Pandai Sikek

Pandai Sikek sits on the saddle between Mount Singgalang and Mount Marapi and is the best known songket weaving village in West Sumatra - songket being silk or cotton with supplementary gold or silver thread worked into it, used for ceremonial dress and for the elaborate headcloths and shoulder cloths of Minangkabau ritual. The looms are backstrap and hand-operated, the patterns are named and carry meaning, and a full ceremonial cloth can take months, which is why prices are high and why cheap machine-made imitations sold as songket elsewhere are a persistent problem for the weavers here. The same village works in wood: carved panels for rumah gadang façades in the Minangkabau vocabulary of plants and geometry, made to commission. Workshops along the road take visitors and sell direct.

What to look for

• Backstrap songket weaving - gold and silver thread worked in by hand.
• Named patterns - the motifs carrying specific meanings in Minangkabau use.
• Woodcarving workshops - the carved panels for traditional house façades.
• Months of work per cloth - the reason a real ceremonial songket is expensive.

When to go

All year; weekdays when the workshops are working. Half a day.

Good to know

Much sold as songket in tourist shops elsewhere is machine-made - buy from the loom here if you want the real thing, and expect the price. Workshops are family homes; ask before photographing.

Nearby

Bukittinggi is north; Padang Panjang and the Minangkabau museum are south.