Exploring the southern regions of Sumatra
Originally published in Bali and Beyond Magazine
The lake stretches before me in a sheet
of steely grey water. Small boats creep
across the glassy surface, and skeins of white mist cling to the green ridges
that rise on either side. To the west
the smooth cone of Gunung Seminung rises, and olive-grey monkeys shift through
the branches of the trees. I am standing
on the shores of Danau Ranau, a large lake locked in the jungle-clad hills of
Southern Sumatra. It is a beautiful,
peaceful place, and there is not another traveler in sight.
***
Sumatra
is a land of superlatives. A great green
oblong, tilting at the Indian Ocean, it is the world’s sixth largest island, a
place studded with towering volcanoes and speckled with lakes. Most travelers stick to the string of fine attractions
in striking distance of the heaving northern city of Medan – Lake Toba, Bukit
Lawang, and Berastagi – while others head for Padang to trek the nearby
mountains or the jungle trails of the offshore Mentawi Islands. But I am here to explore Sumatra’s forgotten
side, the great sweep of the southern provinces, where the tracks remain resolutely
unbeaten.
Danau
Ranau, on the borders of Lampung and South Sumatra provinces, is my first stop. Lack of temples notwithstanding, the setting
reminds me of Bali’s Lake Batur – but here, locals tell me, tigers still slip
down into the villages from time to time.
Villages built on stilts – an anti-tiger defense – stand amongst the trees,
and the potholed roads that loop around the shores are free from traffic.
Danau
Ranau is cradled in the hills of the Bukit Barisan, a great ridge of mountains
that stretches along the entire length of Sumatra, walling off the rugged west
coast from the forested flatlands to the east.
After leaving the lake I cut through these hills and head north past
stormy beaches to Bengkulu, a sleepy little city with a very strange
history. While most of Indonesia was once
a Dutch colony, until 1824 Bengkulu, and the surrounding province which bears
its name, was British territory.
Bengkulu was Southeast
Asia’s original hardship posting; it made an unremitting loss for the British
government, and many of the men sent to run the place died of fever and
alcoholism. Today it is a sleepy,
friendly town, studded with echoes of an earlier age. I explore the tranquil cemetery where the
crooked graves of soldiers and civilians stand amongst the tall grass, and
admire the rusting cannons on the ramparts of Fort Marlborough, an imposing
hulk of masonry looking out across the red roofs of the old town to the empty
sweep of the ocean, and the dark line of the Bukit Barisan.
The
most famous British resident of Bengkulu was Thomas Stamford Raffles, who
founded Singapore while serving as governor there. After taking up the post in 1818, Raffles set
out on an expedition into the mountains, discovering the famous Rafflesia, the
world’s biggest – and smelliest – flower along the way. After a few days exploring Bengkulu I set out
in his footsteps.
***
The
great sweep of the Pasemah Highlands lies far beneath me under a blanket of
creamy cloud. A bitter wind is blowing,
and the light of a steely dawn is leaching into the South Sumatra skies. I am approaching the summit of Gunung Dempo,
the 3173-metre mountain that looms over these green uplands.
After
arriving in the cool township of Pagaralam, I have explored waterfalls and
villages of carved teakwood, and picked my way through the rice fields to find
the enigmatic 2000-year-old megaliths that dot the countryside. This region, the Pasemah Highlands in South Sumatra
province, is a place of tea gardens and fresh air. Again, I find myself wondering why so few
tourists come here.
The area is dominated
by the looming presence of Gunung Dempo, and now I am approaching the summit in
the company of a local mountaineering enthusiast called Maman. We set out at midnight from the trailhead
deep in the sprawling tea gardens which cloak the lower slopes, clambering
through dense forest in the hours of darkness.
Maman tells me that the mountain was traditionally viewed as the
receptacle for the souls of departed ancestors, ruled over by a deity called
Puyung Raja Nyawe. Now, finally, we are
approaching our goal, passing through stunted bushes cloaked with the
grey-green lichen known here as jengot
angin, “the beard of the wind”. It
has been a hard climb, but the views are worth it. The mountain is a dormant volcano, and from
the summit we look down on a deep, lake-filled crater. To the east the coppery cloud is melting over
the highlands, and the dark ridges of the Bukit Barisan rise like sharks’
fins. To the west, meanwhile, beyond a
descending tangle of green ridges, I can see the pale coastline of Bengkulu
province.
Once I descend from the
mountain my journey takes me on east to Palembang, the seething capital of
South Sumatra, and once the seat of an independent Malay kingdom. This is a watery down, straddling the banks
of the great Musi River. I make my
escape by boat, heading downstream to the beaches of nearby Bangka Island. A handful of low key resorts dot the coast
here, but there are no other tourists in sight, and I relax and let my Dempo
blisters heal in splendid isolation.
Beyond Bangka I return
to the mainland and head north once more to my final destination in this
unexplored quarter of Sumatra.
***
The jungle stretches
away on either side, full of furious insect noise. The air is damp and clammy, and very still,
and I wonder nervously for a moment about those tigers. I am standing in a clearing in the forest at
Muara Jambi, feeling a little like Indiana Jones. Before me lies a chaos of tumbled red bricks
and knotted creepers – I am looking out on the ruins of a civilization.
This spot, 25
kilometers from the modern regional capital, Jambi, was the seat of the Melayu
Kingdom in the 11th and 12th centuries. This powerful Hindu-Buddhist realm ruled over
a vast swathe of territory, and controlled much of the trade that passed
through the Straits of Melaka. Far from
the mountainous sources of basalt, the rulers hear built their massive temple
complexes from red brick, and when the kingdom collapsed in the 13th
century, they jungle took over, the buildings crumbled, at Melayu was
forgotten.
European explorers
first came across this place in the 19th century. Since then the central temples have been
restored. But there are hundreds of
other structures out in the forest, some only recently discovered.
As I wander alone along
the forest trails fragments of 1000-year-old pottery crunch beneath my
feet. Eventually I emerge beside a
narrow creek where a local villager is dipping a cantilevered Chinese-style
fishing net into the green water. I sit
down at the edge of a bamboo bridge to watch him work. Muara Jambi is a far cry from the crowded
relics of Indonesia’s other ancient civilizations at Borobudur and Prambanan in
Java, and indeed the whole of this untraveled region is a world away from tour
bus routes and beaten tracks. But my
journey has taken in everything from white beaches to mountain peaks, Buddhist
temples to colonial relics, and all along the way I’ve met with warm welcomes
from local people, eager to welcome travelers to their forgotten corner of
Indonesia. I’m sure I will be back!
© Tim Hannigan 2013
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