Bukittinggi..tinggi..tinngggii..ttiinnggiiisss..tings (this title is for you Jilly!)

Just love the name of that city in Sumatra Indonesia...so much fun to say. All the travellers we have met also love to say it and have their little ways of making fun of the name. Such a quaint cute little place. We spent a couple of days in Bukittinggi to site see and recuperate after the jungle, as we needed a bit of respite from that experience. There are a few interesting things to see, but none more interesting than the people and the stories they have to share. First, we went to the local zoo and fort, which are separated by a lovely ornate, yet extremely dangerous foot bridge over the city streets. The zoo is small and is mostly filled with caged birds (one of which says Mel over and over again, but in the way that Daisy says Mel so kind of like Mewuuuu...Mewuuuu) and park for small children to play in. Alex and I sat to relax on a bench, but it wasn't long before some young boys wanted to get photos to tell all of their friends that we were their girlfriends, as we moved along to the museum inside the fort, which houses an exhibit of coins, costumes, information about the architecture of the area and some random Ripley's Believe It or Not type stuffed animals with 6 legs and 4 heads...freaky stuff! After we spent the morning visiting this zoo/fort we walked along the hilly streets to the Japanese underground caves that were built by Indonesian slaves during WWII, which are set underneath a gorgeous canyon with stunning panoramic views of stone and jungle. The caves were intricate and you can get lost beneath the streets down the 134 steps (yes we counted, as we have that run in Thailand up 1,936 stairs) through the winding caves. Parts smelled of piss, so clearly many people use these caves as a toilet. After our site seeing, we settled into a lovely coffee and strange/massively portioned lunch in a local tourist cafe. In Bukittinggi, the locals who own cafes/restaurants advertise places as 'tourist only' between certain hours of the day...it is very odd, but since virtually every single place was closed due to Ramadan, we were happy to find this cafe. We ordered some yummy and healthy sandwiches (so we thought), but they came out in massive Las Vegas style portions with a secret creamy sauce, which was tough to take, but we did our best to scrape it all off. While trying to relax and enjoy ourselves, a tiny little Indonesian man with long scraggily hair (the chosen most popular haircut of most men in this country, as is short in stature height)named Danny came to introduce himself and chat with us. When he found out that I was from Texas, he got super excited and whipped out a handful of photos of his new wife, Jenny, who is from Houston, Texas. Bless her...she is about 6 foot 5 inches with very pale white skin and red red hair. They met while she was travelling through Indonesia and Danny offered her a tour around Bukittinggi on his scooter...they instantly fell in love and when she returned to Houston, she went to the local Muslim Centre and converted to to the Muslim faith within a week. They were married not to long ago here in Indonesia in a big ceremony in which they wore matching ornate pink bejangly costumes and Jenny is posed right smack dab in the middle of Danny and his family who vary in height from 4 foot 7 inches to about 5 foot 2 inches. What a site it was...and he was so excited and happy about his wife and their plans for him to move to Houston to work and for them to live happily ever after. Oh, did we mention that Jenny is also a transvestite, but we don't think Danny knows so shhhhh...don't tell him.