The Missing Ingredient: Notes from the Streets of Southeast Asia: Padang and Bengkulu, Indonesia

The fort

One of my favorite photos of the trip

After a couple of night sin Padang I made my way south along the coast line of Sumatra. This country is gigantic and has very little infrastructure. A drive that would have taken half the time again was an overnight trip along windy roads. I should mention right now, this is a country stuck in those old 1940s Hollywood movies. All the protagonists are smoking. The driver was literally lighting his clove cigarettes one after an another. So with constant smoke in the van I opened the window and tried to sleep for the 16 or so hours it took to get to our destination.
I arrived during a torrential rainstorm in Bengkulu, a large city that was having a very important Muslim festival. The locals were really excited to see me and again lots of people photos were taken, people posing for me and generally happy to be captured on camera. Bengkulu as has a wonderful well preserved fort called Fort Marlborough built by the British as an outpost of the English East Trading Company in 1714.
The fort reminded me of the Castillo de San Marcos fort in Saint Augustine that I used to visit as a child. Although it rained almost the entire time I was in the city, the people still came out to the festival and clogged the street in front of my hotel. I also got to eat some great grilled chicken, fried chicken and this great dish of blanched or raw vegetables with a light peanut sauce. The dish was then topped with shrimp crackers to add a crunch.