Day 15 - Lake Maninjau

The day was a bit boring after all the volcano impressions. But probably we needed some time to do nothing, to plan nothing and to run for nothing. After some negotiations with local taxi we caught a public mini van and asked to give us a list to the lake. The guy couldn’t go himself, but happily dropped us to bus station, where he sold us to another mini van driver. At 60% of the taxi price we went to the Maninjau lake…

The lake itself looks a lot better from the top of the mountanous road with 44 crazy turns, which not every driver will be able to surf. Couple of turns were inhabited by monkeys – happy days for Zoli. At the actual lake we didn’t find anything impressive, so in two hours after a fresh juice in the local café we took a mini van back. The driver was actually very nice and attentive – he waited for us all these two hours, and on the way back he bought some peanuts for monkeys – Zoli was especially happy to feed monkeys and take pictures of their peanut jumps.

In Bukattinggi we had our last pineapple juice before leaving to Padang, and then to Singapore. This juice was actually the last positive note of the day, as Padang itself happened to be an ugly and dirty city with only one decoration – local public transport mini vans called opeletes.

Once again we could conclude that big cities should be avoided in Asia, while nature and small authentic villages are the best places to be.

Day 12 - Sumatra

This day started with 12 hour sleep in the hotel without any light, Zoli fighting mosquitoes and covering his face with a pillow case, and finally pastry breakfast in the airport that I desperately wanted for such a long time!

After 2 hour flight we arrived to Padang on Sumatra. No wonder that first thing to do was to negotiate something - this time the car. As usual, prices were too high and arguments were too weak, plus the guy was very strange.

In Padang city we tried amazing taxi mini buses called opeletes. These cars are painted in bright colors and tuned to the likes of the driver with nothing but stereo on board :) We enjoyed a good techno selection in ours :)

Bus to bukittinggi took us two hours with last hour in heavy rain. The driver happened to be a tricky one and tried to get more money from us for dropping directly to the hotel.