As we went through immigration it became apparent that we were the only ones lining up for a Visa as everyone else on our plane were locals. All in all, Dave was the whitest tanned person there. As we stepped out of the airport we decided to take a cab into the nearest town and for the next 30 mins enjoyed the view on the way to Padang. It wasn’t hard to spot Padang once we arrived, so much of it is still destroyed - understandably so after the 7.2 richer scale earthquake just last September. The destruction is quite shocking, you can see how powerful it must have been and sadly 6000 deaths is not unbelievable. We directed our taxi driver to the first address of a home stay that I had scrawled into my diary after 2 mins on Google, we arrived and unfortunately it no longer existed - in the sense it was just a pile of rubble! We went to the next address I had scribbled but it was under construction. The next address we pulled from lonely planet hoping for more luck - unfortunately cabbie already knew had been destroyed. Feeling a little worried, he took us to a place that was listed in Lonely Planet that was still in tact, very basic and unfortunately (like ALL accommodation in Padang) very expensive. After being in countries where guesthouses always out weigh the number of tourists we arrived completely knocked for six to find that the accommodation options were so few and far between. The next day we spotted Spice Home stay which had been rebuilt after being obliterated, so we transferred ourselves to another extremely expensive room however this one at least came with cable and a/c!
It all started to make more sense when we decided to go for a stroll down the beach and around town. The people are so friendly and everyone says hello to you and then giggles a little bit…nobody tries to sell you anything and the general feeling is that people are just unaccustomed to tourists. We were also followed by a group of young boys who plucked up the courage to get a photo with us, taken on all 4 of their phones as they swapped in and out of the pose…we’re not sure if they thought Dave was actually Matt Dillon or not, none the less it was a celebrity moment.
Apart from the general lack of anything touristy, Padang is strikingly damaged. Footpaths are completely up-heaved, uneven and giant cracks reveal piping and wiring within the ground, the drains no longer work so they are full of fish and sea snails…rubble falls in piles everywhere, buildings are half collapsed with some under demolition by hand. But life goes on and it’s refreshing to be greeted by genuine smiles and not to be constantly bothered by salespeople.
Out and about Padang
The destruction within the town...
The next day we spent approximately 2 hours trying to find the ferry ticket office. In the scorching heat we walked along a road looking for an office that had no name and no address but we thought it should be easy enough to spot…unfortunately there was nothing resembling a ticket office anywhere - perhaps with a large picture of a ferry? We eventually walked into a a/c room asking for tickets, they directed us a little down the road, we walked into another office, they directed us back the other direction until we were walking along the docks where many fishermen and workmen napped and stared at us as we looked bewildered. Finally we saw the tiny office hidden and marked by a whiteboard with the ferry schedule written in Indo. We spent the next ½ an hour trying and eventually buying a ticket to an island called Siburut. We returned exhausted but after much discussion with Ayen from our guesthouse and a guy from the surf shop we realised that we had perhaps chosen the wrong Mentawai island as we would need to bring our own rice and water! With help from Ayen we were able to change the ticket to different Island called Sipora, where we were assured many many times that when we got off the ferry there would be heaps of local guides that would help us find accommodation and the surf breaks Telescopes, Tugis, Scarecrows, Suicides and Icelands…
