#4 Pariaman – Finally some beach time

We almost got lucky by catching a labi-labi directly to Pariaman by chasing it on the scooter, but sadly it was full. Therefore we had to take two buses, one from Harau valley to Bukittinggi and one further to Pariaman. Fortunately, we only had to wait 30 minutes for our second bus. This gave us some time to check online for some accommodation for two days. We got lucky and found a really good offer on Booking.com (260 000 IDR for two nights)… at least that’s what we thought.
The name of the place was Hotel Shafira, which confirmed our booking right away. The way from a bus station to the hotel was a bit of a hassle. No service was available, no bus, nor Grab, so we had to agree on an expensive scooter taxi (same price as the bus we took for 130 km distance). Finally, we arrived, we checked in, paid a deposit and went to leave our luggage in our room. What we found there was disappointing. The room was not cleaned after previous guests, the bedsheets were dirty, the same with the bathroom, so we kindly asked for new sheets. Unfortunately, the second sheets were also dirty, so we asked for a fresh one again. We gave up after receiving dirty ones for the third time. We decided to keep the sheets we’ve got and we went for dinner.

After we got back, the receptionist called us to the lobby and asked us to show him our marriage license, since we were staying in one room.
We said, that we don’t have one, so we have been told to leave the hotel as soon as possible. It was 10:30 PM, as we mentioned before, no services available, so we would have to walk to the next hotel. We asked receptionists to help us to contact any other hotels nearby to ask for a room for us. One place didn’t pick up the phone and the other was way above our budget (400 000 IDR per night). Finally, they let us stay, but in two separate rooms and only for one night, so the next day in the morning we went for some “room hunting”. Few places asked us also for a marriage license, but we managed to find one lovely guesthouse (HCP guesthouse) on the same street as Shafira hotel.
It wasn’t the cheapest (250 000 IDR), but we wanted this accommodation problem
to be dealt with, so we could enjoy the rest of our stay without worrying about it.

Relieved to have a room for the night, we were ready to relax again. The plan for the day was to visit the small island close to Pariaman called Pulau Angso Duo. To get there we got a round trip boat ticket (100 000 IDR for two people) at the harbor. There is no schedule of this boats, basically if there is more then 10 people, they will go, but we made the deal with captain, that we will leave right away and that he will pick us up at fixed time, 4 PM. He agreed, although it cost us 20 000 IDR more (so normally per person you should pay 40 000 IDR).
Pulau Angso Duo is a lovely tiny island with a nice white sand beach. To make it hippier (or instagrammable^^) there were a lot of photoshoot accessories like swings and little houses (you can see them in the gallery).

Sadly, just 30 minutes after arriving we had another unpleasant encounter. Some guy came up to me and told me that Magda has to dress up more. We both have been quite upset because we were alone at the beach, nobody was there and wearing long clothes at 32°C is REALLY uncomfortable. Even though we fully respect that Indonesia has different rules and traditions, it felt not correct for us at this moment. So after this, our moods dropped and we both were happy to leave Pariman the next morning.
At 4.30 PM we returned to the city, we still needed to figure out how to get back to Bukittinggi. After some asking around at the place we thought is the bus station,
one girl and one guy with his kid drove us on their scooters to the actual bus station and told us when the bus will leave the next day. We would have never found the bus station because it is just a street corner with no sign or anything, so we were happy that we met such friendly people, keen to help us.

In the night we have been very tired so we ended up getting some street food and eat it in bed with some new Modern Family episode. Shortly after we finished the meal it knocked on the door, oh no, we already had a bad feeling that they also want to ask for marriage certificate :P, but there was no need to worry. The owner of the guesthouse brought us dinner. We were super surprised about that, we did not know it was included in the price of the room. Even though we both were full we still ate a bit of the it. Meal was delicious and not to waste it, since we had no more capacity, we decided to pack it for breakfast. In the morning it turned out that breakfast was also included in the price and that our host woke up earlier to prepare it for us, since we told him we have to leave around 6 AM. That was really great.
After a short photo-shoot with the whole family of our host (as usually^^), we left for the bus. The guy from the day before, who showed us where the bus stop is, even came to check on us, if we managed to get there again. This good and all the help we received the last few hours of our stay in Pariaman was helping us forget other unpleasant moments we experienced there. So it is good not to base your opinions about places,
on single situations (like we did at the beginning), because it can ruin your mood and can lead to misjudgment.

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