sticky lenses and lukewarm soup: a photographer's sleep-deprived pekanbaru diary
woke up to this sticky humidity clinging to my camera lens again. i just checked my weather app: 24 degrees but humidity's at 88%, feels like wading through lukewarm soup all damn day. hope your skin enjoys permanent dewy filters because pekanbaru's basically a free sauna.
spent yesterday chasing golden hour along the siak river where the light fractures through pineapple-colored smoke from distant palm oil mills. kept thinking about those 18th-century minangkabau traders who probably squinted at the same horizon.
someone told me the an-nur mosque's dome looks like liquid mercury during monsoon downpours - planning to test that theory later if my rain cover holds up. check the lighting conditions on the riau tourism board site before you go though. found this alleyway near pasar bawah where the street food stalls serve nasi padang so spicy it made my viewfinder fog up. heard from a motorcycle taxi guy that the real magic happens at 3am when the fishing boats unload catches older than american democracy. culture here's layered like long exposures - malay arches competing with chevron-funded skyscrapers, oil money glitter beside rain-slicked betel nut stains.
got bored yesterday? easy fix. dumai's industrial grit (2 hours north) or bukittinggi's colonial ghost stories (4.5 hours south) will slap you sideways. someone's grandma at a coffee stall whispered that the real soul of this city hides in the rebuilt kampungs after the 1942 fires - been combing through pekanbaru historical society archives to find traces.
pro-tip: the "cleanest city in indonesia" thing? true till monsoon season turns every street into a latte-colored tributary. don't wear white. coffee's cheaper than bottled water and stronger than my will to edit last night's long exposures. the real gold? markets where 60-year-old women grill fish wrapped in banana leaves like they're guarding state secrets. yelp reviews lie - just follow the smell of burning coconut husks.
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