I am probably gonna say that Padang is a boring city. Well that would kinda upset Minang people though. But it’s totally true for big city girl like me, this city is so 70s and 80s. People seems wanna stay here because cannot move on from reality it’s been year 2-0-1-3.
Not really clean cities either which probably common anywhere else around Indonesia (of course if you want to compare it with Singapore which is super clean!). The only main attraction in Padang could be only the museums. Indri and I went to 3 places that day after walking around 5 minutes from our lovely & vintage Hangtuah Hotel. First, tsunami & disaster museum. Here you can see evidence of earthquake in Padang back in 2009. Second, we visited the city open theatre. 3rd, the famous Museum Adityawarman. All with old school style and once again Indri, the architect, really happy to capture pictures of all Gonjongs and architecture landscape.
Speaking about Museum Adityawarman, this persona has big influence with History of West Sumatra. It seems that origin of Padang starts from him. I saw Adi once in National Museum Jakarta with my brother (yup I call him Adi hoho). He’s really tall, like 3 meters and have skeletons mat under him (how cool is that!).
You may want to see Siti Nurbaya Bridge – a landmark of love declaration from Siti Nurbaya to Syamsul Bahri – when visiting Padang river. I can say It was pretty mystically to see Padang from here. The water from Batang Arau River was quite clean that time with boats all over the place. Something special besides the story of Siti Nurbaya probably the Tomb of Siti Nurbaya that is located at the highland next to this bridge.
Anyway, our journey on that day still continues to Pantai Air Manis and Malin Kundang Rocks. Stories behind Malin Kundang you can see at this link . Honestly when I visited this place, I am not really eager to see it. It seems most Malin Kundang Rocks is sort of made up by man. It has been said that Malin Kundang turned to rocks when his Mom condemned him. Now we can see his remains and boats in this place. The reality behind Malin Kundang stories still remain a mystery between reality or folklore same as Siti Nurbaya I reckon. You may believe it or not.
Lesson learn from Padang Journey: I probably will never wrong and messed up between West Sumatera and South or North again! Yeah somehow I cannot differ between all of them sometimes.
Felicia Lasmana 