I recall a trip to the island in 2011. One of my best friend, Anez asked me to watch the phenomenal bull racing there. Besides finally getting the chance to watch the bull racing, I realized other things about Madura.

Indonesians know Madura for its Sate/Satay Madura (and the seller with typical white red stripy t-shirt and black outer), the tasty Bebek (duck) Madura, Bull Racing, Suramadu Bridge and (unfortunately) the short tempered locals.

Though I didn’t get the chance to eat Sate and Bebek Madura there (so silly of me), I do know that they are indeed very tasty and famous dishes. I tried them outside of Madura. Here are some of the things I’ve experienced by myself;

  • I found a lot of men in Madura dressed up just like sate sellers. I always ended up giggling for reason: I saw too many sate sellers surround me.
  • The bull racing or Karapan Sapi was very intense! Madura was really heated up that day!
  • The Sapi Sono festival (basically it is like a bull beauty contest) was so much fun, dancing, money tipping and happiness!
  • Crossing the Suramadu bridge from Java to Madura was great experience. Too bad we couldn’t stop to take a proper picture of it.
  • The locals were quite friendly, though they do like to stare at you (tourists) suspiciously. I personally think it might be because there are not so many tourists in Madura, so they are just curious about you. I got yelled at by a lot of Madura guy when I watched the bull racing. I don’t really know what I did wrong (I did behave and dress appropriately). But on the other hand, several times I successfully cracked jokes with locals during the Sapi Sono festival. So it might just the condition/the situation that made locals become short tempered and coarser.

Another interesting discovery was the very dry land of Madura somehow made Madura people love to dress up in colorful clothes. Wherever my eyes wandered they saw the bright colors of clothes that are worn by locals.

Enjoy several pictures from my Madura trip!

Sapi Sono madura dancersSapi Sono Festivalsapi sono winnersmoney tipping at Sapi Sonoart performance maduraPerformance night madurapamengkasan stadionbull racing madurakarapan sapi maduraMadura localssignage at maduraback to Surabaya from Madura

Have you ever visited Madura? Do you have any interesting discoveries about the island? Share it with me.

Darn it, I totally missed the pictures of the month series for May 2014! 🙁