Pulau Weh

Carmen and I had a great R&R time at Pulau Weh (also known as Sabong Island). We took a ferry from Banda Aceh, and an hour taxi ride through some amazing scenery to get to the town of Iboh. Iboh is a great place to relax! You walk down a paved trail along the water and can stay at a variety of small resorts along the way. We stayed at a place called Yulia's and rented a bungalow for 60,000 rupiah a night ($6.50 USD)! The bungalow's were basic, but many of them were right on the water, and they came complete with a hammock and a mosquito net to cover the bed (what more could you ask for in the tropics)!

The water was amazing! We went snorkeling every day we were there, but you didn't really even need to snorkel...the water was so clear you could see the fish from the beach! The water was a good 40 meters from our bungalow; yeah it was a rough. We were also able to go on two Scuba dives, and we saw all kinds of critters that live under the sea: tuna, lion fish, octopus, sea cucumbers, squid, and too many types of reef fish to know or count.

The food was really good, but sometimes they didn't have food where we were staying so we had to eat elsewhere. We kept a tab running at the local restaurant; they had a book with your bungalow number on it and you could run up quite a bill if you weren't careful...we weren't careful we were on vacation (4 nights, 5 days, most meals included for just over $100 USD)! The "Chill Out Cafe" was one of our favorites. One night Carmen went to the restaurant to get some bottled water and she came back to the bungalow telling me about the biggest bug she has seen in her life! I ran down and took a picture of it; I think it's called a rhinoceros beetle...it was freaky!

We also had these huge Gecko's that would come into our bungalow. It was great because they ate a lot of the bugs, but they made these weird clicking noises especially at night. We had a great time and were thankful for a time to chill out before heading to Nias Island. It didn't really even feel like we were in Indonesia for the week. Most of the people we saw were white German tourists, and the atmosphere was so relaxed that it felt like hanging out on Hornby island or something! I should be getting to bed. Until next time...