Bukittinggi

Bukittinggi, near Padang (in the middle of the west coast) in Sumatra, is 930 meters above sea level and blessed with views of 3 volcanoes: Merapi, Singgalang and Sago. The town was hit by several strong earthquakes during the last years, the last one was in September and measured more than 7 on the Richter scale. In town we couldn't see any damages of the strong earthquake, but on the way to Padang were many houses with crashed walls and roofs visible.


A great view from the Taman Panorama viewpoint overlooking Sianok Canyon and towards Gunung SSinggalang.

On a day trip we went by motorbike to the Lake Maninjau, a very spectacular crater lake. To get down to the lake, we had to descent via 44 hairpin turns. But first we enjoyed the view from the crater walls, more than 600 meters above the lake which is 17 km long and 8 km wide. We drove around the lake which took us 2,5 hours through rice paddies and some parts were hit by landslides which destroyed houses and road and so sometimes it was quite difficult to pass.

On another day we went again by motorbike around the Merapi volcano. The landscape with many rice terraces is very nice and we passed many traditional houses before getting to Lake Singkarak.

It´s easy to get around by motorbike, but to see the Sianok Canyon it was necessary to go on foot. We crossed the canyon and on the other side we had a good view across rice fields and towards Singgalang volcano. In a village we could see some nice old, dutch houses, some of them more than 100 years old.