Bukittinggi

A very early start to Bukittinggi. It was another bump and grind bus day, but we finally made it into the city and it was beautiful….an old Dutch colonial hill town. The architecture was definitely turn of the century Dutch and the town was filled with brightly painted horse carts and little cafes to hang out and watch the street scene. The group was heading to the national park tomorrow to sleep in the jungle and listen to the monkeys- a two day excursion that didn’t sound like a J&D adventure…so Adrian helped us arrange for another night in Bukittinggi and a private car to meet up with the group on the following day. It put a whole new perspective on our time in the city- so we headed to the local café and watched the people walking by. At the “Stars Café”, we had dinner- something that wasn’t fried rice or fried noodles- a real spaghetti dinner. It wasn’t great, but the change was very welcome.

Bukittinggi is also the home of the Minangkabau Bataks, the only matrilineal group. (Most of the other Bataks have a rigid patrilineal structure- where women do all of the work around the house, and also most of the work in the fields.)