Danau Singkarak: a lake with a road around it

Danau Singkarak is the lake you see from the road between Padang and Bukittinggi, a wide sheet of water in a shallow valley with hills on both sides. It is the second largest lake in Sumatra after Toba, and unlike Toba it is warm, low and ringed by villages rather than cliffs.

People do not come here for a resort holiday. They come for the drive, the rice fields, the fishing villages and the small restaurants that serve bilih, the tiny fish that lives only in this lake. It is a good half-day, and a better full day if you like slow roads and quiet places.

The lake and the land around it

Singkarak covers just over a hundred square kilometres at about 360 metres above sea level, between the regencies of Tanah Datar and Solok. The land around it is farmland: rice, cassava, chillies and coffee on the slopes, with villages clustered where the ground is flat enough to build.

The lake is shallow and warm, and the colour changes through the day from grey to green to silver. In the wet season it rises, sometimes flooding the lowest fields. In the dry season the shoreline pulls back and leaves a band of mud and weed that the birds work over.

The surrounding villages are nagari, the Minangkabau community unit with its own council and adat, and the land around the lake is farmed by families who have held it for generations. It is a settled, cultivated landscape rather than a wild one, and it is at its best in the early morning when the mist sits on the water.

Bilih and the fishing villages

Ikan bilih is the lake's signature: a small silver fish, found only here, caught at night with lights and nets and sold fresh, fried or salted. It is the reason the restaurants along the shore exist, and it is worth stopping for. The taste is mild and sweet, and the bones are soft enough to eat.

The fishing villages are strung along the road, each with a small harbour and a row of boats. Nobody minds a visitor who asks before taking a photograph. Buy some fish, sit down, and watch the boats come in. It is not a spectacle; it is a working morning on a lake that has been fished for a very long time.

• Bilih is best in the morning, straight off the boats.
• Most restaurants are simple, family-run and cheap.
• Ask before photographing the fishermen and their boats.
• The fried bilih keeps for a day or two if you want to take some.

The road around the lake

A road circles the lake, roughly fifty kilometres of bends, villages and viewpoints. It takes two to three hours without stops and a full day with them. The western side has the best views, the eastern side has the rice fields, and both are slow because of the trucks and the school traffic.

A scooter is the ideal way to do it if you are comfortable on hills and with Indonesian traffic. Otherwise hire a car with a driver for the day and stop where you like. There are warungs every few kilometres, but almost no petrol stations away from the main towns, so fill up before you start.

The best stops are unplanned: a village market, a viewpoint where the lake opens out, a track down to the water. The northern shore around Padang Panjang is the easiest to reach and the busiest; the southern shore towards Solok is quieter and the road climbs higher above the water.

The tunnel and the power station

Singkarak is not only a lake; it is part of a hydroelectric scheme. Water is diverted through a tunnel under the hills to a power station in the Anai valley, where it drops several hundred metres and turns turbines before reaching the coast.

That engineering is why the lake level is managed, and it is a strange thing to see: a quiet highland lake connected by a hole in the mountain to the gorge where the Padang road runs. The tunnel mouth and the power station are not visitor attractions, but they explain a lot about the landscape.

Getting there and when to go

The lake sits on the main road between Padang and Bukittinggi, so it is easy to visit as a stop rather than a destination. Buses and shared cars run along the road, and the towns at either end are within an hour. Padang Panjang, at the northern end, is the most convenient base.

The dry season from May to September gives the clearest views and the easiest driving. In the wet season the lake is fuller and greener, but the road can flood and the hills disappear into cloud for days. Either way, go early: the light is best before ten and the afternoon brings rain.

Questions people actually ask

Can you swim in Danau Singkarak?

People do, but it is not a swimming lake in the resort sense. The water is warm and shallow at the edges, and the shoreline is often muddy or weedy. Most visitors come for the views, the food and the drive rather than for a swim.

How long does the drive around Danau Singkarak take?

The loop is about fifty kilometres and takes two to three hours without stops, or most of a day if you stop at villages and viewpoints. A scooter is ideal if you are comfortable on hills; otherwise hire a car with a driver.