From Bukit Lawang we took a Bemo (clapped out little van) to Bin Jai and then another night bus to Banda Aceh on the Northern tip of Sumatra. Incredibly this bus driver also had a love of heavy bass based trance, although he managed to fuse this with a love of Alvin and the Chipmunks to create a very unique blend of irritancy; it was like music created by the love child of Dizzy Rascal and Joe Pasquale.
Finally we arrived in Banda Aceh and took a Becuk (motorbike with a sidecar and ability to hold far more weight than is sensible or legal) to the ferry port and a ferry across to the island. We then took a taxi to Ipoh Beach where we were told the main guesthouses were. After a very long walk we thought we had arrived at the wrong place so we took a motorbike to another part of the island. This was similar but worse, so we went back. Banda Aceh and Pulau Weh were devastated by the Tsunami in 2004 and it appeared that the place had not quite recovered, or that people thought it was not worth investing the care in rebuilding in case of a repeat attack. They were also not very open to visitors which may have been due to the vast number of NGO’s that swarmed the island after the Tsunami; either way prices were inflated, interaction with locals was limited and we felt very cut off from everywhere, especially with no transport.
Our accommodation was a very basic bamboo hut on stilts, overlooking the sea. It had a shared bathroom and holes in the roof as we found out during a thunder storm one night, but at £3 a night it was o.k. The mosquitoes here were also really vicious and I was averaging about 15 new bites a day. However, the positives. Pulau Weh has a beautiful sea, the views are immense and the diving even better. Unfortunately Alex could not dive as much as she’d have liked as she felt a little sick as did a few people we met there. But in one day I saw a turtle, tuna fish, four black tipped sharks, lion fish, trigger fish, clown fish, a frog fish, honeycomb eels and a school of barracuda to name but a few.
Another strange occurrence that happened during this leg of our trip was when we met an English couple from Watford, Bailey and Kimberly, who we’d previously met in Bukit Lawang. We were getting some food in a tiny, empty Warung when another couple came in. The guy was an Aussie but his wife was from a little place in Hertfordshire called Potters Bar. How peculiar. Anyway, Bailey and Kimberly and us decided to leave and again nature plagued our plans as we’d intended to go and climb the volcano, Gunung Bromo, in Java, but it had the cheek to erupt that week. We decided to go as a four instead to Bali via Medan and Jakarta. It was a tiring journey but made better by the company, and by the fact that at Banda Aceh, the executive lounge was £2 to enter and included free wi-fi, biscuits, coffee, nuts, cakes, crisps and unlimited soft drinks. On top of that the 100ml liquid rule does not seem to apply in Indonesia, needless to say we stocked up!
Finally we arrived in Banda Aceh and took a Becuk (motorbike with a sidecar and ability to hold far more weight than is sensible or legal) to the ferry port and a ferry across to the island. We then took a taxi to Ipoh Beach where we were told the main guesthouses were. After a very long walk we thought we had arrived at the wrong place so we took a motorbike to another part of the island. This was similar but worse, so we went back. Banda Aceh and Pulau Weh were devastated by the Tsunami in 2004 and it appeared that the place had not quite recovered, or that people thought it was not worth investing the care in rebuilding in case of a repeat attack. They were also not very open to visitors which may have been due to the vast number of NGO’s that swarmed the island after the Tsunami; either way prices were inflated, interaction with locals was limited and we felt very cut off from everywhere, especially with no transport.
Our accommodation was a very basic bamboo hut on stilts, overlooking the sea. It had a shared bathroom and holes in the roof as we found out during a thunder storm one night, but at £3 a night it was o.k. The mosquitoes here were also really vicious and I was averaging about 15 new bites a day. However, the positives. Pulau Weh has a beautiful sea, the views are immense and the diving even better. Unfortunately Alex could not dive as much as she’d have liked as she felt a little sick as did a few people we met there. But in one day I saw a turtle, tuna fish, four black tipped sharks, lion fish, trigger fish, clown fish, a frog fish, honeycomb eels and a school of barracuda to name but a few.
Another strange occurrence that happened during this leg of our trip was when we met an English couple from Watford, Bailey and Kimberly, who we’d previously met in Bukit Lawang. We were getting some food in a tiny, empty Warung when another couple came in. The guy was an Aussie but his wife was from a little place in Hertfordshire called Potters Bar. How peculiar. Anyway, Bailey and Kimberly and us decided to leave and again nature plagued our plans as we’d intended to go and climb the volcano, Gunung Bromo, in Java, but it had the cheek to erupt that week. We decided to go as a four instead to Bali via Medan and Jakarta. It was a tiring journey but made better by the company, and by the fact that at Banda Aceh, the executive lounge was £2 to enter and included free wi-fi, biscuits, coffee, nuts, cakes, crisps and unlimited soft drinks. On top of that the 100ml liquid rule does not seem to apply in Indonesia, needless to say we stocked up!
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