Monday, September 03, 2007

Bukittinggi, I'll be back (soon)!!

On last week of August 2007, I went to Padang and Bukittinggi, preparing gas station training for Pertamina. Wow.... I've been planned this for months, and I'm glad I got chance to survey the location before planning a "real vacation".

We (me and training team) arrived on Minangkabau International Airport (which was not so big, as I assumed before...), then we went to Pertamina Cabang Padang (which is 25 km from the airport). Padang is a nice city : not big (but not so small), not crowded and clean. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to city tour in Padang, because we have to prepare the classroom in Bukittinggi.
After lunch (which was on Padang restaurant, of course! But the taste is rather different than Padang restaurant at Jakarta), we travelled to Bukittinggi. The scene was very beautiful, very green. The road looked like Bandung-Sumedang route at Cadas Pangeran, along the route we found rock cliff everywhere. We passed Lembah Anai and waterfall on the road side, wow, what a scene... What made the tour more dramatic was the railroad along the route, there were lot of railroad bridge and tunnel crossing the road (unfortunately, the train is not operated regularly anymore....). After Padang Panjang, we passed many village, looked very traditional and unique (although not in remote area). The village's (or disctrict, perhaps) name were sounds cute, for example, we saw a name plate written X Koto, it was read Sepuluh Koto, mean 10 villages.

After 2 hours, we arrived at Bukittinggi. It was cool, and the air was clean (not polluted by big industries gas emission). Guess what? Our room at the hotel was without air-con, but when I wake up on the next morning, it was COLD! After we prepare the meeting room for the next day, at night we went to supermarket to buy couple of things, and have dinner at Kapau restaurant (the taste was different than Padang, more spicy, I thought). I took photo on Jam Gadang, the landmark of Bukittinggi. Not a perfect photo (because it was dark, and the clock was tall), but enough to show that I has take a step at Bukittinggi.

On the next day, after lunch, I got to go back to Padang, catch the flight to Jakarta. Before leaving Bukittinggi, I stopped by Ngarai Sianok, the famous canyon at Bukittinggi (which was only a stone throw away from the hotel!). The scene is very beautiful, very unique. After that, I bought some souvenirs at Pasar Atas. The most popular souvenirs was needleworks clothes, it was very beautiful, and also rather expensive... :-) Unfortunately, since I didn't have much time, I haven't survey the Rumah Gadang, Bung Hatta's house, and other interesting place at Bukittinggi. So, after buying some special food from Bukittinggi (the famous krupuk Sanjay, of course!), I left Bukittinggi to the airport at Padang.

He-uh, what a travelling, should be back there soon...

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