Eureka! we've done it! We've, within only the penumbra of doubt, discovered the best place on Earth. That's right: paradise, the perfect place, as described in all the far-reaching fantastical literature of religions and mythologies throughout the ages. Verily, this is a land where existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It seems that lo after these eight months of nomadic wandering we've stumbled upon the perfect community: the pristine tropical island of Pulau Weh, in the Aceh State of Sumatra, Indonesia.
First a little back story on Indonesia: This is a singular nation that defies all odds and expectations. Now this nation is composed of over 238 million people, the 4th largest in the world (after China, India, and the great U.S.of A.), speaking over 700 different regional languages spread out over more than 17,000 islands. It is very diverse. We flew from Malaysia into the city of Banda Aceh, the furthest northwest city in Sumatra, the furthest northwest island of Indonesia. Aceh State has the highest proportion of Muslims in the decidedly Muslim country and is the only state in Indonesia to adopt Sharia Law, basing their laws on Muslim teaching: no alcohol, no pork, and 100 lashings (or worse) for adultery (including pre-marital relations----good thing we're married!).
Much of Indonesia is seismically active and Aceh has received a lot of attention in the Western media for the 2004 Boxing Day (Dec. 26) tsunami. Approximately 170,000 Indonesians were killed or went missing in the disaster and approximately 500,000 were left homeless; the destruction is unfathomable, with waves up to 100 feet high! While in Banda Aceh we witnessed several huge boats that were thrown as far as 4km inland; one boat landed squarely on top of a house! But the restoration efforts over the last 7 years has been incredible and you would never know that most of the regions infrastructure had been washed away.
After dropping our passports off for "a week" at Imagrasi for visa extensions, we headed from Banda Aceh to the beautiful tropical island of Pulau Weh. After a series of curving roads, past ramshackle houses and conniving monkeys, we arrived at Iboih Beach. The beach itself wasn't too much to look at: a small rocky stretch of sand covered in broken coral, but even when we first got there the people were incredibly helpful and open. After securing a beautiful bungalow with an epic view of the water, we moseyed on down to the local dive shop and signed up for a PADI Open Water Scuba diving course.
Then we met Salim A. Salam and our lives were forever changed. He taught us how to fly and convene with the myriad magical maritime mirages as their brilliant colors and patterns surrounded us against the backdrop of the deep blue. Whereas most people learn to dive in the bland confines of a swimming poop, learning to clear your mask, recover your regulator, adjust your buoyancy, etc., we were soaring through a spinning kaleidoscope of tropical fish.
Here's my first entry from my Dive Logbook: "Woah! What an incredible first dive! Salim showed us so many animals: sting rays, lionfish, pipefish, cuddlefish, clownfish, garden eels, oriental sweetlips, butterfly fish, mantis prawn, and so any more! It was so exciting to fly weightlessly through this shimmering technicolor wonderland." The lionfish have crazy striped swaying angelic wings that are venomous; cuddlefish look like crazy cow alien spaceships; curious clownfish playing in their anenomies peak up at us; pipefish are so long and thin (like a pipe, hey!); the aptly named garden eels look like blades of grass blowing in the great golden plains, sticking only their heads out of the sand; oriental sweetlips are unreal black and white striped swishy fishies with yellow fins; and the mantis prawn is a super-colorful shrimp that can deliver a punch with its tiny front legs strong enough to break a snail shell (or a diving mask!). And this was only our very first introduction to scuba diving!
We had a bit of a scare on our third dive though: "The dive itself was awesome! We saw so many colorful schools of fish! But te current was so strong it swept us away from our departure point and we had to wait for an hour and a half for our boat driver to find us." Salim said in the 10 years he's been diving, he's only lost the boat once before----how unlucky for us! But it was a great lesson in staying calm in the face of the abyssal open blue waters and no salvation in sight. There was a fishing boat nearby but they were impervious to our calls for help, probably thinking it was just something divers did for fun.
We also went snorkeling many times (as diving is pretty expensive) and rented an underwater camera one day! We saw a little white-tipped reef shark in the clear shallow barracuda-infested waters whilst diving with a sunshiny hippie-dippie New Yorker named Rene who now teaches yoga classes (good to get loose again!) on Pulau Weh and her sweet poofy-haired boyfriend, Indra, originally from Jakarta, Java, Indonesia. Another time we were swimming with another American world-traveling couple, Donny and Brooke, and saw a crazy little undulating octopus that would shift its shape and color to match the coral it was sitting on. A little damsel-fish was coming up to it like, "Hey, what's up? You want to play with---AHHH" then the octopus would strike out at it with one leg, "GO AWAY!" Unperturbed, the damsel-fish said, "Hey, wait! I just wanted to talk! There's no need for all this viole---AHHH!" as the octopus lashed out again, "I SAID, GO AWAY!" Well this last time the little damsel-fish took the hint, "Hey man! You're crazy! I didn't really want to talk to you anyway!" swimming away.
The waters of Pulau Weh held so many amazing wonders. For our last two dives for our class Salim took us to an underwater ship-wreck-----fish flying all around the gnarly rusted coral-covered boat-----and an underwater volcano, which was actually a series of geothermal vents that made awesome relaxing warm bubbles on the bottom that smelled so strongly of sulfur that we could somehow smell it whilst breathing from our scuba tanks underwater. After these 5 amazing dives we were addicted and decided to stay on Pulau Weh for an extra 2 weeks and do another 7 dives. Very good decision.
The diving was great but I think the best part of Pulau Weh was the people. There was such a great community! When we got to Pulau Weh, we quickly discovered the gem that is Uden's restaurant. Uden is such an amazing person, with a permanent smile and great taste in world electronic music-----Buddha Bar and Thievery Corporation playing while we ate his delicious (spicy!) vegetable curries. Uden's cousin Ewan is the man. His most distinguishing feature is his full-faced blooming smile, welling up like a newborn blue whale taking its first breath from beneath his swarthy mustache. I'll never forget what Ewan told me: "You can cut your hair; you can cut your beard; but never cut your heart." Despite Ewan's calm and agreeable demeanor, a lot of drama seemed to surround him (hey, paradise ain't perfect).
On Iboih Beach they rent snorkels, fins, and life-vests and used to have a fixed price: 15,000 rupiah each (less than $2). But people in town started lowering their prices to get more business, against the rules, which made others lower their prices and was causing deflation. So our friend Ewan posted signs all over town that you could rent them from him for only 5,000 rupiah-----way under price. Then he closed his shop. People were coming to all the rental places in town and pointing out that his price was lower and asking them to match it, so people were making no money. They agreed to call a meeting and Ewan insisted that he just lowered his price to get more business, though everyone knew it was just a sly way of pointing out how fighting amongst themselves and lowering prices was hurting everyone. So they all re-agreed to the fixed price and it lead to a grand reformation. Huzzah!
Our next contestant for craziest guy we met through Uden's restaurant is: Mus! (pronounced "Moose," so Sarah gave a moose sticker to both Mus and his 3-year-old son, who wanted to be just like Dad.) Mus, in his ever-joking nonchalant demeanor, told us how he valiantly climbed a 50 foot coconut tree to pick the pile of coconuts on the restaurant floor-----no big deal, of course. Oh yeah, and he tried to tell us that it's better to smoke unfiltered clove cigarettes if you're sick because they'll make you cough up all the bad stuff. Everyone in Indonesia smokes like a freight train. They must get their obsession with smoke from the countless smoking volcanoes across their nation, which probably also inspire them to have daily fires with leaves and rubbish, including plastic-----oh the smell of burning plastic in the morning shall always remind me of Sumatra.
While we were there we revived their lost tradition of having super-awesome-fun-fire-filled BEACH PARTIES! The alcohol was expensive (so drinking was limited) but the company present were so great that no one minded. Good music too. Everyone was dancing and throwing their limbs aruond to hip-hop, funk, and dubstep around the fire-----even Bogey, the little black dog, was jumpin' up and getting rowdy! When the night got late we busted out our acoustic guitars and traded turns serenading the crowd, all sitting together in a circle. We were truly sad to leave Pulau Weh, maybe the best place ever. But we stayed for nearly 3 weeks, nearly 3 times longer than anywhere else on our whole trip. Alas, there's so much more of Indonesia to see so, like a bird that flew, we sailed across the blue.
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