and we handed over our passports and USD 50 (25 each). Our passports were returned about fifteen minutes later with a one page visa and a big entry stamp on the facing page—another double page wiped out. The friendly local, our new best friend (here we go again), had spent the intervening time finding out where we wanted to go and telling us not to worry, he'd help us get there. Uh huh.

He told us to come with him in his MPV, he'd take us to the bus station. Free, of course. We were some way out from the town centre with no readily apparent alternative way of getting to the bus station, which we knew was on the other side of town. We decided to go with him and see how he would try to get our money. Along with two Indonesian passengers we all got into the MPV and drove from the port to... the bus station? No, to a travel agent's office in town. Here we were sold what we were told was a transfer to the bus station and a bus ticket to Pekanbaru for significantly more than the price we were expecting, but still a pifflingly small amount for a five hour journey. We weren't in a position to negotiate, and the town didn't seem like one we wanted to linger in. We had some time to kill so our friend suggested we have something to eat at the cafe next door. We weren't hungry, but we were thirsty so in the absence of a menu to point at, we communicated a desire for two drinks.

No matter what we tried, they wouldn't take our money until we'd finished our drinks. Isla went up to pay expecting change from a 10,000 rupiah note, but the lady wanted more. She initially said 14,000, then her friend said something and the price went up to 20,000. Presumably the something was "Charge them more, don't forget we have to pay commission to the friendly local".

The MPV driver had just called us back to start our journey when we were approached by another 'friendly local', but this one turned out to be a bit different. He runs an English school in Dumai and offers native English speakers free accommodation and transfers to the bus station in exchange for coming to talk to his students for an hour or two. Glenn had read about him on Wikitravel, but we didn't expect him to hunt us down so effectively. If we hadn't already bought our bus tickets we'd have loved to take him up on his offer. Mr Teacher-man, if you're reading this, our advice is: try to get to the ferry terminal to intercept people before the scumbag touts do!

We accelerated out of the town centre in the MPV. The GPS told us we were heading for the bus station and everything seemed fine. Then the driver got a phone call. He did a u-turn, stopped at a shophouse, collected a box and sped away again. Just out of the town centre we turned up a narrow road alongside a stream that was so full it threatened to engulf the road at any moment, and finally stopped at a tiny cottage with a garden full of ducks. He delivered the box and we were off again.

Main road from Dumai to Pekanbaru [Enlarge]

After a while it became clear that we weren't going to the bus station at all, we had in fact unwittingly commissioned ourselves an MPV all the way to Pekanbaru. That at least explained the high price tag. To be fair, the journey was much more comfortable and faster than it would have been on the bus, even allowing for the absolutely heart-stoppingly, underpant-soilingly dire standard of driving in Indonesia.

Seven hours later, after many small detours to pick up and drop off packages and small family groups, we were dropped at the door of our hotel in Pekanbaru. We felt like kissing the ground in thanks that we had survived. The driving wasn't as bad as India's, but the problem was that the roads and vehicles were in a better state and so the speeds were much higher. When you're flying round a narrow, blind bend three wide at 100 km/h, there's not much you can do except maybe pray to Allah for safe passage. Unlike in our taxi ride in India we didn't actually see the aftermath of any accidents, apart from a few wrecked cars which had been mounted on posts as a futile warning to drivers.

Pekanbaru was grubby, devoid of footpaths, with muddy puddles everywhere... But unlike in India, at least it was just mud on the ground, and not anything more... biological!

Our hotel of choice was the Ibis, part of a French chain, and much higher-end than we usually go for, but Indonesia is very cheap. We took full advantage of the facilities: restaurant, money changing, travel desk and free wifi. The staff were very helpful, but every time we asked them something it seemed like it was the first time they'd ever been asked. Still, we had survived our first day in Indonesia and the spectacular sights of Sumatra were now tantalisingly close.

Day 645
Melaka to Pekanbaru

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.