In Bukittinggi last month there was a marked shortage of western tourists. The tour guides were most concerned. The European summer holiday season should have been under way, but so far only a handful seemed to have made it to West Sumatra's traditional tourist capital.
There seemed to be unemployed wannabe guides all over the place. I employed a couple of competent, established guides though. Here's Erik, polishing his car.
One theory was that the earthquakes and tsunamis of recent years had frightened people off. Another was that the ending of the Medan to Penang ferry service (due to competition from cheap airlines) had severed the well trodden backpacker route up through Sumatra. But travel has its fashions anyway. Destinations go in and out of vogue. And a lot of travellers go straight to Lake Maninjau or the Harau Valley these days. For old times sake I was staying put for a whole relaxed week in Bukittinggi.
I used Erik's services for two full day tours. Here he is, showing me how a designer rural fish cracker factory works.
And here's Rara, of LITE 'N EASY Tours. She did a magnificent job of looking after me for another couple of days.
She came equipped with corporate umbrella, corporate fold-up chair, and corporate LITE 'N EASY Tour sign.
I've forgotten this chap's name, but he was a veteran at the game, and a total professional. He'd claimed me before I even got off the bus in Rantepao. And there was no way he'd take no for an answer, and no way he'd budge from his asking price of Rp 800,000 for a day's tour guiding, including car and driver. That's the tour guide union's agreed rate, he said, and that was that. He was pretty good though. Here he's playing with a giant stag beetle, for some reason.
This is our driver, whose name I think was Arief. A jovial young happy chappie and an excellent driver. He was quite a ladies' man too. Whenever we stopped at a tourist site, he's be chatting up a young woman or two!
On day two I found myself with John here. He did an adequate job I thought. He's posing here with a giant deposit that looks like it was left by our car.
John told me that we'd be climbing Mt Sesean, the 2150m high peak on the range in the picture. I knew that we wouldn't, as there was only an hour or two budgeted for it, and the driver was waiting for us to return for lunch. Sure enough we only made it to the first peak there, and he announced we'd have to turn around and go back down.
The chap on the left was a bit of a pain. He was the becak (cycle rickshaw) driver in Makassar who managed to lure me into the 'it's up to you how much you pay' con for his quick tour of the harbour and local markets. I knew it was a bad idea, and would have really rather walked to these places and took my time there. And of course once the tour was over the friendly and relaxed disposition vanished and he was demanding ridiculous sums. I gave him three times what I really should have, and pointed out that this was the same as the amount I'd just paid for my ticket for the 10-hour bus ride to Toraja Land. 
