Lake Maninjau
A Caldera Lake Reached By Forty Four Numbered Hairpin Bends, Birthplace Of The Writer Hamka, And Now Covered In Fish Cages That Periodically Kill The Fish In Them · Maninjau, West Sumatra
You arrive at Maninjau by descending THE KELOK 44 - FORTY-FOUR NUMBERED HAIRPIN BENDS dropping off the caldera rim to the water, each one signposted with its number, and the road is the thing people remember before the lake. What is at the bottom is a large volcanic crater lake ringed by steep green walls, with villages along the shore and homestays that cost almost nothing. BUYA HAMKA, the novelist and Islamic scholar, WAS BORN HERE and his house is a museum. AND THE LAKE IS IN TROUBLE. FLOATING FISH CAGES NOW COVER MUCH OF THE SHORE - thousands of them - and the feed and waste have degraded the water badly enough that PERIODIC MASS FISH DEATHS OCCUR, wiping out whole sections overnight. It is a live argument between livelihood and lake and nobody has solved it. Everything here is extraordinarily cheap, the shore road is quiet enough to cycle round, and travellers who meant to stay a night routinely stay a week.
Danau Maninjau, Agam Regency, West Sumatra, Maninjau, West Sumatra, Indonesia
THERE IS NO GATE - Maninjau is a lake with villages around it. IT IS ABOUT NINETY MINUTES TO TWO HOURS FROM BUKITTINGGI, and the approach is THE KELOK 44, forty-four numbered hairpins down from the rim, which is slow and is best driven rather than ridden if you are not confident. HOMESTAYS ALONG THE SHORE are cheap, plentiful and booked on arrival. BOATS AND CANOES are hired informally at the villages. THE HAMKA MUSEUM keeps daytime hours and charges very little. SWIMMING IS POSSIBLE AWAY FROM THE FISH CAGES and local people do it, but ASK WHERE rather than getting in anywhere. WEST SUMATRA IS WET in most months with afternoon rain routine. Bukittinggi, Harau Valley and Sawahlunto are all within a couple of hours.