Tej Turner

Travelblog#28: Harau Valley – Sumatra, Indonesia

29^th November – 2^nd December, 2014

During my time in Bukittinggi I kept hearing of a place called Harau Valley: it was an area only briefly mentioned in my copy of the Lonely Planet, but everyone I met who had been there said that it was a must-see.

I had just finished doing a motorcycle tour around Bukittinggi, so I decided it was time to move on. My new friend, Dominique, was also interested in seeing this Harau Valley place everyone kept talking about, so we started packing our bags. Just as I was beginning to wonder how we were going to get there, I overheard a group of young Europeans who were staying in the same guest house as us talking about making a daytrip to the very same place. We ended up hitching a ride with them.

The driver we hired out for the day took us to coffee plantation along the way. It was blatantly a commission stop but we didn’t mind; it was quite interesting to see the coffee making process, and they also had a fairly pleasant seating area with a mountain view.

They kept bringing free samples of all kinds of things to our table: coffee, coffee-leaf tea, mulberry tea, cinnamon tea, yam crisps, biscuits made from dahlia flowers, and the list goes on. As a marketing tactic it definitely worked, because their products were genuinely quite good and many of us ended up leaving with slightly lighter wallets.

After another stop along the way, where we ate lunch at a padang restaurant, we eventually found ourselves driving into a dramatic landscape of forested cliffs rising out from the rice fields. We had reached Harau Valley.

Staring out of the windows, as we passed through the series of canyons, was more than enough to make the journey there worth it. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, our driver took us to a series of waterfalls and viewpoints.

Later that afternoon Dominique and I were dropped off at Abdi Homestay, where we were greeted warmly. Ikbal – the owner – gave us a wonderful cottage with two floors, and, his brother in law – Ewal – spoke great English, and told us much about the area. Throughout our stay we were treated like family and Ikbal’s wife rustled up a great spread of food every dinnertime.

The setting was perfect: the cottages all had balconies pointing in the direction of the valley, and there was a waterfall cascading down the cliff behind us which you could always hear in the background.

On my first morning there I stepped outside and there was a Malaysian family eating breakfast at the table. The matriarch hailed for me to come and sit with them and, in a very motherly fashion, forced successive rounds of noodles and curried samosas upon me whilst asking me my life story. Within minutes she was making suggestive hints about how her single daughter just happened to be around my age, which made everyone laugh and said daughter blush. They were a very nice family, but it was partly a relief when they set off for their day of sightseeing.

I had plans of my own: Ewal was taking Dominique and myself on a five hour trek up to the top of one of the mountains.

After a short walk through the village, we reached the start of the trail. It was a steep climb, but the views from up there were well worth the effort.

We then walked through the terrain of jungle along the ridge. Ewal was a great guide and made the experience fun for us, telling us about the creatures we spotted, showing us the insides of carnivorous pitcher plants which were in the process digesting bees, and he even made Dominique a nice little hat out of ferns.

The final panoramic view at the other side of the mountain was spectacular, and a great way to finish off the day.

Dominique left the next morning, but I decided to spend another day in Harau Valley to relax and enjoy the view from my balcony as I caught up with some writing and blogging.

I reluctantly forced myself to leave the following morning, for there was much more of Sumatra to explore. Ikbal gave me a lift back to Bukittinggi on the back of his ojek, dropping me off at my old haunt: Hello Guest House, where Ling, ever the kindhearted person that she is, organised a bus ticket to my next destination – Lake Toba – and let me use her wifi and shower, even though I wasn’t staying there anymore, and refused to take any commission.

Hello Guest House and Abdi Homestay are two places that I would thoroughly recommend to anyone travelling through the area.

For more photos from Harau Valley, click here.

Travelblog#27: Bukittinggi Part 2 (Motorcycle Tour) – Sumatra, Indonesia

27^th-28^th November, 2014

Bukittinggi, with its historical sites, Minangkabau culture, canyons, caves and cool mountain air, is not only a great destination in itself but is also surrounded by many other attractions, so I decided to rent a motorcycle out for a couple of days. For this journey I was joined by two new friends, Martijn and Dominique, whom I met at Hello Guest House.

The three of us set off early in the morning, driving south of Bukittinggi and then turning westwards towards Lake Maninjau. For the first hour it was terrain of winding mountain roads and then, after scaling up a mountain, we crossed over to the other side and caught our first glimpse of the lake.

The three of us stopped at a cafe for a cup of tea so that we could enjoy the view for a while and prepare ourselves for the infamous “Kelok 44” (44 Turns).

It was certainly a hair-raising ride. Martijn and I spent most of it with our hands firmly planted on our brakes as we zigzagged our way down the twists and turns, halting every now and then to take photos.

Once we reached the bottom we began to make a circuit around it, passing by many villages and fish farms. It took around five hours, in all, to complete the circle, but that was including a stop for lunch and a stroll around a small peninsular on the far side where we came across an amazing panoramic view.

By the time we got back to Bukittinggi it was mid-afternoon. Martijn and Dominique had not been to see the rafflesia arnoldii yet so they set off for the Batang Palupuh Nature Reserve while I went alone to see the Japanese Caves – a network of bunkers built by prisoners of war during World War II.

Just before sunset, the three of us met again at the Panorama Park to watch the bats flying out from the Sianyok Canyon and begin a night of feasting on fruits in the forest. It was quite cloudy that evening so we could not see them very well, but it was still a great place to finish off the day and watch the sun go down with a can of beer.

The second day we set off early again, this time heading east, towards Batu Sangkar. We passed some fantastic views along the way.

We reached Rumah Gadang Istana Pagaruyung (The King’s Palace) at around lunchtime.

We were welcomed warmly at the door, and even offered a free tour by our English speaking guide, Fitri. You could tell from her enthusiastic manner that she genuinely enjoyed her job, which made the experience that much more enjoyable for us as well.

She escorted us around the palace and told us much about Minangkabau culture. I found it particularly interesting that they are actually a matrilineal society: it is through the female line that wealth and property are passed down, and the eldest woman of a household holds a special status as the matriarch. Even in the King’s Palace, the monarch’s mother possesses quarters equally as grand as his own, and the entirety of the second floor is reserved for the princess.

Just before we left, Fitri and her colleague gave us directions on how to reach Belimbing; a nearby village which had some fine examples of authentic Minangkabau architecture. It made a great halfway stop on our way down to Singkarak Lake, where we finished off our day.

After sitting here for a while and enjoying the view of the surrounding mountains reflected in the water, we got back on our bikes and rode back to Bukittinggi, and thus, finished our motorcycle tour. Martijn was leaving the next day; he was heading south, towards Padang. Dominique and myself, however, were both interested in visiting Harau Valley so we began making plans.

Photos from Bukittinggi and all the wonderful places we saw around it can be found on my Flickr account.

Travelblog#26: Bukittinggi Part 1 (First Day) – Sumatra, Indonesia

26^th November, 2014

I left Padang at 6am in the morning. Partly because I wanted to make the most of the day ahead but also because the guest house I stayed in was infested with bedbugs and I was keen to get out of there.

The bus journey to Bukittinggi was about two hours long and there were some great views of the Anai Valley on the way. I reached Hello Guest House at around 9am, where I met the owner, Ling.

“Where have you come from?” she asked, as I was checking in.

“Padang,” I replied

“And where did you stay in Padang?”

“Errr…” I murmured, trying to remember.

“Brigitte’s?” she guessed.

I nodded. I think most solo backpackers passing through Padang end up staying at Brigitte’s House.

“Did you find any bedbug?” she asked, knowingly.

“Maybe…”

“Don’t worry, you can still stay here,” she reassured me. “But I am going to have to ask you to keep your backpack on the roof…”

Which was both understandable and responsible. Throughout my stay in Bukittinggi, Ling and her parents were very helpful, friendly, and an invaluable source of information on nearby attractions and how to get to them. I cannot recommend Hello Guest House enough: they gave me a comfortable bed in a dorm room, with hot water and free wifi, and it was all at a very reasonable price.

And there were definitely no bedbugs.

I started out my first day there by visiting Batang Palupuh Nature Reserve, where rafflesia arnoldii flowers were in bloom. I arrived there a couple of days too late though, so the giant, parasitic flowers had decayed to a blackish colour rather than their famous majestic red, but it was still interesting to see.

My guide, Jonny, took me on a ramble through the jungle and told me much about the local flora along the way. It was pouring with rain and I was attacked by my second and third kinds of bloodsuckers that day: leeches and mosquitos.

Afterwards he took me to his home, where I drank local luwak coffee while I dried off. His mother explained to me how the coffee beans are gathered from the stools of wild civet cats and that its rich taste and claimed health benefits are due to the fermentation process happening in the digestive system with all the other fruits the creatures eat.

I would like to make a note here that if anyone reading this is interested in buying this special kind of coffee; you need to be careful where you source it from these days. Some companies have, rather predictably, begun creating a lesser version where the civet cats are kept in cages. Not only is this cruel, but it also an inferior product because the civets are kept under stressful conditions, not fed a very wide variety of other fruits, and one of the reasons the real thing is so nice is that the creatures roaming around in the wild are fussy and only pick out the finest beans.

That evening I met Martijn (from Holland) and Dominique (from Quebec). They were both – like myself – interested in visiting Lake Maninjou the next day, so we decided to venture out together the next morning for a motorcycle tour.

For Part 2 of my time in Bukittinggi, click here.