Our last two days in Medan, the honorary recipient of Lonely Planet's prestigious 'Worst City in the World' award (2009), were spent somewhat productively (if depressingly) by visiting two different orphanages, both largely home to children who lost family in the 2004 tsunami (which struck only a couple of hours' drive from Medan). The first was a very basic place, where most of the small kids had bad skin rashes and/or wounds, and the older kids were sharing horrendous dormitories of stained mattresses on the floor or broken bunk beds. The staff were somewhat embarrassed to show us around, and explained that sadly things like fans and clean clothing are much further down their list of priorities than food or medicine. The second orphanage was a much more organised and welcoming place run by an energetic Indonesian-Chinese guy called Wang Sugi, who was a very keen Methodist and firm believer that all his orphanage's luck and success can be attributed to the will of God- we of course nodded and agreed, but it was pretty clear he had put his heart and soul into the place and deserved a fair share of the credit.
There wasn't a great deal we felt we could contribute besides teaching the kids the Hokey Pokey (they got really into it), so we spent the next day buying books, toys and medicine for the far more basic orphanage and then going back there to deliver them. While eczema cream was obviously much needed, the soccer balls were far more popular and we left very resolute in the belief that a couple of hundred Australian dollars will make a world of difference to the kids living there, in a country where $5 will buy a school uniform and $20 will get a new mattress or two.
So, good deeds done, Tami and I farewelled Sinead who is off to Thailand and set off ourselves for the very un-touristy, unfrequented and apparently unpopular province of Banda Aceh (if the fact that it has previously been flattened by a tsunami isn't enough to turn people off, the recent implementation of Islamic law is apparently sure to). It was mostly curiosity and a strong desire to escape the 'banana pancake trail' that prompted us to make the extra hop north to the most North-western point of Indonesia, and to see if the warnings from Bali taxi drivers that we would be kidnapped and forced to marry elderly locals had any weight at all.
As it turned out, Banda Aceh (the capital city of the Aceh province, which is now a kind of autonomous region of Indonesia with their own laws) is in fact a very modern, friendly and religiously-moderate city where for once we weren't called out to by every Indonesian man we passed, and where the memory of the tsunami has far greater bearing on people's lives than any Islamic law, extreme or otherwise. Although they don't exactly make for great happy snaps, seeing some of the relics of the tsunami such as the 'boat on the house' helped us a lot in understanding the phenomenal scale of the wave that essentially flattened the entire city. Of around 250 000 people killed by the tsunami worldwide, 61 000 were in the Aceh province alone.
Nowhere until Aceh had we been thanked for visiting, and it seems that helping people out by overpaying for a taxi ride (and overpay we did) or buying far more bananas than we really needed from a roadside stall was greatly appreciated. Far from being criticised or threatened for being wealthy non-Muslims, people were so friendly and welcoming to us that we wondered why we hadn't spent more time in cities where people want you to hold their baby for good luck, ask you endless questions about yourself and marvel at blonde hair ('You look just like Barbie', an old lady told me- my 6-year-old self was immensely flattered).
The highlight of Banda Aceh, however, was visiting the Main Mosque- an incredibly beautiful building in the centre of town, apparently quite unused to foreign visitors wanting to come inside. After buying headscarves in the market and having a local lady tie them up for us (much to the amusement of everyone in the vicinity), we just kind of wandered in. Although it turns out that non-Muslims aren't allowed in the actual building (getting kicked out of a mosque has now been checked off my lifetime to-do list), we had a wander around the grounds and both came away with a very nice impression of the peaceful gardens and lovely building, as well as the friendly if slightly incredulous locals. The second highlight was watching Tami tackle eating a durian.
The next day, we got a ferry over to Pulau Weh, apparently one of the most beautiful islands in Indonesia just off the coast of Aceh. I am yet to visit 16 992 of Indonesia's 17 000 islands, but Pulau Weh is undoubtedly a pretty amazing place, with green jungly mountains sitting on a bright blue sea. I went scuba diving in the afternoon, which was incredible (a close encounter with a moray eel, one of the very ugliest of the world's creatures, is quite an unforgettable experience), and then Tami and I swam and chilled out at the gorgeous beach at Gapang.
Although we had only 24 hours there before we had to whisk back to Banda Aceh's airport for our flight to Jakarta, Pulau Weh undoubtedly deserved longer. However, we are yet to conquer Asia's most polluted city and it really seemed like the time had come.
Sampai jumpa, Aceh, and selamat pagi Jakarta.
X
