Bukit Tinggi to Lake Maninjau by "Harmonius" bus Part 2

Descending down to Lake Maninjau the bus driver had to negotiate 44 hair-pin bends. One misjudgment would have sent the bus hurling down the steep hillside and crushed us to bits as easily as King Kong crushing hostile fighter jets, and onto the frontpages of newspapers.



Pic: "Harmonius" bus speeding in Maninjau.

Signage at each bend with huge numbers painted on them helped in the countdown to the bottom of the hill.

As the driver swung his ageing and overloaded bus round each bend with nonchalant aplomb, I grew anxious and glanced worryingly at the plastic bags swinging from the grab handle above.

The spectacular view of the lake below took my mind off my discomfort.

At 4.30 pm the ancient bus roared into the sleepy town of Maninjau. Phew!

On Tiger from Singapore to Lake Maninjau, West Sumatra

Would you believe it? Thanks to Tiger Airways, my return ticket from Singapore to Padang in West Sumatra cost me the "princely" sum of SGD $58!

Padang is the nearest airport to Lake Maninjau or Danau Maninjau to give it its Indonesian name.

Before you realise it in just under an hour the pilot jolted me with the terse announcement that we'd be landing in Padang which in Indonesian means "field". But we'd not be arriving in a god-forsaken place but the capital of west Sumatra.

Like all small airports the world over, the welcoming folks enjoyed the excitement of an incoming flight. For them it's more exciting as they are not spared the roar of jet engines unlike those cocooned in huge modern airports.