Hermes Palace Banda Aceh

I woke up in Banda Aceh this morning where did you wake up?!




This really is a dream come true for me. A hot shower later and it's time for breakfast...or is it?! Strict Muslim territory, there will be no eating till it gets dark here in Banda Aceh!! I am so hungry!!

Head put for a wander in the early moring heat and come mid morning I am now about to 'eat myself' so I nip back up to the room and eat my way through my sneaky pack of biscuits ...

I awoke to the sound of 2 cockrels having some kind of sqwauk off this morning...not that that was a problem though as I needed to be up to catch the 8am ferry back to Banda Aceh.

Glorious sunshine and at least 20 degrees at 7am...this really is paradise!! Into the car and off we go to the ferry port. On th way we drive through peaceful roads with lush greenery both sides until...we meet a truck...and a big one at that!! It is moving across the road ...

Woke up this morning and grabbed a couple of bananas for breakfast and then went and sat on the beach with one of the 3 unread books I purchased in Asda at 5am after my last night out in Edinburgh. Stupid really as I was never going to read them and one book might not weigh that much but 3 certainly do!! I began to read while I waited for Carolyn to come out suited and booted ready for her sesh so I could take some pics but after an hour ...

... to have a look at how the GAM have disarmed and pulled together with the help of the UN aid workers to create a place that is now a pleasure to stay. An early morning ferry, and the only one of the day, however forces us to leave early this morning.

We hop in a becak (motorbikes with sidecart for us and our bags and the main form of taxi transport this side of the world) and begin our trip to the ferry terminal. On the way we see a mixture of rubble, newly built houses ...

So I got up this morning and packed my bag, had some scrambled egg for brekkie with a coconut milkshake and then it was time to leave for Medan airport...destination Banda Aceh!! I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about being able to visit a place I have dreamt of visiting for many years but always thought would prove impossible if I wanted to leave alive!!

We meet up with Buddy the local who is going to drive us the 5 hours to Medan and hop on the boat directly from ...

The morning following our return from the jungle trek, we left Bukit Lawang on a public bus headed for Medan. We stored our backpacks at the rear of the bus, just in front of the back seat. The bus itself was a clapped-out old coach and the roads were so broken up in places that we bounced along at around 20mph for the first hour or so. The driver also kept stopping for long periods of time for no apparent reason. We had a plane to catch and at one point we wondered if we were going to ...

If the name of this city somehow seems familiar to you, you may be remembering it as the most populated place on the globe near the epicenter of the horrific 9.0 earthquake that occurred here on December 26, 2004. It then became one of the many places that received a second punch from one of the most deadliest tsunamis in world history a short while later. Since the city of Banda Aceh served as a stop for us as we made our way to and from the island of Pulau ...

The journey to Pulah Weh was a NIGHTMARE!! We argued with the bus people in Bunjai, who wanted to sell us tickets for twice the price, that old 'skin tax' chestnut. Well, we don't mind paying a little over the price sometimes but this was ridiculous. We fought and fought and finally got our way with bad feelings on both sides. So obviously when we got on the bus everybody hated us and we got the worst seats. I spent the night next to a really fat man who kept putting his bum on ...

... on the television at the beginning, which is a quality movie but someone must have taken a vote and it was stopped half way through and replaced with a karaoke video of Indonesian pop hits. Add in a seat that kept falling backwards, no leg room and a stop at the mosque at 5am for prayers and it turned into a long night.

We got to Banda Aceh around 8 in the morning and got another becak to the ferry port. It was a bit dumb really but ...

... it to a bus company that does the night buses to Banda Aceh, the place where you take the ferry to go to this island...but of course it was nowhere near an ATM and I had no money left, and then I had a crowd of no-so-friendly taxi drivers asking me ridiculous prices to take me to an ATM. Anyway, I was getting a bit frustrated by the time I got on the bus, but then my bus neighbour was so cool that I felt better. He didn't speak a word of English, but he called ...