Last Meal in Indonesia

Fried shrimp with black pepper noodles, fried calamari, and some other kind of noodles, fried, most likely. Can you see the fried noodle fatigue in Josh's eyes? Yeah, it's the thousand yard stare.

Actually, our last meal in Indonesia was at Pizza Hut. Yeah, I won't apologize for it. It was excellent. I'd do it again in a second.

Banda Aceh: Nature's Least Favorite

I could never understand why over a quarter million people died in the Boxing Day Tsunami in Sumatra. I was on a small island off the west coast of Thailand when it happened, and the destruction was pretty amazing, but the death toll never reached the proportions that it did in Indonesia. And now I know why.

Banda Aceh sits in the middle of a wide, flat plane that is surrounded by an arc of dormant volcanos, effectively forming a half-ring along the coast, in the center of which sits Banda Aceh. The arc of mountains is aligned so that the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the tsunami happened to be directly in front of the ring. The power of the waves that flattened the city must have been phenomenal, while the enclosing mountains ensured that the water level continued to rise as subsequent waves crashed to shore.

Banda is an interesting town today, if only for playing "spot the aid organization logos", which are everywhere, labeling everything. It is pretty much all cleaned up, but there is still a lot of construction to be done. The surprising thing was how empty it felt. Indonesia is a fairly crowded country, but Banda felt positively deserted by local standards. I couldn't figure out if that was because Banda Aceh sits at the very tip of the most western part of Indonesia, or if 250,000 people were missing from daily life.

Mama Donut

Food on Palau Wey was, uhhhh, sort of fail. I don't really expect that much when you are on a tiny beach, on the backside of an island, in the middle of nowhere, at the tip end of a gigantic country. So Mama Donut was a blessing. I don't actually have a picture of her, as she was very shy and/or hates my blog, but imagine the Aunt Jemima syrup bottle lady, but wearing a head scarf unstead of whatever the bottle wears, and holding donuts, not selling syrup like a cheap hussy.

Mama Donut would just appear mid-morning, I guessing from the next village over, but for all I know she could be camping in the jungle and have a big bonfire over which she does her frying. In the afternoon, after I had personally eaten all of the donuts on the island, she would just sort of melt away. She did a very nice sugared donut, as well as fried bananas, egg rolls, spicy vegetable fritters, and the holy grail of the beach: fresh coconut filled beignet. I can taste them now.

Egg rolls from Mama Donut save me from eating fried noodles. AGAIN. No seriously, I love me some fried noodles. But I love Mama Donut more.

Palau Wey

We are in Palau Wey right now (NOTE: well, when I wrote this we were), a long way from the rest of the world. Or so it seems, anyway. Blue water from the Indian Ocean curls around my feet as I stand looking out to sea, the next land mass either India to the north or Africa to the west. The Indian Ocean hisses gently at night; tropical showers sometimes start falling, dripping softly off the thatched roof of our hut.

The food? Not so much. Backpacker melange, I call it. Banana pancakes, strange “spaghetti”, odd imitations of Thai food. But I don't care. There's nothing here but the ocean to swim in and the easy camaraderie of displaced people. I've already swam three times today, out past the mouth of the bay, into the deeper, indigo water, watching my toes sparkle below the crystal surface of the gentle water, washing away the grime of the last ten days.

Mie Aceh

I'm going to level with you: Indonesian food has been underwhelming. Less than impressive. Lacking.

Until I found Mie Aceh. Mie means noodles in Malay (a dirty secret: Indonesians and Malaysians speak the same language. Don't say that to their faces, but the difference is about the same between American and British English. They're a touch tetchy about the subject.) Aceh is the northern part of Sumatra.

Again, apologies for no picture here (earlier technical difficulties were resolved, but there were losses. We have to move on people. Don't loose faith.) Mie Aceh reminds me of Pad Thai- noodles fried with garlic, peppers, and ginger, but in place of fish sauce and lime, they use soy sauce and bitter kalamansi lime juice. Brilliant, delicious, and I ate two servings.

Chicken Satay, Redux

Sorry about the truly terrible photo. I was starving and you are thousands of miles away, so guess what was my first priority? Not you.

Malaysian Chicken Satay 0, Indonesian Chicken Satay 1. Hands down, this Indonesian satay wins by multiple goals. Lightly acidic while still being rich and a touch sweet, it had notes of kafir lime and lemon grass in the sauce, with just enough ground peanut to give it that distinctive taste. The fact that I ate it at this random restaurant in Danau Toba only added to it's appeal.

More like this please, Indonesia.

Danau Toba

Here are some pictures of a volcanic lake we went to in North-central Sumatra. It was formed by the largest volcanic explosion that ever happened.

The second largest volcanic explosion that ever happened in Sumatra happened the evening that we arrived, when the effects of Medan's local water caught up with me. There were thousands of casualties; may we never speak of it again.

Seksparti

Medan is kind of shock after coming from more mainland Southeast Asia. It's the third largest city in Indonesia, and is the epitome of what people don't like about Asian cities: full of traffic, smog, too many people, no sidewalks, and of course, blindingly hot and sweaty. It's also a Muslim country.

As Muslim countries go, it wears it's religion pretty lightly. It's very comfortable to be in Indonesia, even though they don't have a huge minority population, as really, they don't seem to be into some of the harder-line policies that the Gulf States love. You can usually find beer, if you want, and everyone is pretty tolerant of foreigners not being good at passing as Muslims.

Which is why it was blind siding to be propositioned for a sex party. By two separate men. In a crappy, dirty, broken down hotel, directly behind a mosque. Indonesia doesn't seem to mind having beer around or foreign ladies swimming on their beaches in bikinis, but it's not exactly Amsterdam.

Uncomfortable? Just a little bit. Imagine the scene: two white boys, trying hard not to culturally offend, having a broken conversation in Indonesian, slowly realizing that the guy they are talking to is propositioning a three-way. TWICE IN A ROW, WITH TWO SEPARATE INDONESIANS. Jesus wept.

Dear Lonely Planet: the Raja Hotel, on Jalan Raja in Medan, is now a gay cruising hotel. You might want to update it's listing.