Category: Sumatra

Just across the Selat Dampak from Batam, the island of Bintan is twice as large and a mirror opposite. Where Batam is a creation of imported workers, Bintan has a local community of ethnic Hakka and Indo-Malays.

Padang is typical of Sumatra’s modern landscape: a sprawling noisy place circumnavigated by tripped-out opelet blasting squeaks-and-beeps techno music. As the capital of West Sumatra province, Padang might have once been a showpiece, but the economic depression that has followed the 1997 currency crash means that the city’s infrastructure gets used but never renewed. Capital, more so than capability, feeds the modern machine.

Although the distance between the mainland and the Mentawai Islands is not great, nature contrived to keep this island chain isolated. Strong winds, unpredictable currents and razor-sharp corals thwarted navigation and trade with the mainland.

Toba gets touted as Sumatra’s prettiest volcanic lake, a claim that detracts from its real appeal: the Batak people. Sure there is a backdrop of mountains and a cool, clear lake, but Toba’s relaxed atmosphere remains intact even when the day is hazy or the shorefront overgrown with weeds. And the Batak culture has modernised with grace despite tinkering from missionaries and tourists.

When viewed from the mountains above, Danau Maninjau looks as if a piece of the sky had grown weary with its eternal floating and crawled to earth for an afternoon nap. And the pace is just as sleepy: no jarring call to prayers, no overload of ‘Hello mister’ calls. Just the basic elements: land, sky and water.