Days 51 – 52: Sigli

Photos: http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051072&l=0daf9&id=1101094

Our bus ride to Sigli was uneventful besides providing us with some nice views of the rolling hills of northern Sumatra. Upon our arrival in Sigli, however, things got a bit more complicated.

Sigli, you see, is a town in Aceh, and Aceh is a region of Indonesia that enforces sharia, or Islamic Law. That means, among other things, no public displays of affection, no alcohol, and no male/female alone time for anyone who isn’t related by blood or by marriage. So when Kendyl and I attempted to check into the only hotel in town, we caught some resistance. Five minutes later, we were in the police station.

“She is your wife?” the policemen asked me.

“Yes!” I responded, as emphatically as I possibly could, while Kendyl quickly switched her ring to her left hand.

After twenty minutes of discussion between the policemen and me (Kendyl was not involved, of course, seeing as she’s a woman), Kendyl and I were convincingly married, and I dare say the police force had even started to grow fond of us. They still wondered what reason we could possibly have for coming to Sigli, and we were unable to provide a satisfying answer to that question, but nevertheless Robert and Kendyl Huber signed the police log and proceeded to Sigli’s lone hotel, which unsurprisingly had no running water.

The following morning we headed down to the beach on which, according to Edy, paraplegics were healed. Supposedly, if you bury your paraplegic relatives waist-deep in the sand and then dump sea water over them, they’re cured. We didn’t see any healed paraplegics on the beach, but we did see a whole lot of graves. I guess the trick doesn’t always work.

We walked a few kilometers down the beach with Kendyl suffering all the way in her jeans, long sleeve shirt, and headscarf. Acehnese beach attire might not make Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue anytime soon.

We came to a small channel and, convinced we could ford it without problem, I rolled up my pant legs and began sloshing across. Thirty seconds later, I was up to my waist in water, and it wasn’t getting any shallower. Luckily a fishing boat was on its way into the channel (yes, that’s right, the same channel I thought we could walk across), and graciously they stopped and picked us up. Five minutes later we arrived at the shore and Kendyl and I headed to town to catch a bus to Banda Aceh. OK, so maybe Sigli wasn’t exactly what we were expecting, but how often do you get to hang out with Acehnese policemen and fishermen all in one day?