The Malaysian Foldie 19, May/June 2015 | Page 14

Getting there and back...

There's much to do in Pekanbaru.

Our order of the day was to get transport back to Dumai.

We took a cab to the town's bus station located in the outskirts.

This is roughly about 11km away and is actually a waste of time.

Ticket touts approached us to offer seats, Mohd Radzi was cautious and proceeded to ask for a ride to Dumai.

There are no express buses or VIP coach to our point of origin.

We were told that those were meant for trips from Jakarta to Medan.

Our only choice were shared mini vans.

At the terminal, we found a charter service. They wanted IDR540,000 (RM144) for the "Dropping" service.

We agreed with an IDR 50,000 (RM13.35) deposit and went back to our hotel.

Later in the day, I took a walk along the busy streets of Pekanbaru to savour the lifestyle there.

There were a lot of people, plenty of goldsmiths at the Ramayana Mall.

Here, I noticed that people eat their KFC fried chicken with rice.

I went into a bicycle shop in the area and asked about spare inner tubes. Seems that 20" tubes with Presta valves are not popular.

At night, we tried Pak Mazwir's recommendation at Pondok Saiyo and it was really good.

After a good fill, we re-stocked on our drinking water from Alfa Mart, a local chain of convenience stores and called it a day.

Free and easy...

We have one day and a night to burn in Pekanbaru.

Mohd Radzi suggested breakfast at Pondok Saiyo before we head out to the Sang Nila Utama Museum in Jalan Jendral Sudirman.

Seems that in every town, there is a Jalan Jendral Sudirman.

Unlike Medan in North Sumatera, Pekanbaru remained much as a trading area.

There are a lot of businesses here compared to most of the towns we have rode past.

Mohd Radzi suggested the Sang Nila Utama museum and I concur with his suggestion as it's really worth taking the trip.

TOP PAGE: A Panoramic view of Sungai Siak, one of the deepest rivers in Sumatera. BOTTOM LEFT: Mohd Radzi gathering information on Pekanbaru's tourist attractions. BOTTOM RIGHT: Pekanbaru's dedicated bicycling lane. RIGHT: An exhibit at the city's museum.