Boring Banda

You know you’re in a one-horse town when the chief draws are mosques and as yet unrebuilt tsunami sites. Had a really eerie feeling visiting mass graves, one with 14,000 buried, another with 46,000. Here are the photos.

I spent the first two days in Banda Aceh with Maxim and Nabil, two Arab guys from Quebec City studying at Laval, whom I had met on Pulau Weh. They’re cycling down the length of Sumatra, taking a month to do it. Quite cool, actually, and it was nice to spend the time with them. Nabil was helpful in pointing out that Pulau Weh is Kilometer Zero, i.e. the northernmost point in Indonesia. It serves as an interesting experience of contrast to chalk up, especially after having visited Kanyakumari, the southernmost point in India (and another major tsunami site in its own right).

New Years Eve was spent in the Country Steak House, one of the few places in town where you can get beer. But they closed at 10 PM, so it wasn’t exactly a blow-out. New Years Day was spent with a nice Sino-Indonesia girl from the hotel, who took me around in an SUV packed with female relatives and tons of kids, to do the rounds of greetings with friends and family around town. First time I ever celebrated New Year’s on the day itself, rather than the night before.

Indonesia as a country is a culinary wasteland, too, and I’ve found myself constantly hungry for the last month. Anyway, the star attraction is yet to come: Big City Saigon. After this, it will be all fun, all the time. And eating my fill!