Meet Cheong, Armin and his family – Lakeside Livers

Here at AJourneySonder.com I don’t want to just share the world that I find, but also the people I meet in a brief profile explanation. They all stuck out in my mind, and I figure they get a mention here.

As I enjoyed a few days in the Sumatran Highlands of West Sumatra I was interested in taking a trip out to the once often visited Lake Maninjau. From Bukittinggi, where I was staying, it’s no small feat to get here – roughly 1.5 hours by motorbike, including a 471m drop taking place along 44 sharp turns along a mountainside. I’m not a stranger to riding a scooter, but I’m far from an expert; and here in Indonesia, I’m like a child playing with a hobby horse. So by the time I got to the actual lake my ass was sore and I was tired. So what did I do? Drove around the 99.5 km² lake of course!

Part of the reason Maninjau is no longer visited as frequently by backpackers is a heavy fog that settled in the past decade and hasn’t seemed to go away every since. But in the 80’s and 90’s you could get panoramic shots of the entire lake from almost 500m above that look simply breathtaking. If I had to guess, I’d say this is due to farming/fishing chemicals and good old fashioned climate change that caused the lake to warm over the years. But I am no scientist. That’s just how things seem to correlate, especially with how warm the water felt compared to the air around it. Regardless, the lake is still beautiful, and well worth the drive. After the further experience of my ass being sore, I stopped off by a bridge to see if I could go for a dip. Out of the corner of my ear I hear a man yell “Hello!”

Below I saw Cheong, a S. Korean, the one talking to me. Next to him stood several locals filled with smiles. Cheong introduced himself saying he had walked from the town 20 minutes (by scooter) to the shack next to which we now stood and had been greeted by the locals. They taught him to fish and together they caught 15 palm-sized fish or so. Then they cooked them. Then I arrived and they all enthusiastically invited me in for a meal. I wasn’t sure at first, how could I get lucky enough to stumble into this while simply looking for a spot to swim? But, as my old friend Karel explained back in Jakarta, turning down an offer from an Indonesian is seen as terribly rude – it’s akin to rejecting kindness from people as a whole. So even if I felt a little out of place I took the offer to sit down with them for a meal, and I was extremely glad that I did.

Their living situation was as simple as it gets. Their house was one room, maybe 25 m² in total, with a “kitchen” closet in the back with broken floorboards. They all slept together on blankets on one side of the room while we ate on the other side. I must admit, I can’t recall everyone’s name – it’s one of those things people often forget because a name is far from what actually makes someone who they are; we look past it as we grow to learn more about a person. I did get Armin’s name, the one who invited Cheong inside, and learned that the grandfather there was 79 years old. Otherwise, we all seemed rather engrossed in the events of the day. Altogether, there were 6 people. They offered me the fried fish they had cooked (refusing to take any before I was satisfied), offered me a coconut from their backyard tree, found wild guava fruit and gave it to me, made coffee, and encouraged me to go swimming, all the while sharing things about themselves and I about myself. But let me be clear, their English was poor, probably as poor as my Indonesian. The entire day – with the exception of Cheong – was all of us communicating without knowing each other’s language. It was a magical connection you can only find when traveling to friendly parts unknown.

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Me and Cheong went for a swim and close to when we finished Armin was showing off his spear gun. We thought it was just an attempt to impress us as we dried off and laughed but mere minutes later he appeared with a fish in his hand. Now we were truly impressed! Down the beach the family started gathering sticks and wood, followed by using their cigarettes to light the kindling. Cheong came with banana leaf, gutted the fish, and threw it on the fire. It was quickly covered by more wood and eventually corn. Armin went back into the lake with his gun and his family started coming out of it with clams.

I’m not sure you can tell, but these clams were big. A single one could fill your entire hand. All in total the family fished out 13 clams and we proceeded to pack them on the coals of the fire. I felt a little wrong about the killing of these animals (the clams bubbled, the fish flipped slightly after being placed on the fire) but this is how Armin and his family live. They don’t have grocery stores nearby and even if they did, I’m not sure they’d have the cash to shop there. And even if they shopped there, these natural fish and clams lived a much better life than the farms most of our food comes from. It was, briefly, a tough call. In the end I happily enjoyed the local lake food with the entire family. I even found a very small pearl in one of the clams I ate.

Me and Cheong needed to go just as Armin came out of the lake with another 7 fish. We wanted to stay and enjoy those as well (the first one was amazing, easily the best fish I have ever eaten, though that often happens with things you make yourself), but I desperately wanted to ascend the 44 turns before it got dark. And so we bid farewell to our friends, while Cheong made a decision to come and stay the following night after he packed up his stuff in the town nearby. I drove him back and we reminisced about how lucky we were. Meeting Armin and his family was one of the best things that happened to me on this trip. It’s the exact sort of connection The Journey is meant to produce.