Meeting the locals...
We stopped by a local coffeeshop and had some makan.
There's this local dish called "Shyomai".
And later, I learned that its actually Siew Mai dumplings.
The owner, Pak Akmar, who has been to Malaysia on several occasions, indulged on some small talk with us.
He said the Shyomai dumplings originated from a small shop in Bandung.
What's interesting is the fact that the dish is actually some rojak with peanut sauce and steamed cabbages.
We spent some time chatting with Pak Akmar, learning about Pekanbaru.
He told us to pay the Balai Adat Melayu at Jalan Diponegoro a visit.
Later in the day, we rode down to Jalan Diponegoro.
There, we stopped by at the Balai Istiadat Melayu.
It's a nice building in Pekanbaru's premier district and with the time we had, we continued towards Chinatown.
There, we witnessed an accident.
A motorcyclist and his pillion rider crashed. The girl that was with the biker was hurt.
She had lacerations on her limbs and her face was bleeding.
The time was just right for us to ride back to the hotel and retire the bikes for the day.
A trip to the Mall..
As tourists, we want to bring home some souvenirs.
But Dumai, Kandis, Minas and Pekanbaru aren't your usual tourist spots.
There are no shops selling T-shirts saying: "I love Dumai" or keychains.
So, the most practical thing to bring home was a nice batik shirt.
And for this, we set out the Ska Mall, some 7km away from our hotel.
We managed to get a cab and shot straight to the mall.
There, we found what we were looking for.
Sumatera suffers from frequent power outage.
Pekanbaru is no exception. While we were browsing the aisle, the lights went off.
We were lucky enough to score our Batik shirts and while waiting for our cab driver to arrive, I decided to check out the hypermart.
There was an aisle with Hotwheels cars on the rack.
I found two Mars Rovers at IDR 11,900 (RM3.18).
Back in Kuala Lumpur, these rare vehicles are sold at RM35 each.
So, without hesitation, I grabbed them!
We chilled out till about 7pm and it started to rain. I mean, heavy rain.
After weathering out the showers, we walked down to Pondok Saiyo.
The shop was closed.
The back up plan was to walk around, searching for some good makan.
Then, we saw this Pecel Lele shop (fried catfish) and decided to grab a meal there..