Giant cauldrons
Some over a metre across.
Syabilnsywn — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rahmatdenas — CC BY 4.0 · Rahmatdenas — CC BY 4.0 · Rahmatdenas — CC BY 4.0
A huge communal kitchen the Dutch built in 1918 to feed Sawahlunto's coal miners and the chained prisoners forced to work the mines, as well as hospital patients. It cooked tonnes of rice daily for thousands of people, became a museum in 2005, and is today part of the Ombilin mining heritage on UNESCO's list. The strangest sights are the giant iron cauldrons, some over a metre across, the steam ovens that cooked in them, the rice stores, and photographs and documents on the workers' lives and rations and the story of the chained people. The surrounding colonial buildings, with their chimneys and stores, complete the picture. The ticket is token, about ten thousand rupiah, and the museum is small, half an hour to an hour. The museum is minutes on foot from the Mbah Soero tunnel, so combine them, then climb to the Puncak Cemara viewpoint to look over the whole town in its mining valley.
Some over a metre across.
Tonnes of rice a day.
Part of the Ombilin site.
Central Sawahlunto
Because it is a rare, complete nineteenth-century colonial mining town: mines, a railway carrying coal to Padang's port, kitchens, housing and hospitals, much of which still stands.
