Padang

• 1. Introduction

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  Padang is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of West Sumatra, and in 1797 a sailing ship weighing 200 tons was lifted by the sea and dropped about 1 kilometre upstream on dry land. A tsunami had swept in after an earthquake off the coast, and boats moored in the Arau river ended up where boats are never meant to be. This is a city that sits on the west coast of Sumatra, a place of sunset beaches and a cuisine famous across the country. It is also a place that has rehearsed disaster for centuries. How does a trading port survive being conquered, abandoned, and inundated, and still grow to nearly a million people? Why do its restaurants leave every dish out on display? And what does a community do when it knows the ocean may rise again?

• 2. A Port Worth Fighting Over

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  Pepper drew the first ships to Padang, traded during the 16th and 17th centuries with India, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The Pagaruyung Kingdom and the Aceh Sultanate held the city before any European flag did. In 1663 the city came under Dutch authority, and a trading post was built in 1680. The Dutch had made contact in the mid 17th century, eventually building a fortress and taking control from the Pagaruyung Kingdom.

  Gold, not pepper, was the prize up to around 1780, mined in the surrounding region until the mines ran dry. When the gold gave out, the trade turned to coffee, salts, and textiles. Control of the city itself changed hands more than once. Padang came under the British Empire twice, first from 1781 to 1784 during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, then again from 1795 to 1819 during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1819 the city was handed back to the Netherlands, and apart from those British interruptions it remained part of the Dutch East Indies as a major city until Indonesian independence. In 1837 the Dutch East Indies government made Padang the seat of government for the West Coast of Sumatra, a region that took in present-day West Sumatra and Tapanuli.

• 3. When The Sea Came In

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  In 1797 an earthquake estimated at 8.5 to 8.7 Mw struck off the coast, and the tsunami that followed had an estimated flow depth of 5 to 10 metres. The shaking caused considerable damage and killed two people, while the wave washed away several houses and caused several deaths at the village of Air Manis. That was the year a 200-ton ship was carried upstream and left on dry land.

  In 1833 the ocean returned. An earthquake estimated at 8.6 to 8.9 Mw struck off Bengkulu, and a tsunami inundated Padang with an estimated flow depth of 3 to 4 metres. The shaking again caused considerable damage, and boats moored in the Arau river broke their anchors and scattered.

  On the 30th of September 2009, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit about 50 km off the coast. There were more than 1,100 fatalities, of which 313 occurred within Padang itself. The danger is not historical curiosity here. It is the reason Mount Pangilun has been agreed upon by the government and local people as the primary tsunami shelter, with better road access and temporary shelters planned for the hill.

• 4. Wars And A New Nation

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  On the 17th of March 1942 the Japanese army entered the city, and the Dutch abandoned Padang in panic. Sukarno was being held in the city at that moment, because the Dutch had wanted to take him with them as they fled toward Australia. The commander of the Japanese Army for Sumatra met him to negotiate the fate of Indonesia. Once the Japanese controlled the situation, they used Padang as an administrative city for development and public works during their occupation of West Sumatra.

  The city had long ranked among Indonesia's most important ports. Until World War II, Padang was one of the five largest port cities in the country, alongside Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, and Makassar. Its population tells the story of a place transformed. In 1920 it held 28,754 people, the second largest city in Sumatra after Palembang. By independence in the 1940s it had grown to around 50,000. From 1950 the Ombilin coal field developed with Padang serving as its outlet port, a turn some observers read as the economic and political colonisation of Indonesia.

• 5. Rendang And The Open Display

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  Rendang, a spicy meat stew, is the best known dish of the cuisine carried by the Minangkabau people, the food the rest of the country simply calls Padang cuisine. Padang restaurants are common throughout Indonesia and are famous for being spicy. They also work unlike most restaurants anywhere. The food is cooked once per day and left out on display until none is left, and every customer chooses from those dishes.

  Soto Padang, crispy beef in a spicy soup, is a local breakfast favourite. The serving style itself is the meal's logic: small portions of various dishes arrive at the table, and with rice they add up to a complete meal. Customers take and pay for only what they want from the array. In the evening the treat is sate, beef satay in curry sauce served with ketupat.

• 6. Hills, Rivers, And Rain

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  Padang covers 694.96 square kilometres, equal to 1.65 percent of West Sumatra, yet only around 205 square kilometres of that is considered urban. More than 60 percent of the city is hills covered by protection forests, stretching to the east and south, among them Lampu Hill, Mount Padang, Gado-Gado Hill, and Pegambiran Hill. The mainland coastline runs 68 km, and beyond it lie 19 small islands, including Sikuai Island at 4.4 hectares and Toran Island at 25 hectares.

  Rain defines the place. Padang is one of Indonesia's wettest cities, averaging roughly 4,300 mm a year under a tropical rainforest climate. Even its driest month, February, sees around 250 mm of precipitation, while temperatures hold steady at about 26 degrees Celsius year round. The city has 21 rivers, the longest being Batang Kandis at 20 km. In 1980 two-thirds of the city flooded, because the drainage that empties mainly into Batang Arau could not hold the water.

• 7. The Old City And Its Landmarks

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  Next to Muaro Harbor on the Arau River stands the old city of Padang, once the city's main commercial avenue and former business district. Its buildings still carry Dutch and Chinese architecture: Padang City Hall, the De Javasche bank that is now Bank Indonesia, the Nederlandsche Spaarbank, Geo Wehry & Co, the Escompto Maatschappij Office, warehouses, and merchant houses. The Regional Development Planning Board has drawn up plans for a Padang Old City tourist area in Kampung Pondok, and the mayor has designated 73 historic buildings as cultural heritage sites.

  The city's places of worship and memory range widely. The Adityawarman Museum, devoted to Minangkabau history and culture, houses its main exhibits inside a Rumah Gadang style building. Ganting Grand Mosque is the oldest mosque in Padang and one of the oldest in Indonesia, while the Muhammadan Mosque was founded by Indian merchants. The Grand Mosque of West Sumatra, a modern building on Jalan Khatib Sulaiman, follows traditional Minangkabau architecture. St. Leo Monastery blends Minang detail on its bell tower with Dutch architecture on the church, and Vihara Buddha Warman, a Buddhist temple along the beachside road, opened in 2006 for the Chinese Buddhist community.

  Air Manis Beach, 10 km south of the city, holds the legendary Malin Kundang Stone, where rock formations resemble shipwrecks. Across the Arau River, reached by bridge or boat, Siti Nurbaya Park still keeps Japanese cannons and bunkers from World War II, with views of the city and the Indian Ocean.

• 8. Moving People And Goods

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  Teluk Bayur harbour, the former Emmahaven Port, is the largest and busiest harbour on the west coast of Sumatra, built in 1888 by the colonial government of the Netherlands. On the 29th of April 2013 a new container terminal opened, able to hold more than 4,000 containers across a 46,886 square metre area. The port is the main gateway to the Mentawai islands of Siberut, Sipora, and South Pagai, with ferry links reaching Jakarta and Sibolga as well.

  Minangkabau International Airport in Ketaping serves the city, replacing Tabing Airport, which became a military base. In late 2013 its runway was lengthened by 250 metres so it could take Boeing 747 and Airbus A340 planes, and a train service connects it to the city centre. On the roads, the TransPadang bus rapid transit was modelled on Jakarta's TransJakarta system, though without dedicated lanes. It runs 18 km from Lubuk Buaya to Pasar Raya with a fleet of 10 large buses and 15 medium ones, carrying up to 7,000 daily passengers, up from an initial 4,000. A 28 km toll road toward Sicincin, with about Rp.1.3 trillion invested, broke ground in February 2018 as part of the 244 km Padang-Pekanbaru route, a sign of how far this port city still intends to reach inland.