Padang Off The Beaten Path

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The river Arau, at the south of the city Padang, is a good place to watch boats. Most boats are blue and made of wood. There are little ones and also big cruiseships, because the harbour is at the river too.
At the south bank of the river is a little village, called: Kampung Batu. The houses are build on the green mountain.

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The beach in Padang is beautifull, see to your left and you see a big green mountain (gunung Padang), standing in the sea. In earlier days, the Dutch called it "Apenberg" because a lot of apes live on that mountain. Now it is an official park: Siti Nurbaya Park.
The water is not safe for swimming, this year (2008) 11 people drawned at Padang beach. The sea is not reliable, sometimes there are suddenly unexpected high waves. The water isn't clean eather. And it is not done to wear bathclothes in this Islamic aerea.
The streetvendors sell also something what looks like pingpong-balls. White and round, but soft. You can eat it, because it is an eg from a turtle, found at another island. I would not advice it, the turtles need a safe place for their eggs.

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If you allready read my tip: "take the little bridge over the river Arau", then this might nice to do after taken the bridge.
If you walk over the little bridge over the river Arau, in the south of the city Padang, you can walk further in a neighborhoud where tourist usually don't come, it is called: Kampung Batu. You will be watched by everybody, and they always say hello to you (in Indonesian). The people are very nice.
After you passed the bridge, go to the right. You will see a little mosque with a little bridge at your left side. Children, all completely dressed in white, will be excited to see western people. They like you to make a picture of them. Their big boss, the lady on the picture, also wanted a picture of herself inside the mosque. I rather had time to put my shoes of, I din't wear anything on my head, but they didn't mind. They were so enthousiast of me making pictures of them, nothing mattered anymore. Of course, they really wanted me to sent them the pictures (what I did of course).
For my friend this meeting was strange and funny, they all acted as if he was a popstar (he has blond hair). They all want to be at all pictures, and they all want to see the picture afterwards.

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There is a big bridge over the Arau (jembatan Siti Nurbaya), but about 10 minutes walking to the east, close to hotel Batang Arau, there is also a little bridge.
Beatifull, because they use it till it can't be used at all anymore. They told me nobody has ever felt into the water. But I doubt it. There a lot holes in the bridge, but they even still use the bridge for motorcicles. You understand, it is exciting to walk over this bridge!

If you walk from the sea to the harbour, you walk towards the river. At the river, you go to the left and take the closest road at the riverside. After a while, the name of the street is Jalan Batang Arau. A few times later you will see an old Duch Bankoffice (now hotel Batang Arau) at your right side. Directly after the hotel is the entrance to the bridge.

The neighborhoud at the south side of the river the Arau, is a lovely place, called: Kampung Batu. It is built on the mountains (bukit monyet). If you passed the little bridge, you can go to the left and take the big bridge to go back. It is also possible to walk further, to "Siti Nurbaya Park" at the Gunung Padang" (the green round mountain that is in the sea).

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In the south of the city Padang, close to the harbour, there is a big bridge, called: Jembatan Siti Nurbaya". At daytime, it is a normal bridge, but after the sun goes down, around 18.00 o' clock, people are coming to the bridge to sell drinks, fruit and food. There are chairs to sit on also. A strange place to have a drink, because the bridge is also used by cars. But I loved it.
The bridge is lightened, and you have a beautifull view over the river Arau.

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Less than an hours drive from Bukit Tinggi go to a place called Pandai Sikek. Here you will find cottage industries where weaving and woodcarving is a skilled well practised. The products are offered for sale of course and prices are negotiable (generally 30% - 50% discount of the original is quite the norm.

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This beach is about 20km+ away from city. Hiring a cab costs Rph100,000 round trip. There, you cannot do a lot since the beach is quite small and has nothing to see. The thing that I suggest is take a boat, an one engine boat and go to any one of the offshore island. It's like a HEAVEN in the middle of nowhere. It was so beautiful that all of us agreeed that we should have spent a night there. Sadly, we were lack of time; we were there only less than an hour. It was really funny that we spent 3.5hrs to arrive the heaven while spent only 1 hr in heave. The price to hire a boat is about USD15~20 per day. Our sailor was very seasoned who knew how to avoid the strong waves. It was quite a smooth trip, at least I felt comfortable.

If you are someone into chocolates, go to 6A Serba Coklat. Take a left from Novotel Butkittinggi and 150m down the road on the right. The chocolate brownies are very good indeed.