A Trip to Padang, West Sumatera

Year 2013 began with my journey to the city of Padang, a city in West Sumatra. This was my first trip to the city which is famous for its traditional house "rumah gadang". I spent 8 days there for news coverage. For the first episode I went to Payakumbuh city the second largest city after Padang. I covered this city a unique sport which only exists in Indonesia, the duck race.

Duck race has been going on since decades ago, and was found by local people inadvertently. With the majority of the population work as farmers, they used to spend time in the fields with grazing fields. One day one of the farmer was astonished by the behavior of ducks that have a tendency to fly from the highlands to the lowlands. Since that time the farmers in Payakumbuh pursue sports racing ducks.

Initially I was also a bit curious, what was it like racing ducks? previously I only got to browse on the internet. Apparently is not much different than in the photo, but the difference is that I'm really amazed by the ability of the ducks fly away to a distance of 1400 meters. Woww..

The Duck Race

To preserve this unique sport, local governments are participating with supporting funds and establish an annual calendar of sports racing ducks that usually held in the end of the year.

after 4 days I continued on to the town of Bukittinggi, a mountainous area which is about an hour from the city Payakumbuh. I only spent one night there because they have to work again tomorrow. I also use this opportunity to visit the iconic town of Bukittinggi, the clock sieve "Jam Gadang". It was really cold and enough to make my night feels so freezing even though the rooms don't use air conditioning. Brrrrrr ... it was cold ...

at Bukittingi Icon "Jam Gadang"

I also went on a trip to Lake Singkarak, the second largest on the island of Sumatra. Okay, I'm actually a little disappointed. When I saw it on internet before lake Singkarak is so beautiful and it is also quite well known for sporting event Day Festival. But it turned out very poorly maintained, it doesn't even look like a tourist spot. Very unfortunate ..

Singkarak Lake is also famous for its local food-fish Bilih. A fish species that only exist here, it's a small fish like anchovies, but it was tasty, delicious and nutritious.

One of the locations are quite memorable to visit is covering the Singkarak hydroelectric power (PLTA Singkarak) located in the area Lubuk Alung. Why? because it turns out the power station has 19 KM long tunnel that drains water from the Singkarak lake to Lubuk Alung. This tunnel is the longest tunnel of underground water in Indonesia. Wowww .. I'm so amazed and felt a little bit scared when we entered the tunnel. It was really dark and feels like a very long journey. It was like in Hollywood movies I've seen. Cool!

In front of PLTA Singkarak Tunnel

So after 7 days of work finally it's time to return to Jakarta. With a travel time of nearly two hours I finally arrived at Soekarno Hatta airport. See you again in my next trip!