I left Kuala Lumpur in the wee hours this morning to fly to Penang (Georgetown), further north on the west coast of Malaysia. I only spent one full day in KL, mostly sorting out admin stuff like flights and buying some new scuba gear, but didn't really feel like doing any of the touristy things anyway. I did get to ride the monorail and see the Petronas Towers though so I guess I can tick KL off my list. From Penang I had planned to get the ferry across the Straits of Malacca to here but a typical Air Asia delay meant I wasn't in time to make the 8.45am departure. I thus forked out a bit extra for a plane ticket instead. Now I just have to wait it out here until my flight to Banda Aceh at 4.30pm.
A little look at where in the world I am right now.Banda Aceh is infamous for a number of reasons. One being the fighting between the Indonesian government and separatists that had the whole Aceh region under martial law until as recently as August 2005. My Rough Guide chose to omit travel details for the region entirely! Banda Aceh was also arguably the worst hit town in the 2004 tsunami disaster, suffering both from the initial earthquake and from the resulting tsunami. In Banda Aceh alone 61 000 people were killed. But I'm not going there for any sort of macabre reasons, I just need to get the ferry from Banda Aceh out to Pulau Weh tomorrow morning. I've been told that island has unbelievable diving and is still relatively undiscovered.
Unfortunately it looks like my one night in Banda Aceh is going to be an expensive one. Most of the hotels haven't been rebuilt yet and those that have are filled with NGO's that have ramped the prices up. As was the case in Laos, the NGO's here in Indonesia are apparently not very popular. They have achieved very little of what they promised and seem content to drive around in their shiny SUV's and dine in the fancier foreign owned restaurants and "contribute" to the economy through purchasing "local produce" such as Jack Daniels.
Excuse me if I'm in a venting mood. I haven't had a full night's sleep in ages and seem to be hopping from one airport to the next constantly at the moment. And flying with Air Asia is very exasperating. The flights are always delayed, if not cancelled outright, and there is no assigned seating so every boarding is a free for all. And the Malaysians have retained a lot of their Chinese ancestry - Chinese people don't queue. Ever. Locals at the opening of a new KFC in Umtata would show more restraint.
I did have some good chuckles on my last 2 flights though. I've just started on Nick Hornby's The Complete Polysyllabic Spree. I highly recommend it. Peter, if you haven't tired of reading my blog back in London, I must comment that the book reminds me of you somehow (in a good way). It's a random ramble about the books he was reading over about a 2 year period, and it makes me feel like a bit of a dunce as I've only read about 3 of the titles he lists in the entire book.
But back to the road less travelled. I'll probably be on Pulau Weh for about a week. The boat dives are cheap, and the shore diving is virtually free so I don't see myself rushing to leave. Whenever I do leave that island I plan to head to Labuanbajo on the island of Flores right out towards the other end of Indonesia in the east. I want to visit the Komodo dragons and check out the diving there before heading back to Bali to meet Wooz on the 6th of September. We'll then spend three weeks between Bali and Lombok before we head back to SA via Singapore and I bid farewell to TimmyTravels. But, no fear, there's still many adventures waiting to be added in these next 6 weeks!
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