It's one a.m., and if you read my previous post (click here to read it), you'll know that I have this weird thing that happened earlier in the bus where I fell asleep for a few minutes then woke up for a few minutes feeling weirdly energetic. The last time I woke up feeling like that, it was at 12 a.m. And right now, I just woke up and feeling the same thing.
Nothing has changed; the driver is still blasting out loud-ass music, but this time it's more of an Indonesian slow pop songs, not upbeat songs like what they played earlier. I don't know what to do, so I just sit and stare out the window. The last time I woke up, we were at a toll road, so there's nothing to see except trees and that's if you have a good vision, because it was dark af. Right now, I think the bus is going through small streets with a few houses on the left side of the road. I think we're passing through a village. After a few minutes, I got sleepy, so I fall asleep again.
And now, it's like 2:30 in the morning, and I woke up a few seconds ago because my Mom wake me up. I didn't feel energetic, I just feel like someone who has slept and just got woken up by someone; a little sleepy. But something weird is going on.
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| What the f??!!! |
The bus stop at a restaurant?!! AT TWO IN THE MORNING?!! WTF??!!! This is so crazy. Who would want to eat literally anything at two a.m.? Well— sometimes, I would. But right now, I definitely wouldn't. But I get out of the bus anyway to go to the toilet, and I have to wait in line for a few minutes. And damn, the toilet is dirty and dark. I swear, I'm so strong for being alive after getting in these horrifying toilets. When I'm on my way to get back to the bus, my Dad stops me and say that most of the bus group are getting some instant noodle in a cup because it's kinda cold. So I join them and get myself a cup of instant noodle. And yeah, it's really good to get some warm, savoury broth while the air is quite cold.
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| The stall where I got my instant noodle. |
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| Yayyy:) Indomie & Popmie is the best thing in the world istg:):) |
From here, I notice that my bus driver is waving and calling to any direction, signaling that we should get in the bus, so we do what he said. All the bus group that got out from the bus for some cup noodles now are on their way back to the bus.
After a few hours, at 5 a.m., the bus stop at a mosque for Fajr prayer. The toilet at the mosque was surprisingly clean, much better than the toilets I've been in during this bus trip. After doing our Fajr prayer, we get back to the bus to continue our journey.
At first, the bus passes through small villages with houses on both sides of the road. But then, as the sun come up, more trees and bushes starts to appear on both sides of the road more often. I read for a few minutes, not paying attention to the scenery around me, and the second I look up, the bus is driving through winding small streets with a canyon filled with trees and bushes on the left side of the road. Looks SOOOO awesome. The sky is bleak, but it didn't stop the scenery around me to look absolutely gorgeous. I think the view would be even more amazing if the sky is bright.
It's 10 a.m., I haven't had my breakfast and according to the schedule my Mom told me yesterday, the bus would stops at a gas station with a small stall next to it. But there's been some road-repairing works so we got into a quite-long traffic jam. Finally, at 11.30, the bus arrives at that gas station. The bus group plans to get something from the stall, but we're afraid that there's not enough time to eat there so we have to find something that we can eat in the bus. We ended up getting some deep-fried bananas from the stall. Luckily, there's a guy that sells fried rice in a small plastic box so we all buy that fried rice. Fried rice and deep-fried bananas. Not a bad thing to have for breakfast.
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| The fried rice. |
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| The deep-fried bananas. |
First thing first. The bananas looks a bit different than what I usually eat back in Jakarta. The color looks more pale, not a usual golden brown. But it taste the same, scrumptious af. Even better, I can taste a little sour taste in the banana, not just plain sweet. The fried rice though, taste just like a normal fried rice, except I think they use more chili and spices and less sweet soy sauce. Maybe they don't even add sweet soy sauce at all.
The bus leave the gas station, continuing its journey. We enter a town again, with most buildings having a distinctive roof design. Most buildings have dramatic curved roof structure with multi-tiered, upswept gables. That's the moment I knew, we're already in West Sumatra. A few more hours then we'll arrive.
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| The roof design I meant. (1) |
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| The roof design I meant. (2) |
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The roof design I meant. (3)
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After passing through houses and town buildings, I start to see less houses and more trees. Oop, we're starting to enter remote areas where there are not too many people. The view outside the bus is amazing, as always.
It's ±1 pm, and the bus stops at a small restaurant called Rumah Makan Palapa in the middle of trees and cliffs. It's a small restaurant that sells Minang food with a little mosque and lots of toilets next to the restaurant building. The bus stops here for lunch break and Dzuhr prayer.
Some of the bus group get some fried rice to eat at the bus (including me) for lunch because we're spending the break time there to pray and pay a visit to the toilet. After ±40 minutes, the bus driver call us to get back on the bus then the bus continues its journey.
Unfortunately, there's a boring traffic jam at ±2:45 pm, and the bus just stop right there, completely stuck. I'm not in the mood to read, so I just open my gallery then I start editing the day 1 video (yes, I'm making short videos for each day on this trip, so you better stay tuned in!).
After 'bout a quarter and an hour, the bus continues. That lunch break was the last break, and the bus won't have another break until it arrives on Bukittinggi. The cliffs on the outer side of the road gets narrower as the bus continues. But still, the view of the cliff with the lush vines and bushes is still an eye-candy.
At ±5.30 pm, I'm a little confused. At a T-junction, the bus turns left instead of right, even though earlier when I checked my location on Google Maps, the fastest way to get to Bukittinggi is to take the road on the right. If the bus continues going through the left road, we will have to get through a small city first called Solok then to Bukittinggi. Clearly not the fastest way.
Oh my, I bet we're gonna arrive at Bukittinggi at 8 or maybe 9 pm.
Apparently I fell asleep for quite a long time since when I wake up, we're already in Solok. I look around and it turns out we're in a bus terminal. Aunt Tya told me that the bus is in transit for a while because some other bus passengers are getting off the bus in here, in Solok. She say there's a possibility that we will get to Bukittinggi by a different bus, but when there's no other passengers in the bus left other than the bus group, no one tell us to move into a different bus and the driver casually continue driving.
Again, I fell asleep and now my Mom is waking me up. And yeah, we're in Bukittinggi right now! Woohoo! We just spent ±36 hours in a bus. That's a huge achievement, isn't it? We get off the bus, carrying our backpacks then grab our suitcases and duffle bags. Now, we just need to get to Kotogadang, the name of the village where we're gonna stay at.
We are stranded for a few minutes, while the grown-ups are searching for a way to get us to the house we're gonna stay in. By the way, we're gonna stay at my grandpa's grandpa's house, and his grandpa was H. Agus Salim and he's a national hero, so now a lot of people visits his house where he was born for a little history tour (you can find the house in Google Maps, or just click
here). Ooh, we're gonna stay at a little museum.
Fortunately, my Dad found us a driver with a wide car that could fit all of us and our suitcases. When we're still in the downtown, I could see the buildings and streets, but as the driver gets closer to the outskirts of the town, it gets darker and I can't see anything. All I know is that after a few minutes of darkness, the car stops in front of a gray, traditional, semi-modern Minang-styled house. The doors are open, and I could see my grandma, my grandpa, and Aunt Revi's fam. Oh, the airplane group already arrived at this house since a few hours ago. But thousand apologies, I forgot to take a photo of the house when I arrived.
I grab some duffle bags and my backpack then take them inside the house. I take off my shoes in the foyer, the stack the bags near the door (there's another door that's separates the foyer and the living room). That night, I didn't do much. I just washed my face, did my Maghrib & Isha prayer, did my short-n-simple skincare routine, then went to bed.
Overall, the bus trip was amazing. Yes, the driver blasted out loud-ass upbeat music almost all the time. And yes, there's also a lot of little turbulences all the time, just like when you ride a car. But the view you got during that ±36 hours trip was stunning and totally worth it. You just have to be okay with and prepared for:
1. Dirty toilets (most of the time you gotta pay for it, Rp. 2.000, or Rp. 3.000. The most expensive one I've encountered during this trip is Rp. 5.000.)
2. Small turbulences all the time (sometimes they could get really worse, but that just happened a few times to me)
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And that was it, the second day of The Great Bukittinggi Adventure. For the third day, there's not a lot of things that I did: took a little walk around the village in the morning, get back home to read, then joining the aunts, my grandma's sisters, and my Mom to visit a quite-historical souvenir store a few metres from the house. So, make sure to check it out and stay tuned!
I hope you enjoy this one, and I'll see you soon. Bye!
All the love, -R-
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