Mentawai's, Sipora, extra long so scroll to the end!

We disembarked from the ferry, which can really only be called a rickety wooden boat, which leaked all night onto our heads and bags. The ‘ferry’ was so FULL of fresh food cargo, boxes of chickens and fried noodles that it also created an impenetrable force to our cabin door making entry and exit near impossible. We were in relative luxury however to the many locals in General Admission which can be described as two giant bunk beds made from wood that hold 30 people per level. Of the 7 westerners on board, four were destined for Kandui a $300 a night PER person resort. Dave, myself and Jonas (who we had met in KL and then freakishly ended up in the same cabin as us)  on the other hand were going to wing it and wait for a ‘guide’ to approach us once we had exited the boat. Strangely the Mentawai’s only have 3 kinds of accommodation - ludicrously expensive resorts, ludicrously expensive boat charters or very few elusive homestays (or Losman in Indonesian) that you cannot book or find any info on. Even the lonely planet has failed to provide any information except - get a charter. Dave’s Surfing Indo book also had the same helpful info - stay at a resort or get a charter.

So we arrived and stood at the docks, (minus Jonas as he was getting off at a different port) and waited for a guide…nothing…so we walked in the rain with all our luggage into the little town of Tuapajat still wondering why we hadn’t been snapped up yet. Being proactive as things hadn’t quite worked out to plan we tried to call our 1 and only contact but low and behold, no reception on the mobile. We asked a nice lady if she would call for us, she did but the number was out of service. At this point it was a little bit ‘WHAT THE F%*K have we got ourselves into!!’ knowing full well the next ferry off the island is 5 days away, we don‘t speak much indo, they don‘t speak English and we‘re the only tourists to be stupid enough to arrive without anything pre-organised. We eventually found the only guesthouse in the town (far from the beach, far from the surf), checked in as the only guests,  sat for 5 mins feeling depressed then snapped out of it and went out to find a SIM card that would work on the island to call Ayen for help. After wondering around aimlessly for a good 30 mins further cementing our feelings of demise, we found a shop with sim cards, waited our turn and then a man started chatting to us and it turns out he had a home stay close to the surf breaks and beach, so he kindly checked us out of the guest house, we jumped on a couple of motorbikes as he and his mate took us to his place. Dave zoomed off first and I was about 5 mins behind him…as I was on the back of the bike riding through the dense jungle with a man I didn’t know, going further into oblivion I started to think that watching ‘banged up abroad’  on Nat Geo Adventure so comprehensively wasn’t such a great idea…

Relived, we arrived to a lovely homebuilt Losman (each and every brick was hand made by Hotin!) with a little outdoor porch furnished with a natural driftwood setting. Our host Hotdin and his family run the Losman and the little shop/restaurant next door. We had everything we could need….except perhaps running water. The bathroom is an outside shed, clean of course, however one must scoop water from a well (which a couple of fishies live in too) using a bucket on a piece or rope, pour the water into a big 44 gallon drum full of sand and other natural filters, the water then drips out the other end from a hole into another bucket filtered and ready for use. There are no showers, sinks or taps in Siporna, so the humble bucket helps you wash, groom and flush the toilet.

Monica Losman, relaxing out the front

Me with my kitty..

View of the street from our Losman

Some local boys returning from the surf

Hotdin and Dave on route to the beach

The local beach at sunset

Locals relaxing after a surf with a smoke or two

We spent the next two weeks enjoying the peace, reading and coping with the heat. Every day is HOT in the Mentawai’s, the weather is consistent as the surf with Dave disappearing for hours to explore the breaks Telescopes and Tugis. He met many fellow Aussies out surfing who were astonished at how cheap we were able to stay at the Mentawai’s, many wanting the secret to the losmens. On the last day we took a charter (Dave’s second boat) out to the breaks, which is much quicker - with 3 local surfers and us on board the large dugout canoe we headed out with a unreliable motor attached. More than 3 times we thought we would be stranded with no life jackets or oars to get us back to shore. But with a trusty screwdriver strategically placed El Capitaan was able to get us back safely.

The next pictures were taken on a walk out to Tugis, a shallow left hand reef break

After two weeks of no TV and internet - the 4 books, 2 magazines and diary I had to keep me occupied were demolished from front to back. There were also 3 kittens and one mum cat - which was rather sweet and amusing when they were sleeping in one giant ‘cat ball’ all together. So Dave had just had enough of his fill of Mentawai surf (although I suspect we could have spent another month there!) we decided to head back to Padang to allow some time to see a little more of Sumatra.

The next set of pics are from a trip Dave made into the Jungle with Hotdin

A local jungle resident

his sweet cow :)

The school that Monica (Hotdin's daughter) attends, Dave was a local celebrity when he visited with kids surrounding him

The Mentawai’s for us was the epitome of friendliness, the people were wonderful and genuinely interested to talk to us and say hello at every opportunity. The village we stayed in was full of kids that were happy to be riding waves on planks of wood and half snapped surfboards, everything is just in the name of fun and not possessions that we're so used to seeing at home. The beach is the hub of the community and every kid is riding waves, swimming in tubes and most of all laughing. Sumatra is no doubt a magic place so it was really sad to leave Hotdin and his family. We had made it our home for the last two weeks, which is so nice after traveling for nearly four months - we hope to be back again to visit.

The next pics are from a sunset at the local beach

Locals playing football

A typical Mentawai night

We made our way back to Padang via the Ambu Ambu ferry, promising to be larger than the Beriloga we were looking forward to less leaky but still a slow trip home. Unfortunately as we couldn’t afford a cabin we booked the VIP Seat option. A section that has 5 a/c units that don’t work or your fellow travelers will switch off on a regular basis. Imagine sitting in average bus like seats in 100% humidity  for 12 hours with overcrowding to the point that there is people sleeping on your legs and throw in several screaming infants and some of the loudest snorers/grunters in the world and you will start to get the picture….hell on a ferry.  Bring back the Beriloga! We did arrive in one piece rather tired and ready for one more night in the ludicrously expensive Padang before making our way to Bukkittingi.

Some snaps from the boat of the boys playing at Telescopes and Tugis...(Dave has no top on as usual)

Tugis showing it's teeth...

Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia - Advanced Asia

After more than 3 months traveling we have gone from having a researched and typed up itinerary for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam….to landing in a new country, with no itinerary, no booked accommodation and absolutely no idea what we will be doing (except ‘lets go to one of the Mentawai islands!’) until our flight out 3 and 1/2 weeks later. Sumatra it turns out also happens to be what one might class as ‘Advanced Asia’.

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…