Digital Nomad City Ratings: Bukittinggi

In the Digital Nomad City Ratings series, I review the cities where I was working as a digital nomad. The possible ratings are 0 (awful) to 10 (exceptionally wow). The ratings are of course exclusively based on my personal experience and preferences. These may be different for other people, but besides the ratings, I will share my experiences and a detailed description, so this will hopefully be helpful for you too.

A few notes on the not necessarily self-evident categories and their ratings:
Internet: I don’t need very fast internet, but I need continuous connection.
Prices: I am a budget traveller. People who earn higher salaries may have a very different perspective on costs.
Walkability (a standard point in almost all digital nomad listings – you will understand why when you start your digital nomad life) How easy/comfortable/safe/interesting is it to walk about/stroll in the city
Infrastructure: Are there sufficient and good quality services like hospitals, malls, possibilities to arrange official matters, pharmacies, trains, buses etc?
Sights & Surroundings: Options to visit places of interest nearby, especially if staying for a longer time in the city.
Visa: Can you stay in the country without a visa? If so, how long? If not, how easy is it to get a visa and/or extend it? Can you arrange this in the given city?
Overall Impression: I needed this extra category because even if everything is fine in a given city, you may feel something is not right, and you wouldn’t like to stay very long. Or the other way round: it may lack famous sights and infrastructure, but you still love the place.

Overall rating for Bukittinggi

73%

Time spent in Bukittinggi: 3 weeks

1. Introduction

Bukittinggi is one of the most livable cities in Sumatra, and a popular tourist destination among both local and international tourists. It has a nice atmosphere in the city centre and beyond, and you can even find a few nice historical buildings – a rare thing in most Indonesian cities. I only spent three weeks there, and I left not because I had had enough of it, but because I had pre-arranged plans when I arrived in Bukittinggi.

This is a rating of Bukittinggi for digital nomads. If you are interested in a detailed guide on what to do and see in Bukittinggi, see my other post here.

2. Internet: 8

I stayed in a small guesthouse, which had very good and fast internet connection. I think I only had a short interruption once or twice, but otherwise it was perfect for me. Speed was not always consistent though, and it didn’t even depend on whether I was using VPN or not. But even when it was slower, it was more than enough for me.

Speed tests in Bukittinggi in Hello Guesthouse

There were two cafés/restaurants where I very often spent a long time working on my laptop. One of them is CK Center, just around the corner from my guesthouse, and it has a nice terrace, with plugs at each of the tables. Wifi is good during the day, when you are practically the only guest there. But in the evening, when more people use the internet, it may become unusably slow. I had my own data (Telkomsel), so that was not a big problem. Since the café is right on the roadside, it may at times be a bit noisy, but it was never annoyingly noisy for me. But one advantage of CK Center is that they have a wider choice of food, including steamed broccoli with chicken, spaghetti and other yummy things that you are not likely to find elsewhere. So if you get tired of the fried rice and the fried noodles, try this place.

The other place I often frequented is Art Café right on the square of Jam Gadang, with a very nice view both over the city and of Jam Gadang and its square. It is slightly cheaper than CK Center, and they have good coffee, unlike CK Center. They also have reliable and decent speed internet, and they also have electric plugs at every table upstairs (and at a few of the tables downstairs). Food is more traditional, but good and cheap.

3. Prices: 8

Prices are the same that you find almost everywhere in Indonesia (except crazily expensive Bali), which means that most of the things will be very cheap. Food is very inexpensive (see below), and clothes are also really reasonably priced both at the market and in the shopping mall near Jam Gadang (find the large shop on the first floor).

Accommodation, which is one of the most important for digital nomads, is more expensive than what you would expect based on other prices, but it is still affordable. I stayed at Hello Guesthouse in their most expensive balcony room, and I got a discount for the longer stay, so I paid IDR 250.000 a night. This included breakfast and free coffee, tea and drinking water. Although breakfast was the same every day (fried rice or fried noodles).

Street in Bukittinggi — The street just below Jam Gadang square

4. People & Communication: 7

People in Bukittinggi are friendly and helpful, just like in other parts of Indonesia. You will get your fair share of smiles from locals everywhere you go. One problem is though, that very few people speak English to an extent that would allow you to have a meaningful conversation with them. But in those rare cases, you will find that they are truly interested in you, in your country and in your culture, and they will ask you about just about everything – sometimes including things that would sound a little too intimate in other parts of the world, but try to answer those, too, they are not meant to be indiscreet.

Communication with service providers is OK. At least in the city centre, they will understand what you want to order, they will be able to tell you the price of things etc. The guides I had spoke good English, and they could explain things nicely, similarly to the hotel staff where I stayed, who spoke excellent English.

I has happened to me that some local tourists from other parts of Indonesia stopped me and asked me whether we could have a little chat, because they wanted to practice their English. There was even a group with their teacher, and they were really happy that we could have a conversation. They said they were coming from a city in Sumatra, where here are no foreign visitors, so it is next to impossible to use their English there.

5. Sights & surroundings: 7

There are a few very attractive sights nearby Bukittinggi, and most visitors actually only come here to visit them. These include Lake Maninjau and the Minangkabau villages nearby with the ricefields and breathtaking views, but you can also visit the Equatorial line in Bonjol, a small town not very far to the north of Bukittinggi. You can read more about it in my detailed guide to Bukittinggi.

The Equator in Bonjol — The Equatorial line in Bonjol

If you go a little further from Bukittinggi, try the Mentawai islands with the local tribes, or Lake Toba.

6. Walkability: 8

Walking in easy and most of the time enjoyable in the city centre. There are pavements on most streets, and there are even traffic lights and zebra crossings (wow). But even more important is the fact that there is a reason to walk, and there are places to walk to.

A stroll around the Jam Gadang square is always enjoyable except in heavy rains. Furthermore, Bukittinggi is so high up in the mountains, that the weather is always nice for walking, it never gets unbearable hot. Indeed, in the evening, it will actually get cold, so in the hotels, don’t bother with air conditioning – you will need a blanket much more than aircon.

7. Safety: 9

Bukittinggi is a very safe place. You also read this in travel guide books and forums online, but I also experienced it myself: I never had a feeling that I should avoid certain streets, I saw no people who looked suspicious, and you don’t even have those touts you will find everywhere in Asian tourist spots, sho follow you and aggressively try to sell you something. Safety for me also means road safety and (the lack of) stray dogs – neither if these are a problem in Bukittinggi, even if at some places, it is a little difficult to cross the street (and yes, I heard stray dogs at night, but only from my room).

8. Food: 6

Padang food is also famous here, and at some places, you will be able to experience their usual way of serving food in restaurants. Otherwise, they offer the usual fare, fried rice, fried noodles, which after a time can become very boring indeed. Above, I wrote about CK Center, that may be a place to go if you want something else. I also had some spaghetti + fried chicken in the Bukittinggi Plaza, they have a fast food restaurant with a terrace overlooking the Jam Gadang, so that may be a good place to spend some time. Perhaps even with your laptop, because they offer free Wifi, but I never tried it.

9. Infrastructure & services: 6

Bukittinggi is a small town, and you may not always find what you are looking for. One example is that when I bought a plane ticket with Lion Air, I would have needed az Indomaret or an Alfamart shop to pay (Lion Air is infamous for not accepting any foreign cards online on their website), but there are none in Bukittinggi. I also need large supermarkets (for ground coffee for example, but basically, they tend to be much cheaper than small shops), but there is none of that in Bukittinggi. The largest supermarket is rather a medium sized shop: Niagara Supermarket. According to my guesthouse staff, you can extend your visa locally, but the map shows the Kantor Imigrasi is very far away from the city centre. I saw a few clinics and dentists in the centre, but honestly, I would not like to venture inside, judging from what they look like from the outside.

10. Visa: 7

The score for the visa is for Indonesia in general. You can stay in the country without a visa for one month, but if you want to stay longer, you need to buy a visa on arrival (38 USD or 500.000 IDR), and you can extend it for another 30 days for another 38 USD. You can find a more detailed post about how to extend your Indonesian visa here.

I was told by my guesthouse staff that you can extend your visa in Bukittinggi too, although I didn’t need to, because I had arranged it before in Padang.

11. Overall Impression: 7

I loved staying in Bukittinggi, and I think that it is a nice place for digital nomads. The people were nice, the city had a small town atmosphere, the people were nice and friendly, the weather was good (except at night, when it was cold), and it offered enough things to do when you were not working.

I don’t think I would like to spend several months there, but for me, a month or two is easily spendable in Bukittinggi. I don’t have really big problems, but maybe it would be too small to spend any longer there at one go – returning is an option though.

12. Practical info

12.1 Getting there and away

Bukittinggi doesn’t have an airport. The nearest one is the Padang international airport, so you will arrive there if you choose to fly. I have written a separate post on how to get from Padang to Bukittinggi, but from the airport, you will have minibuses for a decent price.

12.2 Accommodation in Bukittinggi

As I have written above, I stayed at Hello Guesthouse, which you can’t book from the usual booking sites. But it has a website with the contact info if you are interested. Should it be fully booked (at least regarding the better rooms), you can try Booking.com, which has very good options with the possibility to cancel, should your plans change:

Booking.com

Check out my other Digital Nomad City Ratings. Some of the latest posts: