Banda Aceh
Trip Start
Jun 07, 2004
1
37
50
Trip End
Nov 27, 2004
Banda Aceh,
Sumatra,
Indonesia
Friday, October 29, 2004
The following morning I head back to the mainland. I've seen all I want to see of Weh island. Due to poor boat scheduling, I discover that today's flight back down to Medan has already left. Thus I now find myself in Banda Aceh looking for a hotel room. The very city that westerners are supposed to stay well away from. It is not until I arrive at the reception of the third hotel in town that I get a favourable response. All previous efforts at getting a room were met with confused and poorly trained staff stuttering that ' no, they had no rooms available ' even though it was obvious that they did. Perhaps us westerners are troublesome ? Perhaps the hotel management will be placed under a curse for disrespecting Allah. By inviting an infidel inside ? Or perhaps the Police will be requiring some sort of long winded explanation, most surely resulting in a sum of money changing hands.
There is a KFC in Banda Aceh. This in itself is not some wondrous discovery ( KFCs are sprouting up everywhere in Asia ) What happens when I enter, is a different matter. I go in there, well pleased to be able to eat at leisure, instead of dependent upon Iwan's prayer schedule. I am looking for two succulent breasts. They tell me they are closed. I'm sorry ? KFC staff tell me that their restaurant is closed. Yet hooded Muslims sit around tucking into their trays of the Colonel's nasi goreng with baked beans on the side. I am not making this up. KFC is closed only to me.
That's it now. Off down the street I go, ranting under my breath about how very welcome we make their kind in my country. I peer in through the gates to one of many mosques and watch in genuine pity as groups of young men are brainwashed by loudspeakers. Uniformed officers at the gates survey me warily and I meet their gaze with the same unsmiling expression. It ain't my Ramadan mister.
Allah answers. He provides a light to banish the darkness in my spirit. All of a sudden I am eating a steaming plate of the finest nasi goreng in a mini supermarket. The very likeable checkout lady is also their equivalent of a local member of parliament, so it says on her business card. She sends out the shelf-stacking boy to get my dinner in, offering heartfelt apologies for the rudeness her compatriots have shown towards me today. As people file past with their evening shopping, I am sat at the counter on a red plastic stool spooning chicken and rice into my gob. It's amusing seeing their surprise at the unknown foreigner plonked down there like a monkey in a zoo at mealtime. They stop to chat as if in here, we are safe from the oppressive world outside. I bid this kindly lady farewell and make for my bed where I decide I shall enjoy the rare luxury of a hotel room.
The room phone that is next to my ear is ringing at about 4am. It's the front desk calling to remind me that it's prayer time at the mosque. Enraged, I bark something back to the idiot at the other end of the phone. I must be the only foreigner in town and surely everyone knows which room I am in because of it. There is an embarrassed silence from the caller as I put the phone down. Perhaps he is trying in vain to find the words he's just heard in his dictionary. Later that morning, I happily leave and return to Medan where great adventures begin .
Next ; SOS
