Palembang
The Capital Of Srivijaya, The Buddhist Maritime Empire That Controlled The Malacca And Sunda Straits For Six Centuries Of Which Almost Nothing Survives Above Ground · Palembang, South Sumatra
FROM THE SEVENTH CENTURY TO THE THIRTEENTH, SRIVIJAYA CONTROLLED THE MALACCA AND SUNDA STRAITS - every ship between India and China passed through waters it taxed - and PALEMBANG WAS ITS CAPITAL. The Chinese monk I CHING STOPPED HERE IN 671 and reported a thousand Buddhist monks studying, advising travellers to Nalanda to spend a year in Sumatra first. AND ALMOST NOTHING SURVIVES ABOVE GROUND. Srivijaya built in wood on a river delta, and what is left is inscriptions, scattered finds and a museum - which makes Palembang a strange and rather moving place to visit, a city with an enormous past and very little to show you. WHAT IT DOES HAVE IS THE MUSI RIVER, the AMPERA BRIDGE across it, stilt houses along the banks, and PEMPEK - the fishcake with dark vinegar sauce that the city is genuinely obsessed with, argued about and eaten from before dawn until late at night. Almost no foreign visitors come, which for a city with this history is very strange indeed.
Palembang, South Sumatra, Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia
PALEMBANG IS A CITY OF OVER A MILLION AND A HALF AND IS ALWAYS OPEN; it has an airport with flights from Jakarta, Batam and Singapore, and an LRT line. THE MUSEUM SULTAN MAHMUD BADARUDDIN II beside the Ampera bridge and the SRIWIJAYA KINGDOM ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK keep daytime hours and CLOSE ON MONDAYS, as most Indonesian museums do. KEMARO ISLAND, with its Chinese temple, is reached by boat from the riverside and is busiest around CAP GO MEH, fifteen days after Chinese New Year, when it fills. RIVER BOATS ARE CHARTERED AT THE AMPERA JETTIES and are the right way to see the stilt villages. PEMPEK IS SOLD FROM EARLY MORNING UNTIL LATE. The city is low-lying and FLOODS; the wet season runs roughly November to March.