The Great Traveling Road Show
The recently-completed Trans-Sumatra Highway runs the length of one of the world's largest islands-a distance of over 2,500 km. The journey from Bakauheni in the south to Banda Aceh in the north is truly one of Indonesia's great travel experiences, both for the stunning scenery you pass through and for the people you meet along the way.
However, the trip can equally become a nightmare of frustrations and uncomfortable conditions. Much depends on careful preparation, on having enough time, and on your response to the inevitable delays and minor irritations which all travelers experience in Indonesia. Patience and tolerance are invaluable qualities when traveling here, and will help ensure that your journey through some of the wildest and the least populated regions of the country will be an experience long remembered.
Only as a test of endurance should you take the highway straight through all the way from Jakarta to Banda Aceh. It is possible to do this-the journey takes about 60 hours and costs $70. The old days of untold delays caused by collapsed bridges and washedout roads are over. Today, the highway is paved, though your journey could come to a screeching halt if a landslide occurs, especially during the rainy season. But you will not be delayed for long. Maintenance crews show up promptly, as the highway is too important to the national economy for it to be closed more than a few hours.
However, the trip can equally become a nightmare of frustrations and uncomfortable conditions. Much depends on careful preparation, on having enough time, and on your response to the inevitable delays and minor irritations which all travelers experience in Indonesia. Patience and tolerance are invaluable qualities when traveling here, and will help ensure that your journey through some of the wildest and the least populated regions of the country will be an experience long remembered.
Only as a test of endurance should you take the highway straight through all the way from Jakarta to Banda Aceh. It is possible to do this-the journey takes about 60 hours and costs $70. The old days of untold delays caused by collapsed bridges and washedout roads are over. Today, the highway is paved, though your journey could come to a screeching halt if a landslide occurs, especially during the rainy season. But you will not be delayed for long. Maintenance crews show up promptly, as the highway is too important to the national economy for it to be closed more than a few hours.
Setting off: Lampung
Setting off from the shout, the first leg of the Trans-Sumatra Highway runs 99 km from the Java-Sumatra ferry landing at Bakauheni, on the island's southeastern tip, up to Bandar Lampung-the capital of Lampung Province. Leaving the ferry landing, the road climbs up around Mt. Rajabasa, giving fine views of island-strewn Lampung Bay. Strands of clove trees line the hillsides, distinctive clumps of conical light green foliage.
A little over 60 km from Bakauheni, the road drops down to the coast, giving a tantalizing glimpse of Lampung Bay, its bright blue surface broken by several steep-sided islands and fishing platforms hovering over the water like giant water-spiders. Houses on stilts line the water's edge, separated from the road by a thin strip of mangrove swamp. A rail head heralds your entry into the provincial capital, and in a short while you find yourself among huge warehouses and docks.
The next stage of your Trans-Sumatra journey northward takes you 385 km in 9 hours to Muaraenim, through foothil plains skirting the eastern edge of the Bukit Barisan mountain range. The road cuts through rubber and oil palm plantations and fields of corn. There are lots of river crossings-all rivers flow eastward from the Bukit Barisan to the sea.
Stunning emerald-green sawah by the roadside are dotted with huts where watchmen stay to keep wild animals at bay. Your bus might have to make several stops to let long "coal trains" by. The red-tiled raised wooden houses, some sitting on ironwood logs two meters off the ground, are traditional Lampung or South Sumatra rumah limas, formerly fastened with ropes, not nails.
A little over 60 km from Bakauheni, the road drops down to the coast, giving a tantalizing glimpse of Lampung Bay, its bright blue surface broken by several steep-sided islands and fishing platforms hovering over the water like giant water-spiders. Houses on stilts line the water's edge, separated from the road by a thin strip of mangrove swamp. A rail head heralds your entry into the provincial capital, and in a short while you find yourself among huge warehouses and docks.
The next stage of your Trans-Sumatra journey northward takes you 385 km in 9 hours to Muaraenim, through foothil plains skirting the eastern edge of the Bukit Barisan mountain range. The road cuts through rubber and oil palm plantations and fields of corn. There are lots of river crossings-all rivers flow eastward from the Bukit Barisan to the sea.
Stunning emerald-green sawah by the roadside are dotted with huts where watchmen stay to keep wild animals at bay. Your bus might have to make several stops to let long "coal trains" by. The red-tiled raised wooden houses, some sitting on ironwood logs two meters off the ground, are traditional Lampung or South Sumatra rumah limas, formerly fastened with ropes, not nails.
South Sumatra and Jambi
The highway continues northwest out of Muaraenim, crossing the Lematang River several time before reaching Lahat. Just after Muaraenim, you get a panoramic view of the Lematang River againts a backdrop of a primary forest. In the early morning and late afternoon, heards of water buffalo and cattle compete for road space with buses and trucks. Look for an unusually shaped mountain, Bukit Serelo-a bare, finger-like projection on top of a steep-sided hill, standing apart from the foothills of the Bukit Barisan.
Lahat is the place to get off to explore the Pasemah Highlands. However, if you get off the bus here, getting a good seat for the next stage of your journey is a matter of luck. The highway nort of Lahat offers plenty of swaying curves and, if the weather is clear, glimpeses of the Bukit Barisan range to the west. This is landslide country during the rainy season, but bulldozers quickli clear the road. Coffee is grown on the steep hills and a rubber plantation stretches for several kilometers by the roadside. The next town is Tebing Tinggi ("high embankment"), which sits above the Musi River-one of the largest and most important rivers in Sumatra.
The highway the straightens out, and you speed along to Lubuklinggau, on the junction of the main road west Bengkulu. The tin-roofed houses whiz by your bus window with monotonous regularity for the next 248 km until you cross a bridge over the Merangin River, just outside Bangko. You are now in Jambi Province, and a sideroad to the west from Bangko leads you into the dense jungle and tea plantations of the Kerinci-Seblat National Park around Lake Kerinci.
The next stage , 92 km from Bangko to Muarabungo, seems to take no time at all. Muarabungo is the jumping-off point for Jambi, a long 212 km to the east.
Outside Muarabungo, the bridge over the Tebo River at Telukpanjang offers a view of a riverside mosque. Fifty km further on, the wide Batang Hari River provides irrigation for extensive sawah and you are now in West Sumatra. Along the roadside, you begin to see your first Minangkabau style roofs.
West Sumatra
After Kiliranjo the scenery at last improves as the highway winds up into the Bukit Barisan mountains. Here are stunning limestone formations (called "karst towers") and sawah which go right up to the edge of the jungle. The tall, white trunks of the primary forest match the pale white outcroppings of limestone. In places, the vegetation grows right from a vertical cliff! The first of the karst towers, small but impressive, rears up on your right at Sungai Langsat. There are five larger ones ahead-awesome oval, dome and stupashaped freaks of nature. During the rainy seasons there are frequent landslides, and your vehicle might have to stop for a couple of hours while bulldozers clear the way.
Having passed through the mountains, you enter a more hospitable landscape of rice fields, small Minang houses and hillsides covered in ferns, before entering a gorge leading into the busy commercial town of Solok.
The next stretch, 53 km from Solok to Padangpanjang, follows the banks of the Sumani River north to Lake Singkarak, a huge and immensely scenic crater lake. The highway hugs the eastern lakeshore all the way to a bridge over Umbilin River, which drains Lake Singkarak.
At the northern end the lake, the highway rises to offer some good views before cutting north and east through fertile rice fields to Padangpanjang. To your right is Mt. Merapi, an active volcano which sometime emits puffs of smoke, and Mt. Singgalang. Both are about the same height-just a bit under 2,900 m.
Break your journey at Bukittinggi; this is the place to spend a few days recuperating. It's about halfway up or or down the island, and there are lots of good hotels, restaurants and pleasant sidetrips to be made in the area (see WEST SUMATRA).
After Bukittinggi, the next leg of the Trans-Sumatra Highway is a grueling 500-km run up to Prapat-the gateway to Lake Toba and Samosir Island, in north Sumatra. It's a long trip, about 15 hours, and if you can afford the time, it is better to break the journey in Padangsidempuan or Sibolga, so as to cross over the Bukit Barisan mountains again in daylight.
The road is paved all the way, but it's narrow and there are lost of curves. Even with a good driver, the crossing can be hair-raising, as you twist and wind up the mountains pass, barely missing oncoming lorries and coaches. Fortunately, there's not much traffic on the road and the coach can't go much faster than 40 km per hour.
Try to be awake at the town of Bonjol, home of the famous Muslim leader of the Padri wars, Iman Bonjol. There's a large, sabre-wielding statue of him in town on a horse-look to the right. Just out of Bonjol, there's a monument marking the equator.
From Bonjol the road climbs up to Lubuksikaping, then descends into a long rive valley with rice fields to the right. There are no more steep descents but plenty of jungle-clad gorges as you wind your way down to Muarasipongi and Kotanopan, where your eyes are soothed by rice fields dotted with neat little huts and bridges by the river. You are now in North Sumatra.
Nort Sumatra
From Muarasipongi, the road follows the Batang Gadis River past Kotanopan. The Purba Baru village area here is the center of a huge pesantren or Islamic koranic school, the largest in Indonesia, with students from all over the country. Hundreds of tiny huts house boys, aged six to twelve, who spend their primary school years here.
Traditional Minangkabau houses are very few now since you are in Batakland. The people of this region are Mandailing Bataks, forcefully converted to Islam more than one and a half centuries ago.
Panyabungan is a crowded market town which bustles with activity on Monday, market day. Gaudy becaks,vegetable-laden housewives, and motorized becak mesin all add noise and color to the market scene. As you leave Panyabungan, you see tranquil white mosques set in the middle of rice fields. A stretch of brick factories follows, then the large town of Padangsidempuan greets you by nightfall. This is a good place for an overnight stay, or a change of bus for the one and a half hour drive to Sibolga.
Aside from a few hair-raising bends, the next stage, to Prapat and Lake Toba, is a pleasant 5-hour ride. The first part, to Tarutung, takes about 3 hours, past roadside markets and denude hills with isolated stands of pine. After an hour or so, a pass below Mt. Sibualbuali (with a large hotel) marks the division between the Muslim and Christian Bataklands, and churches begin to replace mosques along the roadside.
It's a short half-hour hop on a straight road from Tarutung to the busy market town of Siborongborong. A little way further on you start winding down to Lake Toba past spectacular rice fields and impressive graves crowned with figures of wide-eyed men on white stallions, elders in adat costume, and traditional Toba Batak houses-including one almost big enough to live in. The massive sepulchre on the right, a short way off the road past Balige, is that of the Batak ruler Raja Tano. From here the road winds around lakeside hills to emerge at Prapat.
From Prapat to Medan, the journey takes 4-5 hours. As the road climbs up from Prapat, there are magnificent views of Lake Toba. Then the road winds down through the mountains on a long, gentle slope to the sea via Pematangsiantar and Tebingtinggi. Lush rice fields and estates of rubber and oil palm line the road, while churches are gradually replaced again by mosques.
The final leg: Aceh
The long, 600-km ride from Medan to Banda Aceh takes 14 hours. There's plenty of good scenery, but the only logical place to break up the journey is at Bireuen, about two-thirds of the way up, for a side trip up to Lake Tawar. At Sabat, 17 km out Medan, the road crosses a wide river and the traffic starts to thin. The road now passes large oil palm plantations and ageing rubber estates. Keep an eye out for a superb mosque on the left just before Tanjungpura. The scenery alternates between broad rice fields (some stretching two km from the road), coconut groves, single and triple domed mosques, large rivers, bridges over estuaries overgrown with mangroves and nipah palms. Canoes, small boats and houses parched on stilts crowd around the estuary bridges. Further ahead are the grass-covered foothills of the hazy Bukit Barisan range.
The town of Lhokseumawe, which is set a couple of kilometers off the highway, boasts huge banks, government buildings, shopping centers, satelite dishes and five-star hotels and restaurants alongside small, prosperous "downstream" area of small open shops. Back on the highway heading out of town, you can see several large LNG storage tanks, and flares from oil wells.
Traveling further into the province of Aceh, you will see more the girls wearing the kerudung or jilbab, the Muslim head scarf which leaves only the face exposed. These girls attend Islamic schools. Mosques here are often roofed with ironwood shingles.
throughout much of Aceh, the Trans-Sumatra Highway follows the tracks of a long-abandoned Dutch railway. Though much of the tracks remain, most of the bridges have fallen into the river.
On the last leg the highway, the road leaves the rice fields and coastal towns to cut across the northernmost section of the Bukit Barisan mountains. There are lots of curves as you ride over hills covered with grass, scrub; and later you pass through tall, deserted pine forests. Then, mercifully, the bus stops swaying as the road straightens out to follow the river and fertile rice valley which leads to Banda Aceh at the northernmost tip of Sumatra.
