Padang 2012-6-18
We left Taipei at 9:00 and arrived in Jakarta at 13:30. The
airplane was an old Boeing 747, and its interior looked much worn out. It was
not difficult to notice that the airline has a different criteria or
standard applied to different
routes. It is probably based on the kind
of customers they served and not on fare competition. Most of the passengers
were young Chinese, and many of them looked like students studying abroad. I
was surprised that I didn’t see many native Indonesian especially the immigrant
woprkers.
One of the young stewardesses came checking before taking
off. She saw my blinking GPS lying on top of a handbag on the floor which I
had turned it on. She asked me to turn it off, and not knowing what it was,
kept on asking me the relevant question. I was not in good mood and refused to
give any answer. We were sitting in the last row, and there were only two seats on that row, and in front was a row
with three seats. I put the bag under the seat in front of me in the space
between the body of the plane and the seat. I thought that it was the most
logical place to put the bag. But she didn't think so and asked me to take it
out and put in under the seat in front of me. This upset me even more as it
would take away my leg room. I refused and she asked it again, and I simply
kicked the bag deeper under the seat and told her that was as far as I would
go. She gave up and I was fuming. She certainly was not a good candidate to
become an in-law to any parents.
Taiwan east coast |
The broken peninsula near Bandar Seri Begawan |
I had gone through several times the process of paying the
fee of US$25 for a 30 days visiting visa as I landed in Jakarta airport, but I didn't remember the exact detail. There were two set of booths running on both
side of the corridor, and there were long queue on both of them. I saw at a distance a banner about Asian Tourist Forum, and thought that there could be a
large conference going on in the city that attract many visitors. I thought
that one of the line was for the applying the landed visa, and the other line was for visitor who came for the conference. I saw that many of the passengers were on the “conference line” but they didn't look like conference attendances.
I was happy that I lined up on the right queue ending in the
booth paying the visa fee. To prevent the mis-handling of the collection of
visa fee, the government had split the process into two units. One was
specialized in collecting the fee, and the other one was stamping the visa. I
gladly paid the US$50 for the visa for two of us, and the clerk gave us two visa
stickers. I quickly passed the stickers to Mommy without looking at it and
walked away in a hurry. Somehow, Mommy was always more careful, and she looked
at the stickers carefully. She was shock to find that the date was June 8 not June 18. We
rushed back to the booth, and the clerk quickly put another stamp with the
right date. I didn't know how this error could happen. It seemed that the clerk
had a pile of similar stickers in front of him on his desk. I had no doubt that
it was a deliberate attempt to by-pass the proper procedure.
I knew that I had to go through another unit for stamping
the visa on my passport. I walked pass the long queue of “conference line”, and
saw the immigration booths for the local citizen, but I could not find any
booth for visitor or foreigner. I was just about to continue my walk to the
baggage area, and stopped and asked a person who looked like working in the
airport, and he informed me that I had to go back to line up on the line which
I thought was the “conference line”. He also told us that he could help us if
we didn't want to wait in the long line. I had been stunk once before in
Jakarta airport by a uniform wearing person who I thought was an official of
some sorts. We declined his offer, and went back to line up properly. The line
was long and it didn't move fast enough. We had another connecting flight to
Padang that we had to catch. Mommy went to ask people on a booth at the corner
of the corridor, and she got the same answer that they could help us to by-pass
the long line up if we want to.
The sticker came in two parts. One part was to be glued on
the passport and the other was for official record. The procedure was well
designed to prevent any mischief. My returned flight was on July 18, and I
asked the officer if that would be alright. He said that the visa is only good
for 30 days and I must leave before July 17, or else, I must go to an
immigration office to extend my visa for another 30 days by paying another fee
of $25. This was a big improvement over the old requirement where one must leave
the country to extend the visa. I didn't remember how did I make this
mistake, but certainly it was associated with the many uncertainties
surrounding the planning of this trip. I liked to stay longer but Mommy wanted
to cut it short.
We rushed to collect our check-in luggage after finishing
the visa procedure. There were 8 conveyor stations in the luggage area, but
there was no indication of what airline each of the conveyor was associated with. We checked
each one o them and could not find our luggage. We asked uniform wearing staff,
and they were very anxious to help us, but I suspected that they were the
workers who wanted to help us to collect and carried our luggage. We declined
their offer, and finally we found someone who told us that the conveyor for Eva Airline was #2. We walked back and found our luggage had been put in
the corner and they were guarded by one of those uniform wearing staff. Looking
back, we probably should not felt too negative about the workers. It was part
of the system, and they rely on it to survive. The trouble was we had a deep
root of fear being cheated by the workers, and the system didn't protect us
from those possibilities. On the other hands, traps were everywhere for an
innocent travelers to fell into.
There were two custom check-out in the luggage area. One was
near the #2 conveyor station. We took this close one, and the officer wanted to
check one of the luggage because he found a large metal container in it and
wanted to know what was its content. It was a big chocolate that we bought from
the Bay which was on special. We informed him that we wanted to catch a
connecting Air Garuda flight, and he told us that we should go back to the
luggage area, and walked to the other end and passed the custom check-out
there, and Garauda check-in counter for transit passengers was next to it. I
wanted to prepare ourselves with some local currencies but could not find any
money exchanges in the area. When we got the boarding pass for our flight to
Padang, we were asked to pay an airport tax o$40,000 Rp each. Fortunately, they
agreed to accept our US$10 bill.
We went back to the international flight check-in counter
looking for Eva booth. I wanted to find out if our departure date could be
advanced. But we could not find it.
Later, I realized that their booth would be opened only a few hours before the
departure time of their flight. Therefore, we had to give up and went to the
gate for our flight to Padang. It was a long walk, and by this time, I was
really tire and dragging my feet. The gate was originally assigned at #6, but
when we got in, we were told told that it had been changed to #2. When we were
waiting, another flight originally was assigned to #2 had been moved to a
different gate, and a large number of passengers had to move accordingly like
in a music chair game. Fortunately, this phenomenon was not monopolized by
Indonesian airport, and we had grown use to it.
Beautiful cloud formation |
Sunset seen on an airplane |
Padang 2012-6-19
I got up early and did my morning exercise. As I jogged,
some ideas flushed to my mind that probably it was not a good idea of wanting
to wonder aimlessly like a Gypsy, instead, I should settle down and pick up
drawing more seriously. And travelling should be considered as a means to
achieve something.
Sweet and dumpling in market |
I ate them with Mommy, but she didn’t eat much and only
sampled some as she had not fully recovered from the tiredness of the trip. They were all very good but I knew for sure that my longing for them would soon
diminish before I was ready to go home. Roy had set up a wireless internet at
home, and it should be up and running by yesterday, but somehow, the connection was not yet done. Mommy was sleeping all day and woke up at 3 pm to have her
lunch. I took the opportunity and went to Roy’s karaoke store to send the email
using their wi-fi. I saw
durian piling up on the side of streets. Mei and Sefat had told me that the
fruits were in season now. I picked a big and nice looking one. The peddler
asked for Rp30,000, and after some bargaining, I finally paid her Rp25,000. I
asked her to cut a small triangular window (in Indonesian called tawe) on the fruit so that I could see,
smell and touch the fruit inside to make sure that it was good and fully ripe.
Mommy and I finished half of it and we left the other half for Sefat. It was
very delicious with a little bitterness and liquor taste. In Canada, I would buy only the frozen durian from Thailand. The fruit was thick and meaty,
and I could eat a lot of them. The fruit of the durian here had very thin meat,
and somehow I could only eat much less in quantity than that from Thailand. Later,
when Sefat came home in the afternoon, he brought back 9 durians! And we
continued our sampling for more durian.
There were short and light scatter shower in the afternoon.
Sefat later told me that 10 days ago, they had severe storm with strong wind
and rain. So far the weather was quite pleasant especially sitting in the
balcony enjoying the nice breeze.
Sefat mentioned to me many times during my visits that when he bought
durians it would be in the order of 10 or more. And I always wonder how did he
consume them. I noticed that by evening, the 9 durian that he had brought home, there was only one left, and
Inah told me that they had shared the durian with the helpers at home. No
wonder that he could easily finish that many durian. It also reflected the
relationship between the master and helper. It was much closer
than the regular employer and employees relationship.
Sefat was hiring two helpers to convert a large steel dog houses into bird cages. He told me the going rate for a worker was Rp100,000 per day. In Ottawa, it took me one hour to mow the lawn, and it would cost me $70 to hire people to do it. I was told that there were many stalls selling pirated cd and dvd after dark near the intersection of the major streets Pondok and Tepipasang which was near Sefat’s house. I went out to take a look. There were big crowd in front of the eating houses along the streets. I was not familiar with the movies they sold, and was looking for cd of old Indonesian music. I found only one.
Sefat was hiring two helpers to convert a large steel dog houses into bird cages. He told me the going rate for a worker was Rp100,000 per day. In Ottawa, it took me one hour to mow the lawn, and it would cost me $70 to hire people to do it. I was told that there were many stalls selling pirated cd and dvd after dark near the intersection of the major streets Pondok and Tepipasang which was near Sefat’s house. I went out to take a look. There were big crowd in front of the eating houses along the streets. I was not familiar with the movies they sold, and was looking for cd of old Indonesian music. I found only one.
Padang 2012-6-20
The Bank of Indonesia (BNI) was just across the
street and we walked over to try to change some money. When we were in Makasar
and Menado in our last visit to Indonesia, we had bad experience in changing
money in the bank. We had forgotten about it completely when we carried some US
currency into the country. The old memory suddenly came back when we entered
the door of the bank. Like what had happened before, the clerk rejected the
US$100 bank note because there was some marks on it. We went to the ATM
machine, and it let us withdraw Rp1,000,000 each time. The exchange rate is
US$1=Rp9,395.
Turtle eggs for sale in Muara |
A fish restaurant in Bungus |
Chimney of the power plant in Bungus |
Beach at Sungai Pisang |
A large cargo ship was blown to shore in Bungus |
Mei dropped us off at Sefat’s house as she had to meet Yinfa who would be arriving tonight. The wi-fii in the house had been fixed and was now working.
Yinfa arrived at about 8pm, and they all look fine. The kids showed no sign of tiredness from the long trip. He had the same problem with visa like mine. According to their calculation, We would stay one day longer than the 30 days allowed by the visa.
And therefore it must be extended at a cost of US$25 for each person.
Padang 2012-6-21
When I woke up, Yinfa and the whole family had already left
the house to buy some Padang dumplings and other sweets, and to have Padang
sate and soto for breakfast. We had fried banana at home, and it was delicious.
Mei came early in the morning and brought a delicious cake roll made in Dallas.
We stayed at home and chat.
Drying sea cucumber |
All my siblings seemed concern about the swelling on my
feet. Sefat let me use his feet massaging machine, and he gave me an extra
pillow to lift my feet slightly higher.
Mei invited us to have dinner in a barbeque fish restaurant in
Muara. Mommy preferred the home cooked food and we stayed home. There was heavy rain
in the evening accompanied by thunders and lightings. This cooled off the
temperature. So far, it was not very hot, and there was very little mosquitoes
and flies in Sefat’s house.
Padang 2012-6-22
The old Kelenteng |
The new Kelenteng |
The water in Arau was no longer dark black |
Padang 2012-6-23
I didn’t do my daily exercise this morning and walked to
Kampong Jawa after eating some dumplings that Yinfa had bought. It was too early and many stores were not yet opened. I found a small
booth selling watches, and replaced the belt on my watch by another leather
belt for Rp50,000. This was at least the fourth replacement. We then walked
back, and stopped at a fruit store in Pondok. The price for dragon fruits was
Rp35,000/kg for the red one, and Rp25,000 for the white one. It was not cheap.
It was Terralyn birthday, and Maria asked Mei to make a
large cake for her. We had the celebration in Piza Hut restaurant. It was
Saturday night, and all eating places along the road were packed. The
arrangement for transport had not been planned properly, and we ended up going
in Rinaldy’s car. There was a long line up in Piza Hup. Maria said that she had
to beg the manager to accept our reservation. The food was lousy. Philip was in
Pekan Baru and would be back tomorrow.
Padang 2012-6-24
There seemed to be little communication between the wedding
organizer and Sefat. He didn’t know the time of the ceremony and the dress to
wear until last night when we asked him about it. France came early in the
morning and wearing tie. I planned to borrow Didi’s suit for the occasion, but
I could not get the phone through. Fortunately, I had my shirt and tie, and
that were what I wore for the ceremony.
Lydia wedding in Kelenteng |
Sunset in Padang |
Harau 2012-6-25
The bus |
Fruit of matua tree from Irian Jaya |
Gunung Singgalang |
Stall selling durian |
Padang food in Aie Badarun restaurant |
Water filled paddy fields |
Drying red casawa cakes in Payakumbuh |
Before reaching Bukittinggi, we turned east into Jalan Padang Laweh to avoid the heavy traffic. On the road shoulder, farmers were drying the newly harvested paddy. The fields had been filled with water and were ready for the next plowing and planting. We then turned east into Jalan Soekarno Hatta toward Payakumbuh. The land was a broad rich valley with some low hills on the north and Gunung Merapi on the south. The scenery of villages and paddy fields was beautiful along the road. As we were reaching Payakumbuh, we started to see the red casawa cakes being dried on the roadside. This was a famous product of the area. We were now in a rich basin surrounded by a high volcano Gunung Sago in the south, and many other hills that I didn't know their names.
Harau |
The road became Jalan Raya Payakumbuh after we enter the town, and it continued to use that name as we drove north-west to Harau. The hills on the north-east border of the basin had many deep canyons called harau in Indonesian. We continued on northward at the park entrance while the highway turned east and meandering farther through the deep canyon. The scenery of the beautiful paddy fields were now enhanced by the steep cliff in the background as we enter the canyon. The sun was shining low on the paddy fields and made the scenery more attractive.We didn't go deep into the canyon and stopped in front of a high cliff where was the entrance to the park of the waterfalls.
There were many stalls selling foods, souvenirs, wild plants and orchids collected locally. Monkeys were playing, jumping from trees to trees, and feeding on the tall fruit trees. I was walking pass a rudimentary amusement park for kids, and heard a large banging sound, and when I turned my head, I saw a large durian rolling on the ground. I looked up the tall durian tree, and saw a monkey was walking on its branch. Apparently, the monkey was testing the ripeness of some fruits, and one of them felt down on the corrugated roof of a stall and produced that large sound, and then felt to the ground. It would be a fatality if one was unlucky to be stricken by one of the falling durian.
Waterfalls in Harau |
There was another falls in 5 minutes walk farther on the trail. We passed a newly cultivated land with many coco trees. The falls height and flow volume was about the same as the first one with only very few stalls and no visitors. I was surprised that people came so far to see the falls but didn’t want to walk for a few more minutes to see the other falls, and preferred to squeezed in the crowd.
Guest houses in Harau |
Watching oxen races |
Bukit Tinggi
2012-6-26
Clock tower seen from Rocky hotel |
Clock tower |
Taking a break |
Manual cart in Sungai Puar |
In Taufig Ismail Museum |
We left and headed for Padang. Not long after we left the town, we saw a busy market in Sungai Puar. It was a vegetable distribution centre south of Bukittinggi. The market was at the top of a small hill, and there were many manual carts heavily loaded with vegetables practically flying down the hill with its puller hanging in the air. The car drivers were very afraid of them and would always yield to let them have the road. We stopped at Kotabaru to buy some kue bika and then visit the Memorial Museum of the famous poet Taufiq Ismail. But the museum was closed that day in anticipation of a visit by VIP. We could only stroll in the beautiful garden and enjoyed the scenery of the country.
An mosque with unique roof structure |
Underground toilet on roadside |
Before entering Padang Panjang, we took a detour by turning east into Jalan Tabek Gadang Gantiang, and then joint Jalan Solok Padangpanjang going east to Danau Singkarak. We passed a small village north-west of a junction with Jalan Padangpanjang Batusangkar, and saw a very unique mosque with multi-tier roof. I had seen this mosque many times before, but had not the chance of stopping and taking more detail photos of it. There was no service station on this road, and we stopped in the public toilet on the roadside near a village. Most of the public toilet in Indonesia were on the ground with some simple wall and an opening into a ditch or creek. This one was unique. It was a big hole dug under ground, and the user was squatted inside to use it.
Passing a low railway underpass |
We were travelling south-east along the coast of Danau Singkarak but it was far inland and we didn't yet see the lake. The traffic jam started when we approached a low railroad underpass. There was a big truck parking on the roadside unloading some of its cargo. It was too high and could not go through the underpass. Another big truck was turning away because the container was too tall. A crew of a big bus was standing on the roof of the bus squeezing the cargo covered by canvas on top of the roof to make sure that the bus could get through safely.
Houses built on stilts |
Rocky beach |
Danau Singkarak |
Soon we saw the lake after we went through the underpass, and found the railroad running along side with the road. It was probably not being used now. There were many houses and stores along the shore, and there were all built on concrete stilts erected in the shore of the lake. The road and the scenery were good, and an International biking tournament was held here not long ago. The major souvenirs sold in the store along the road was dried small fish caught from the lake, and we saw many of them being dried on the roadside. We also saw people harvesting tiny shellfish on the shore. They brought their harvest to the roadside for sorting. We stopped at a small park before we reached the southern end of the lake. The beach was covered with small rocks and was not attractive, and there was no specialty snacks to try. We stayed there for about an hour doing nothing but to have a rest. A man was soliciting us to ride his boat to tour the lake, but none of us was interested.
We followed the same road and backed to Padang Panjang, and stopped at one of the restaurant to have its famous sate. To me it was the same as the sate sold in Padang. The restaurant offered a good view of the volcanoes and the country side. We reached Padang after dark.
Padang 2012-6-27
Someone told us that it was easy to extend the visitor visa in the immigration office. We went there early in the morning hoping that we could do it before leaving to Jakarta in the afternoon. We wasted the whole morning waiting in the office, and finally got the words that it was not possible to do it there, and we must do it in Jakarta airport when we were leaving the country. It was almost 11 am and I suggested that we go to
Pagi Sore restaurant to have lunch. After having our meals, we all felt that this restaurant offered the best
selections and taste of Padang food.
After lunch, we hurried to the airport on a car supplied by Vera. She told us that her agent Wan was in the airport and he would help us. The
driver called Wan as we entered the airport, and Wan replied that he was
busy inside, and asked us to wait in the parking lot. We waited until the Garuda airline flight that we had booked had taken off.
It turned out that Vera had received the instruction from Mei to cancel my
booking because Mei thought that we wanted to stay for a few more days until we got the visa extended. And later when I insisted that I wanted to leave on the same flight, Vera asked Wan to seek the possibility of getting seats for us, but the plane
was full and he tried to put us on standby without any success. The next flight
was at 18:00, and it was also full. Vera called and asked the driver to take us
back to Sefat’s house. She later called and told us that she got us another
booking on Sriwijayar Airline leaving at 19:00.
On Wan suggestion, we gave the porter Rp20,000, and we gave
him Rp50,000 for helping us. The waiting room was full, and most of the
passengers were natives. Our flight left almost on time. The airplane was older
and had lesser leg room. Mei had delivered a pot of sweet kolak when we
left Sefat’s house, but we were too full to have it. The airline didn’t offer any
hot meal and only breads and muffin.
Vera had arranged to have a car picked us from Jakarta airport. I called the driver as soon as we landed, and I
was glad that he answered. He found us as we wondered at the exit. He asked
us to wait and went to pick up the car in the parking lot. We saw policemen enforcing
the law for not allowing car stopping in the area where we were standing. I was
concerned that the driver might have problems with the police when he came back picked us
up, and walked up the road trying to warm him. Fortunately, he noticed the
problems, and decided to stop at the driveway in the parking lot rather than on
the passengers drop off area. He felt that it was better to offend other
drivers behind him than the police. We called Fusiu and she and her grand-daughters came out to
the lane to meet us and to help us carrying the luggage.
We had some small talks and went to have shower and went to
bed early.
More photos can be seen by searching "lku99999, photo" in Google.
More photos can be seen by searching "lku99999, photo" in Google.