Crowned by the turquoise domes and spiked minarets of the lovely An-Nur Great Mosque, Pekan Baru is one of Indonesia’s more off-the-beaten-track and overlooked towns. It hails in as one of the historic trading ports on the island of Sumatra, positioned between the meanders of the Siak River just a short way from the Strait of Malacca that links across to the mega-industries of Singapore. However, despite its mercantile past that was shaped by the hands of Sultans and Dutch East India alike, this town still retains a glaring cleanliness and accessibility. Its downtown hums with hawkers and street food vendors, aromatic Oriental dishes and Malaysian satay from the lively Malay Quarter signalling a cosmopolitan mix of ethnicities and languages. The dry season can be challenging though, as it brings in a haze from burning palm plantations that can go on to affect the whole region; that apart there are Pekan Baru tour guides aplenty at hand happy to plan excursions out to the beaches of Bintan as well as the agreeable seas of Batam Island to the east.