Aceh

Another belated Indonesia post.  No, I’m still in Australia, I haven’t gone back.

“From Sabang to Merauke”.  Anyone who knows a bit about Indonesia has heard this… it refers to the westernmost and easternmost points of Indonesia.

Sabang, as I have explained earlier, is an alternate name for Pulau Weh and is also the main city on the island.  However, on the island itself, there is a peninsula, which at the tip, is known as kilometre zero (Km Nol in Indonesian).  The officially recognized starting point of the country.

For me, Km Nol was more of an endpoint.  The next day, I would go back to Banda Aceh.  Then I would fly to Jakarta via Medan, then on to Bali and then home to Australia.  I had spent the day sightseeing around the island with a great group of Argentinian travellers I met at my accommodation.  Km Nol was our last stop for the day.

So what is at the beginning or end of Indonesia, depending which way you are going?

Plastic chairs.  Just like you would see in the waiting rooms of any government office in the country.

There was also a large white tiled structure that somewhat resembled a very clean public toilet.  And some crazy monkeys that chased us.

Inside the bathroom tribute building, there was a plaque. But we knew the plaque wasn’t really on the true kilometre zero, the very start point of Indonesia, because there was land all around us. Fail.

But it still felt somewhat symbolic.  I may not have made it as far as Merauke (Labuanbajo was my most far-flung eastern destination), but I did get to Sabang.  Next time I’m in Indonesia, I’ll have to get to Merauke.

PS.  Do you like the bigger photos?

PPS.  OMG I was so tanned!  It vanished so quickly…

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On my last day in Banda Aceh before heading out to Pulau Weh, I wasn’t sure what to look at next. Banda Aceh is an odd place, because it was destroyed by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Much of the city is relatively brand new, so while in some ways it is just like any other Indonesian city, in many other ways it really isn’t like most of them at all. It’s quieter and cleaner and smaller to wander around, with better public facilities than most cities, however the main monuments in the town are all linked to the horror of the tsunami and each new piece of infrastructure carries with it a reminder of the disaster that battered this province.

Some of the becak drivers outside my hotel had every morning been yelling out at me “tsunami tour misses” when I would leave to go wandering for the day, and the crassness of it was off-putting. But realistically, I was interested in seeing the tsunami sights. After a walk, I met a quiet becak driver waiting outside the market (top picture). I asked him if he could take me to the “boat on the house” and he agreed fairly enthusiastically.

This is the boat on the house. Obviously. Pushed 3km inland by the huge wave, this boat became lodged on top of the two storey house and acted as a refuge for 59 people who might otherwise not have survived the tsunami waves. It’s not the only boat washed significantly inland by the wave.

Freshly repainted for the fifth anniversary of the tsunami, complete with a viewing platform, a donation box stands out front, near a wall with a clock from the house which stopped exactly at the time the tsunami hit the house… 8.45am.

I climbed up to the viewing platform and took a look, and my becak driver followed. He was acting kind of odd and I wasn’t sure what was up. We stood in awkward silence for a little while, then I said “from seeing this, I can really understand how big the tsunami was.”

“Yes. It was very big,” my becak driver replied. “It came three times. Three big, big waves. It knocked down my house.”

“Oh, that is very sad.”

“My house is rebuilt now. But my child is still missing.”

I could see tears welling up in his eyes and I just felt so awful and totally lost for words, especially Indonesian words.

“I hope a disaster like this never happens again,” was the best I could come up with. He nodded and we both quietly looked out at the Banda Aceh skyline, punctuated with the prefabricated A-line roofs distinctive of the post-tsunami houses built by relief agencies.

I felt so guilty for making this poor man come out to the boat when clearly he was still grieving and didn’t have any closure on the loss of his child. I felt like maybe I should have picked one of those guys boldly touting tsunami tours outside the hotel instead.  Maybe their grieving process had already come full circle, or maybe they were just more used to seeing these monuments to disaster. After we had walked back down from the viewing platform, I changed the topic and started asking about the local specialty coffee and we headed off to a coffee store.

The next day when I took a becak out to the ferry port at Ulee Lhee, the area of Banda Aceh hardest hit by the tsunami, the black and white photocopy tourist map the hotel gave me identified tsunami sites along the road, for example, a mass grave housing nearly 50,000 bodies and the tsunami ‘ground zero’, where the wave first rushed ashore.

Even more than five years on, unmapped remnants of pre-tsunami Banda punctuated the drive.  A staircase leading to nowhere, the house obviously destroyed by the wave.  Support pillars, foundations or columns from houses that no longer were.  All nestled in between new neighbourhoods of identical houses built rapidly out of necessity.

But I didn’t really feel like stopping like a tourist this time.  While the Acehnese were beautifully welcoming and many were happy to talk frankly about the tsunami, I think, for some, it is still just too soon.  And while usually I clamor to take as many photos as possible of everything, going into semi-’reporter’ mode, I just didn’t feel like it that morning. I just absorbed it.

Aceh really left an impression on me.  It’s an extremely interesting place.  I’d really encourage people to visit, but to visit thoughtfully.

You can also read a piece about Aceh’s tsunami museum that I wrote for the Jakarta Globe over here.

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We went to the ‘hot springs’ in Pulau Weh, but the water was so dirty and algae-covered none in our group of travelers would actually get in.

This little guy jumped up next to me on a wall we were sat on looking out to the coast (photo a little blurry because camera threw a brief humidity tantrum).

“Hello!” he said.

“Hello! Apa kabar?” (Hello, how are you?)

“Kabar baik! Suka Sabang missus?” (I’m good.  Do you like Sabang (alternate name for Pulau Weh) miss?)

“Iyaaa, suka sekali.  Kamu tinggal di sini Mas?” (Yes, I like it a lot! Do you live here?)

“Ya.” (Yes)

“Kelihatan enak sekali di sini.  Ada pantai dan laut, ada hutan, ada bukit-bukit. Indah sekali, kan?” (It seems very nice/comfortable here. There’s beaches and the ocean, there’s forests and mountains. It’s very beautiful, no?)

“Ya. ” He shrugs his shoulders and sighs, giving off an air of being completely nonplussed by Pulau Weh’s stunning natural assets, as if he is weighed down by something deep and troubling.

“Sedikit bagus saja. Tapi aku tak bisa berenang pada hari sekolah.” (Yeah.  It’s a little bit good. But I can’t go swimming on school days.)

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