We recently went to Padang in
Indonesia, also known as West Sumatra. We only went for 3 days but it was such
a lovely and relaxing trip. This is where we’re actually from and our parents grew
up here but the last time we came to visit was in 2011, so I was really excited
to go back. Padang is very green and small!
We arrived early in the morning and went
straight to the village - Bukit Tingi which is around a 3 hour
ride from the city, but we stopped at a waterfall and a library (where our
Grandpa gave away most of his books) along the way.
We reached Bukit
Tingi and visited our relatives. They took us to the house that our
mum grew up in and looked through all the photo albums of our mum, grandpa. It
was so fascinating especially cause my grandpa travelled a lot and there were
gorgeous photographs that he took. Also, everyone says I looked exactly like my
mum when she was young.
We stayed at Bougenville Motel for
the night and the next morning, we had breakfast on the balcony and walked to
rice fields behind the motel. It was drizzling, but we still went and walked
around the rice fields which was gigantic and beautiful.
Afterwards we went to Pagaruyung which
is basically a big palace designed in a traditional Padang style. We drove
back to Padang and on our last day we head to the beach! We were all
praying for the rain to go away, but unfortunately it was still drizzling, but
that didn’t stop us from going cause it was our last day! We took a boat to the
islands (went to 3 different islands and one of them is called Sikuai island) and swam. It was quite crowded cause it was a public holiday, so we
asked our boat driver to take us to a random and quiet island and so he did! It
felt like a real adventure on our way back when it started to rain
heavily! Definitely need to come back during the summer. So that was
our trip! Short and sweet.
Padang is not as well known as the rest of
Indonesia such as Bali which I think is a shame because it's beautiful. The
tourism industry in Padang isn't that big either and I feel pretty lucky I got
to explore all the places because our relatives took us, so if you have any
questions, please ask!
