To get from Palembang to Lahat, we booked ourselves onto a "travel" (a door-to-door shared small vehicle). I wish I could remember the name of the company, because they were very good (they're on Jalan Kol Atmo, immediately north of the Gramedia bookshop). We toyed with going by train, but were seduced by the door-to-door bit.

Road trips in Indonesia are always interesting -- and always slow. We crisscrossed the railway, which carries a number of coal trains (and we also shared the road with a number of coal trucks, which feed the coal trains). We passed lots of Pertamina facilities, testimony to the Limau oil- and gas-field beneath our route. We bisected lots of rubber plantations, some obviously still under cultivation, some perhaps not.

And we listened to lots of dangdut, the plaintive lyrics gliding along over the top of the insistent rumba beat. ("Fate, O fate, why has it come to this? The flower that I watered has been now been picked by another..." Tum ta-aa tum ta-aa tum ta, tum ta-aa tum ta-aa tum ta...)

We stopped to repair a puncture; we stopped for a pindang lunch; we stopped to take photos of Bukit Serelo (the "thumbs up" hill); and we arrived at about 4.30, which was 6.5 hours after starting.



Lahat is a very long city, and we stayed at the eastern end of it. In the Grand Zuri, to be precise, which we found very comfortable.

Our little neighbourhood included the railway line, some stern admonitions to drive carefully, and a sobering road-sign telling you it's 1,376 km to Medan, which is not even the end of Sumatra... It also boasted some picturesque mosques, and an excellent cendol stall.

We drove through some more of the city on our excursion and on our way out. There's a bustling market, and it all looks thriving and pleasant.




"Motorbikes are not killing machines. Learn to be patient on the road. Speeding brings death all the closer. Beware of the temptations of Satan."



We had just one full day at our disposal, so we hired a car and driver, and set out to see some megaliths. We stopped at five easily accessible sites, but barely scratched the surface... This area is running in megaliths, and it would be great to come back, with more time, to tramp the cool hills and find the more remote ones. The oldest specimens (uncarved) go back three millennia, and the carved ones two. The latter depict strange yet recognizable and often poignant figures.

















We don't know a whole lot about the people who made them, but I guess they enjoyed the forested mountains, deep, steep valleys, swooping waterfalls, and rushing rivers as much as we did. Gunung Dempo remained behind his own rain-cloud, but his lesser brethren put on a good show.



Our basic direction was towards Pagaralam, and then on to Tanjung Sakti, our furthest point out, where we drank (home-produced) coffee at our driver's house. The whole area is full of gorgeous old wooden houses, varying in style, but all highly covetable. I loved the details: etchings, curtains, shutters.

We also encountered our first "pertamini" (small, hand-pumped petrol dispenser).







On the way home we stopped for a late lunch of bebek bakar and sayur asem, and were back in time to do a sunset walk.

We've been the centre of attention again here in Lahat, and probably figure, grinning cheesily, in an awful lot of photos...

But such a great area. Definitely another to come back to.