We took the bus down to Sungai Penuh from Padang for 80,000. If you plan on climbing Gunung Kerinci you may as well jump down in Kersik Tua, where you can sort out supplies. We went to Sungai Penuh first.
Sungai Penuh: Nondescript mountain town but a nice little base. We went to Danau Kerinci for the day, which is nice but not essential viewing. Here we got stalked by a local motorcycle driver all the way round the lake, his super loud engine blending effortlessly with the tranquility of the lake. Arsehole. We couldn't shake him off. He told me he was wanted by international police, he knew Jimmy Carter and his uncle was Chuck Norris. Or at least that's what it sounded like. His claims just got more and more ridiculous. He was head of an international bank, he had lived in France and England, but doesn't speak any English or French. I concluded that he was either crazy, dangerous or a bit of both. By the end I had figured that he was just crazy. Anyway he ruined our hike. We got the public bus both ways to the lake. That evening we met Luke Mackin from the LP guide. He was cool and told us a lot of useful things about the local area, including how the LP guy had come through for one night, done nothing and just took his information second hand. Good to see LP is as well researched as we suspected. You should definitely contact him if you are in the area, as he is trying to grow tourism in the region.
Gunung Kerinci: We then went up to Kersik Tua and stayed with a local homestay though we had arranged to climb the mountain with a guide friend of Lukes. This caused a little bit of a problem in the homestay and we had agreed to 1.2 million to climb it including equipment, food, porter and guide. We don't carry any of our own equipment and Cannelle was concerned about the tigers. Firstly we went to the local waterfall (forget the name), but its just off the main road and is impressively powerful. It made a nice day trip diversion. The homestay agreed to take us to the trailhead for 20000 which I thought wa steep but agreed. We decided to set off at 7am, which later changed to 8am. Then in the morning the homestay decided that they wanted 100,000. Fuck that. I was unhappy with the first price, so we decided to walk the 4km to the start of the walk. Its not that bad and fairly flat. It just added 300m to the climb. The guide and porter were not used to walking this additional part and I don't think they were too happy initially. The trail is very easy to follow and once you find the start you could hike to the top on your own very easily. I think that if you have your own equipment and you are at least 2 (probably better 3) then I would say you wouldn't need to hire anyone. We ended up walking ahead of our guide for a lot of it and even did the summit to campsite 2 on our own as the guide and porter went off ahead. As with all the mountains we have done in Indonesia so far, they are all very easy to find the route up. Being more than one protects against accidents and the possible but unlikely tiger encounter as the altitude is too high. We got on the trail about 9am (quite late), but as a bonus on the way up we started to hear siamangs. They were loud. They were close. We followed the sound and headed off the trail to the right for 100m. Awesome. Two siamangs including a baby were in the trees above us. It was a real bonus. We watched them for around half an hour and then set off climbing again. The trail is fairly easy until the first campsite and then it gets steep and muddy. It rained on our way up and that made it a little slippery. In the rainy season it would be challenging. We made it from the base to campsite 2 in around 4-5 hours. We decided we wanted to stay there as we had read that the wind was really strong higher up. It meant an earlier start the next morning, but a better night's sleep. There is some nice birdlife on the way up, but we never saw the yellow langur monkey. Shame as we really love collecting monkeys. I was having problems with altitude in the morning on the hike to the top. It took us around 1.5-2 hours to reach the summit. The sulphur was thick at the top and we had some trouble breathing but we had made it. About 100m down from the summit we had a beautiful view over what seemed like half of Sumatra. You can see the sea, we could see Danau Gunung Tujuh (stunning and you don't need to visit it if you climb here as you won't get a better view). Overall we felt like Gods on Olympus. Volcanos feel so much higher because unlike mountains they don't have any other volcanos around them. It was Cannelle's new highest peak as well. Her vertigo kicked in on the way down and it is a little intimidating, but we overcame it and got down quite tired. Our legs would also be sore for the next two days which shows its a little tough as we are in shape.
Kerinci National Park: When we got back we headed back to Sungai Penuh and decided to take a night drive with Luke, our guide Dhiey and a friend of theres. It cost us 400,000 including petrol from 2pm until 10pm. We went for a drive along the main road of the park (which the buses to Bengkulu also pass through) looking for monkeys. Still no luck. Luke says he often sees them in the morning. When the light fell we went looking for tigers but had no luck. Luke reckons he saw one up here briefly before. We were hoping to see a slow loris. On the ride we saw a civet cat, giant fruit bats, a suspected bear cat (as it was big but not enormous) and a giant flying squirrel. It was a cool experience and its fun sweeping the shadows with torches in pursuit of animals. I reckon if you went a few times you could see quite a lot. The following day we figured we'd take the bus to Bengkulu down the same road and maybe see monkeys. No luck again. Still we had climbed Gunung Kerinci, seen siamangs and the view of danau gunung tujuh was amazing. Well worth the visit. You also have a chance of seeing the Titanium flower, but none were in bloom when we were there.
Bengkulu: Much better than we anticipated. Nice little town. Hotel was a shithole and I can't say its a must see, but if you are heading this way then its worth a stop. You get a chance to drive through the park and the fort is cute as well as them having a weird hotel that looks like a crazy man's jenga set. We saw a captured siamang here, which was heartbreaking after seeing them in the wild a few days earlier. Cannelle reported it to the local authorities. We decided to head to Banderlampung next.
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