Days 55 – 58: Pulau Weh

Photos: http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051578&l=d03ed&id=1101094

We arrived at Pulau Weh and caught a minibus to Iboih, the beach town where we planned to stay for the next few days. Aboard the minibus we met two young Australian aid workers, one of whom worked for Save the Children and the other for UN Habitat. Apparently, Pulau Weh would be teeming with aid workers this weekend, seeing as it was a weekend and a national holiday. That was good news for meeting new friends, but bad news for lodging prices.

We arrived at Iboih shortly after dark and managed to find a cheap bungalow at Oong Guest House. We ate dinner just down the beach at a place called Yulia’s, where the famous dish was the fruit taco, which was really just fruit encased in fried dough. In any case, it was delicious.

At dinner we met a few other backpackers as well as an old man named Stan. Stan was a 72 year old Brit who spent most of his life in Canada and had been traveling for the past 20 years. All his worldly possessions were in a van in a field outside Vancouver, which may or may not still be there when he returns. And, at one point during his young life, he drove a motorcycle from Britain to South Africa, and then from Patagonia to Alaska. Needless to say, Stan proved to be a priceless source of traveling expertise.

The following morning we swam from Iboih beach across the lagoon to Rubiah Island, which was about 500 meters off the coast. We attempted to explore the island a bit, but without shoes we didn’t get very far. We saw a number of reef fish through the crystal clear water, but without snorkel gear or goggles we couldn’t see much of anything under water. We vowed to come back in the next couple days with sandals and goggles.

That afternoon we went swimming at Iboih beach, but with the locals (and the town mosque) just across the street, we felt a little strange splashing around in our swim suits. We planned to rent a motorbike the following morning and find a beach that was a bit more private.

We ate dinner that night at Yulia’s, and we met an interesting American couple who lived in Banda Aceh. The woman, Emily, worked for the American Red Cross, and the man, Crispin, worked for the US Geological Survey but was currently on sabbatical. While on sabbatical, Crispin had gotten involved with a project to map the Acehnese ocean floor. As a result of the tsunami, the ocean floor had become much more jagged, and fishermen were getting their nets caught sharp objects, so Crispin and his team installed fish-finders on the fishermen’s boats and then downloaded data from the fish-finders to create a map of the ocean floor. The map helped fishermen navigate to areas where they wouldn’t get their nets caught, and the fish-finders helped them locate fish under water.

The next day we rented a motorbike and headed for the other side of the island, hoping to find a nice beach to spend the day on. The road connecting Iboih with the rest of the island was terrible, and we narrowly avoided sliding out on our motorbike when we hit some loose rocks on a particularly steep hill and my foot slipped off the brake. Luckily I had learned a thing or two about steadying my bike after my little spill in Bali.

We asked around for a pantai bagus (good beach), and we eventually reached a beautiful white sand, palm-fringed beach that looked something like paradise. I went into town and bought some goggles, and we spent the afternoon swimming, snorkeling, and generally rejoicing at the chance to spend the day on one of the best beaches we’d ever seen.

That evening we ate fish at a restaurant in Gapang, a town just down the road from Iboih. When we arrived, some Slovakian scuba divers warned us that the restaurant was notoriously slow. Three hours later, we understood what they meant.

We spent our last morning in Pulau Weh swimming across to Rubiah Island and snorkeling a reef called the Sea Garden. The snorkeling was the best I’d ever done—we saw maybe 50 different types of reef fish, and at one point a giant spotted eagle ray swam by about five feet from us.

We got a bit lost on our hike back across Rubiah Island, and we ended up having to sprint back across the lagoon to Iboih to make it in time our ferry back to Banda Aceh. It had been a while since I sprinted 500 meters. It wasn’t pretty.