ENCHANTING MINANG EARTH

Bukit Tinggi , a scenic hill town in the Western Province of Sumatera (Sumatera Barat or SUMBAR) is a 2 hrs drive away north to Padang, the capital city of SUMBAR. It is one of the many Sumateran tourist attractions and our decision to spend a 5 days 4 nights holiday was well worth. With moderate traffic flow and a population with laid-back pace, the cool and quaint Minangkabau town exudes charming warmth that embraces you the instant you enter it.

The place we stayed

Mid way to Bukit Tinggi, is a small town called Padang Panjang, a popular stop to delight your palate with the local Minang dishes, visit a ‘rumah gadang’ which is a minang house converted into a museum and also shop for embroidered telekung and head scarves. The ‘rumah gadang’ is a truly unique building with distinctive roofing architecture that resembles the bullock’s horns. In a way, it’s similar to a long house with a row of rooms and a large hall.

Rumah gadang

At both ends of the large hall are extended areas with graduated platforms, almost like a balcony. This is where they hold family discussions with the family head sitting top most.
According to Minang tradition, once a son reaches age 10, he has to leave the house and pursue Islamic studies either in a mosque or a madrassah. Thus the rooms are mainly occupied by daughters, each to a room. The family head occupies the right most room with his wife and children less than 10 yrs of age. Once a daughter is married she can occupy a room with her spouse and as more gets married, they shift rooms from left to right, till they reach the last available room which signals for them to leave the rumah gadang.

The Minang tradition are divided into 2, the pepateh or the temenggong. Those observing adat pepateh, give priority to the female family members when it comes to family inheritance. However they defend this rather ‘outlandish’ tradition by pointing out that it only involves main family loom like the rumah gadang and that sons are always being taken of and other family assets like paddy fields can be mortgaged for the expenditure for a son’s education etc. Also, as opposed to adat temenggong, the female members have strong hold in decision making. In the patriarchal adat temenggong, the family head has veto power and female ideas need not be sought. Inheritance is divided following the fara’id method.

If you’re interested in historical land-marks, then Bukit Tinggi can provide you with endless sites to visit and study. Smacked right in the centre is the jam gadang, the town clock. Opposite is Bung Hatta’s palace with his statue and bust decorating the vicinity. Then there’s Fort de Knock, a Dutch remnant down the road. From here, we can view the majestic Merapi mountain (not Jogja’s Merapi) to the south and the Singgalang mountain to the west.

Silhouettes, sunrise behind Merapi

Statue of Imam Bonjol

Jam Gadang

Interestingly, the town is rather precariously situated at the edge of a hill that sweeps into a small canyon, called Ngarai Si anok where a river meanders through the deep valley below. Strategically during the Japanese occupation, they (the Japs) chose to build tunnels at this particular edge of the hill with secret exits into the canyon, aptly called Lobang Japang by the locals. Forced men labor was imported from Jawa and Sulawesi and killed once the tunnels were completed.

Ngarai Si anok

After a short respite at the hotel, we decided to explore the town on foot. Unknown to us, Boogey had made acquaintance with the hotel owner’s son who had brought him to their other hotel and their beautiful minang house, surrounded by vast paddy fields, in a village, peripheral to town.

Bukit Tinggi town, early morning

We found a shop that offers foot reflexology and full body massage only for men and after maghrib prayers, hubby immersed himself for 1 and half hours in what was to be his best ever massage experience. He had only praise for the young masseur. After a very heavy Minang lunch earlier, we opted for a simpler dinner at a road-side gerai, incidentally run by a guy and his son, of Indian descendent. We had murtabak and nasi goring. Unfortunately he doesn’t know how to prepare teh tarik and when I suggested that he should learn how to, he politely retorted by saying, “tak tekejar saya”.

Next:

Visiting and praying in Indonesia’s oldest mosque, Masjid Bingkudu

Lembah Harau and it’s enchanting waterfalls, a spectacular sight to behold.

ENCHANTING MINANG EARTH 2

Day 2 in Bukit Tinggi

Friday prayers in an ancient mosque.

The advantage of traveling independent of any package is that you are free to choose your destinations at your own pace without being bound to tight schedule and rigid itinerary. However, it is pertinent that you should employ a good driver/ guide who is willing to subscribe to your whims and fancies, especially when you’re an avid photographer and you need to make impromptu stops to snap good angles of a landscape or candid moments. For this, we were lucky to have met Ei en (Saiful Rahim – he was named by the great muslim writer, Hamka), the son of the hotel owner, a graduate of Liverpool in IT and film production.

Lembah Harau is a popular visiting spot by many and that was our destination that day. We asked if there was anything of interest on the way and someone suggested we stopped at Masjid Bingkudu, an ancient mosque of more than 2 centuries. Since it was Friday, we opted to do our prayers there. It is situated about an hour away from Bukit Tinggi, in a village called Canduang.

Masjid Bingkudu

The interior

The unique roofings

A view of Masjid Bingkudu

Made entirely of solid wood, the unique structure stood staidly and majestic. Apart from its antique architecture, one can’t tell that it’s such an old building as it is well maintained. Being an “objek peliharaan wisata’, the whole structure is to be kept as it is with no renovations allowed. The roofing material is made of ijok leave spines, arranged neatly in thick bundles. The fact that the roof has none of the Minangkabau features denotes that the mosque was erected prior to the Minang era. (my assumption).

The was no need for any fans as the atmosphere there is very cooling. As you enter the mosque, the old mystic charm of the whole place envelopes you. As you sit yourself on the wooden floor facing the mimbar, a sense of peace and tranquility creeps within you as you get transported back to the days of Majapahit and Mataram . The huge praying hall is supported by dozens of stout rounded wooden pillars with broad bases, snugly planted into the floor. The high wooden ceiling is decorated with rather antique chandeliers and some kerosene lamps as well. I was made to understand that like many minang buildings, every joints and hinges in the original structure are held in place without a single nail.

Kids splashing in the mosque pool

As Zohor approached, the whole mosque was filled with the bustling sounds of human voices and later as young boys thronged the vicinity and played with the water pool, it was almost festive! After a short but good and fiery qutbah by a young hunched back imam we performed the Jumaat solat and left the mosque in a drizzling rain.

Lembah Harau is in Payakumbuh, approximately an hour’s drive away and along the way vast green fields of paddy feasted our eyes. As the name denotes, the place offers a breathtaking panorama of high cliffs and canyons, with many spots of waterfalls seen from afar, some accessible by road, others only by foot treks. One of the falls was approximately 20 storey high and it fell all the way down without hitting the side wall, making a huge momentous splash below, causing even those standing far to be drenched.

The whole area is very cooling and serene and if you feel like spending a night there, there’s a resort available, situated between 2 huge cliffs, a spot where echoes are heard.

Lembah Harau

The many falls of Lembah Harau

On our journey back, we made a pit stop at a Rumah Gadang that has been turned into a hall for commercial usage. You can rent the house for functions like weddings, office dinners etc.

Rumah Gadang of Payakumbuh


The interior