"Sumatera Barat - beautifull area" West Sumatra Province by kilat

Pariangan is a little village on the mountain. The people live here calm and traditional. They cook on wood, which they carried on their head.
This man and woman just made sate lontong, rice with peanutsauce. Very good! All of the villagers only spoke Indonesian. They still suffered from the last earthquake, in 2007.
The surroundings of Batusangkar are very beautifull, you can easily stay a few days in this neighbourhood.
In Batusangkar are only 2 simple hotels, but there are also hotels at the lake of Singkarak.

Widuri in front of her house

Ardipan, close to the Lake of Singkarak, a very clean lake. There are still a lot of traditional Minangkabau-houses in this area, painted in beautifull colours. This woman invitated us in her familyhouse, all made of wood. The inside is simple, but very comfortable, because it always remains less hot than outside the house. It allready survived many earthquakes. It looks like the old way of building houses, with wood, is a very good way. All the walls of the house are handcarved and handpainted.
Widuri lives in this house with her 2 sisters and her father. They all graduated at a university.

Padang, the river Arau

Most travellers to Sumatra arrive at the airport of Padang. And often they leave soon. But then they miss a lot of this place. In the south are beautifull places to visit: the river Arau with all the blue boats, Siti Nurbayapark on the mountain Padang, the beaches of course, the market in the centre, the old Dutch buildings. There is even a Chinese temple! And Padang is also a good place to stay when you want to go surfing on the Mentawai island. Boats are leaving from the harbour in the south.
This city is also still clean enough, there is not much air pollution.

• Pros:nature and Minangkabau-houses
• In a nutshell:old wooden houses and nature