Batusankar and Pagaruyung Palace

The largest town in the Tanah Datur Valley is Batusankar (southeast of Bukittinggi). Pagaruyuang, in Batusangkar is called the centre of the Minang Culture. The Minang Kabau court of the fourteenth to nineteenth Centuries, was based in the valley, the gold and iron mines of ancient times the source if its riches. The entire area is a wash with cultural relics, megaliths and places of interest. To explore it fully takes more then the limited time available on the one day Minang Kabau Tour from Bukittinggi. The most worthwhile tourist destination in the area is Pagaruyung Palace. The reconstructed palace of the last Raya Alaun of the Minang Kabau, Sultan Arifin Muning Alam Syah. The palace was reconstructed using traditional techniques some twenty years ago, the woodcarving alone taking two years to complete. The building comprises the traditional three stores. The first for official visitors, the second for unmarried daughters and the third for meetings. The rice barns at the front would traditionally have held food to help the poor and the palace mosque is in the garden, with the kitchen on the back

Balimbing

Legend has it that this little village was built at the time of the Deluge. It is situated on the slopes of Mt Merapi, which is thought to be the cradle of the Minang Kabau culture. This historical village still reflects the pure, social structure of the Minang Kabau conception of a village.
A mosque, a council house and an adat house with rice barns form the nucleus of this village.

Pariangan

The village of Pariangan is said to be the oldestt Minang settlement and is about 15 kilometers outsite Batusankar on the slopes of Mount Merapi. This village seems to be preserved in the past with its traditional mosques and homes packed in tight cluster around the community hall. Villages like these are abundant arount the well-traveled town of Batusankar.

West Sumatra, long inhabited by Minang Kabau peoples, was settled by Indian immigrants beginning in the 2nd century AD and subsequently became part of the Buddhist Srivijaya Empire that flourished in southern Sumatra beginning in the 7th century. With the decline of the Srivijaya Empire in the 14th century, the Hindu-Malay kingdom of Minang Kabau was established, with Pariangang as its capital. The Minang Kabau king converted to Islam in the 16th century.