After being in the cities of Yogyakarta and Jakarta and being off our bikes for almost a week we were looking forward to arriving in Sumatra, the large island to the northwest of Java. Before we were to get there however there was a long obstacle in our way. A 36 hour bus ride from Jakarta to Bukitinggi. We had wanted to take the ferry but as the ferry runs only once every two weeks we would have had to wait a week in Jakarta before it sailed. So knowing we were in for a bit of torture we arrived at the bus station an hour early and prepared our bikes for the trip. It is always a trick to get the bikes safely stowed somewhere on the bus. On this day we spent almost an hour finding places on the bus for our bikes (three wheels were eventually stowed in the bus bathroom). Most of that time was on top of the bus where we "helped" a little and spent most of our time pointing out the inadequecies of how the bus guys were planning to tie down our precious modes of transportations. Eventually we came to a satifactory solution and were off. The only comments on the bus ride were "long" and "is this a road, or a riverbank". The last comment referring to the potholed condition of the road. Finally after a long 36 hours we arrived, at 3 in the morning, at our destination Bukittingi. We tried valiantly for an hour to find a hotel but as most were full and there were only 2 hours till sunrise anyways we headed for the central part of town and caught a few zzz's on a park bench before eating breakfast and checking into a hotel.

Having had a quite the trip and quite the arrival we took it easy for the day in Bukittingi. We visited the market, walked around town, and enjoyed a very interesting and new (well to us) way of eating.

The style is Padang and it started in Sumatra, although it has now spread everywhere in Indonesia. This is how it goes. You enter a restaurant that has in it's front window a number of large crocks full of different types of food. You sit at a table and in no time at all a waiter approaches balancing about ten small dishes which are set down in the middle of the table. The waiter soon returns with a plate of rice for each person at the table. The thing you expect next, cutlery, never seems to come. That is the beauty of Padang food. You eat with your hands, your right hand to be exact. The left hand, for reasons not explained here, is thought to be unclean. You take a little from one of the dishes, mix it with some rice, and cajole it into your mouth. Of the dishes that are brought out you just eat the ones that look good and leave the rest. After eating your fill, you call the waiter, who comes and inspects what you have eaten, and not eaten, and who writes you up a bill. You only pay for the dishes you have chose to eat. Not only is this way of eating interesting, it is delicious. Especially the water buffalo curry. We had to ask the waiter to bring out another dish of that one.

So we had a nice restful day in Bukittingi and were ready to hit the road up to Lake Toba on our bicycles.