Here’s a real-life travel parable for you. It happened to me in the western Sumatran city of Bukittinggi, when I was hungry and wanted to find a place to have dinner. Having been in the Bukittinggi area for more than a week, I wanted to try a local specialty. Ever since I’d visited the pacu…

About a week after embarking on my winter journey through Asia, I wrote the following passage in my journal: “More than steak or bourbon I am dying for a decent map to Sumatra.” Indeed, as much as I have celebrated the joys of motorcycle travel here in Sumatra, the journey has been complicated by the…

People of Sumatra #9: Zul (aka Bandalo). Arlen Nova’s Paradise Homestay has been on the shore of Lake Maninjau for nearly a quarter-century now, though Zul has only been the manager for the past few years. As with most of the people who live in this part of Sumatra, Zul is Minangkabau, which is the…

When I arrived at Lake Maninjau in western Sumatra and saw this steep-sloped little island sitting half-a-kilometer across the water from the front door of my guesthouse cottage, I knew I’d have to swim out and see what was there. As I’ve traveled over the years, I’ve come to realize that a given travel moment…

Jonedi’s life was formed by Minangkabau tradition, which stipulates that young men must leave their home-villages in their late teens. This coming-of-age ritual, called “merantau,” literally translates as “emigration” – but in practice it’s something more along the lines of “go out and make yourself useful.” Jonedi left his home-village for the city of Bukittinggi…

This guesthouse cottage cost me $8.50 a night, breakfast included (dinner was an extra $1.75). It was located at the edge of the Harau Valley (the setting of my recent posts), and the neighboring cottages were arranged around a lotus pond, with rice-paddies stretching out in one direction, and the waterfall a two-minute walk in…

When I saw this Sumatran father steering his three sons through a Harau Valley village in a motorcycle sidecar I knew I’d have to flag him down and ask for a picture. The above photo was the result. Twenty years ago, when I was first traveling through Asia, I’d reckon this photo would have yielded…

I spent a week riding a motorbike through the equatorial highlands outside the Sumatran hill-station town of Bukittinggi. My overnight destinations included the waterfall-studded Harau Valley and the freshwater caldera of Lake Maninjau. Motorcycling in this part of the world is a crash-course in road intuition. One doesn’t study urban traffic patterns here so much…

I met these guys by accident, when a sudden rainstorm caught us all out in the open. I was walking back to my motorbike from a backcountry waterfall; they’d been tapping rubber trees in a rural grove near Sumatra’s Harau Valley. Siar motioned for me to join them as they jogged to a shelter on…

The above image offers a glimpse into my failed attempt to create one of those Instagram-influencer-style don’t-you-wish-you-were-me-in-this-beautiful-waterfall type videos. It all started out innocently enough, when I was riding my motorbike around western Sumatra’s waterfall-studded Harau Valley. I’m not sure what the name of this waterfall is. I initially assumed it was called “Dilarang Merusak…

Minangkabau Joe is not his real name, but he reminded me of my Uncle Joe back in Kansas – another effortlessly competent farmer-athlete who walked with a swagger not because he was trying to swagger, but because that’s the way he walked. I’m no expert in the intricacies of Sumatran cow racing, but I sensed…