Tsunamiland advanetures

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While sitting in a hammock you hear goats under the deck, a gentle lapping of the sea and the shrill screams of an insane local as she beats her dogs and it dawns on you how truly strange a place you are in. The sultry allure of weh warps your perception of time and space as all that you could want or do is within view of your front door. The only difficult things to come by are beer and a reason to ever leave. Unlike the nearly all of asia there are no motor bikes, no "tour guides" trying to sign you up for a jungle trek, and no hassles in general. Usually you have to put up with a big pile of annoyance to be surrounded by such beauty but not here.

From the seaside bungalow we can see fish swimming amongst the corals in crystal clear waters lit by the morning sun. Undersea adventure is calling us down. On a clear day there is visibility beyond 20 meters but even the shallowest puddles are lively. Weh flies under the radar because it ranks 17th on the list of worlds best dive sites. From what the divers say, most folks try to go to the top 10 so weh and the rest of the 11 - 20 group remain peaceful and often the reefs stay healthier from a lack of intrusion. I am no marine biologist but it is painfully clear from the piles of collapsed coral abound that even with less tourism this ecosystem is threatened. Most of the corals are bleached and pale and the man made reefs tend to die rather than establish.

Doomsaying aside, it is glorious under the waves and we saw loads of amazing creatures. The locals yawn at lionfish but they were at treat for us. We saw pufferfish, giant sea turtles, a meter long moray eel (that was very displeased to see us), anemones aplenty, angelfish courting, barracudas kept a harrasing eye on us, and there were hundreds more species I cannot begin to identify. Our guesthouse was run by a lovable family whose matriarch, mama, cooked a nightly feast of deliciousness. We pigged out hardcore knowing we weren't going to find home cookin for quite sometime. (And since then we have mostly eaten fried rice )
The only hard part was leaving this paradise howwever the show must go on. If we wish succeed in our goal of going tip to tip overland we must keep moving.

Things move slowly in Sumatra... especially in aceh province after the tsunami. The road we traversed south from banda aceh cuts up and down coastal mountains and valleys that were struck hardest by the boxing day disaster. The american company renowned for its miserable job renewing infrastructure in Iraq and owned by the monster Dick Cheney, Haliburton Inc, was charged with reconstructing 200Km of highway ruined in 2004. They began in 2005 and still are not done. The surface is mostly gravel, with short sections of sealed asphalt. Many times where bridges were not replaced our minibus needed to board makeshift barges constructed from what looked like styrofoam. The crafts were powered by a 40HP outboard motor; very much underpowered for transporting several tons. I enjoy this breed of gong show but it must be very annoying for the people who need to cross daily.

Sumatra stands apart from the rest of Indonesia and Aceh province stands apart from Sumatra. The civil war ended here (in most districts) in 2002 after a ceasefire was brokered with the central government and the state declared a semi-autonomous region. There is a strong history of defiance in this fiercely religious state. From the dutch to the english, and recently the Japanese (1942) and java. The identity here is distinct and people are proud of what they have. Guerrilla warfare throughout generations has kept the culture free and the people are pretty inspiring. I am not keen to convert and move here but there is much in Aceh to appreciate. The travel itself ain't so great as heavy rains paired with hollers and stares dominated the last week. Jenna gets oodles of pleasant smiles from the women (as usual) and men gawk and yell "hey mister" from the plentiful coffee shops. We tried to visit a cave today and managed to pick up a local who insisted on going with us, claiming "no money, no problem". He seemed honest enough and actually helped us learn a bunch of indonesian phrases even with only knowing a few english words. Clouds rolled in over the nearby mountains and a downpour ensued so we decided to turn back as the hills are quite unsafe during heavy rains. Our "guide" escorted us back to our guesthouse and we chatted some more. By chatted i mean he spoke totally in indo and we tried to make a bit of sense out of it all.

We were still unsure if he planned on robing us once we were in the woods but it never came to that and he was nice enough. At one point he even procured his friends motorbike as we passed a group of youth on a side street. We declined as it was pathetically small for 3 of us to ride (a concept of size that is never understood no matter what country we are in) and the "guide" seemed happy enough to walk with us the 2 km to the cave. You just never know whats going on but that can be half the fun of it all. Regardless, smile!

Sharia law came into canadian headlines a few years back when the central government toyed with the idea of incorporating some aspects of the religious law into state law. I never understood their plans fully but it never came to fruition anyways. We are in the land of sharia; there are even separate police stations for sharia and regular law. As foreigners we are unaffected by the threatened lashings or stonings that come as punishment for the pleasures of drunkenness and adultery. Alcohol IS available but its expensive and you have to ask around with several people hoping not to offend them in the process. Frankly its not worth the trouble. We came to the realization that despite the lack of alcohol several people we encounter act drunk, hooting and laughing as infectiously as any drunkard. I suggested that they just like being loud and look for any excuse to make noise, well aware this theory had some holes in it. At breakfast today we discovered a clue that helped us unravel part of the drunken behavior mystery when we consumed a common snack, ice chendol. It consists of shaved ice, corn kernals, coconut milk, jaggery (palm sugar), and little strings made from green pea flower. This snack is ubiquitous all over malaysia and indonesia but in Aceh they use a different recipe. There was an odd flavour in our chendol and at further inspection we found it contained fermented rice which was very alcoholic. We were blown away; 3 cups of aceh chendol and you'd be tipsy at least. We remembered a ramadan specific snack from malaysia where sticky rice is packed in a banana leaf then left in the sun all day before being consumed. The result is a potently alcoholic dish that manages to skirt the rules of sobriety. It's amusing that these folks like to get trashed as much as anyone else but to make it so hard to get beer when everyones getting drunk anyways is pretty annoying.

Tomorrow we leave the Aceh coast and it has been somewhat of a disappointment. This has nothing to do with the land or people and there is much to see here. The food is lackluster at best and nasi goreng (fried rice) makes up a heavy percentage of the diet. We head into north sumatra, land of the Bataks (the only christian group in indonesia). There we can get all the beer and pizza we need to press further into the dense jungles filled with fried rice vendors.

I hope you all rang in the new year boisterously.

Best wishes from afar,
Brian and Jenna

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Comments

[Dean]

Coral Reefs
I am sorry to say that the only coral reef I have ever seen is a fossilized one near Tobermory on the Bruce Trail. No colours except greys. I was impressed with your views there. No noisy New Years Eve for Fleur-Ange and I. I did a New Year's Eve Resolution Run - 5 k - and then we came home, ate, read books for a while and then went to bed. The new year made it in anyway without our help. Cold temperatures here but still not much snow. We do have ground cover and it would be possible to ski with old skis that are already rock damaged but I would not take good skis out. So it goes. No eating or sight seeing adventures here so I have to rely on you to make my life more interesting. Thanks!!!

[Chris]

It's fascinating that they would have sharia law there. I'm in Bangladesh, a heavily Muslim country, but here they don't have problems with fanaticism. The part with alcohol is ubiquitous across cultures: religion is a manner of convenience. I could identify with you when you spoke of being unsure whether the guide would set you up for an ambush in the forest. There are numerous situations when me or other travelers are invited to pass through dark alleys or into a house surrounded by burly men. You want to be polite and you want to remain an optimist who believes that most people are good natured. However you don't want to put your self at risk (oh and your loved one, that would be harder for me). Things just work out however.