I met Toikot on Siberut, the largest island in the Mentawai Archipelago, off the western coast of Sumatra. Toikot is 78 years old. Like most Mentawai men his hair has remained jet-black into old age, and his lean, ropy muscles would put even Iggy Pop to shame. His full-body tattoos mark him as a shaman,…

Of all the travel-instincts I’ve built up over the years, few compare to the hard-won skills I learned during my two-year stint as an English-conversation teacher in South Korea. As exhausting at that job could at times be, it taught me how to interact with people who have yet to master spoken English. It made…

Hello Guesthouse in Bukittinggi has an unassailable word-of-mouth reputation among backpackers who’ve been to this part of Sumatra – in large part because of Ling, who co-owns the place with her parents, and knows a little bit about everything there is to see and do within a 100-mile radius of the city. The work that…

More often than not travel writing (and, in particular, travel Instagram) leaves out those necessary but far less glamorous moments of travel that are nonetheless essential if the travel — and travel writing — process is going to happen. I’m thinking of those small moments of running errands, doing laundry, waiting in line at train…

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…