We take the night bus from Medan. We expected much, because this night bus costed us about 30€. This is pretty expensive on Indonesian terms. When we got to the bus station we saw a pinkish weirdly looking bus. We get in and every seat is equipped with a hello kitty blanket and pillow. Pretty strange and I have never seen such a bus, but I’m here for the experience. The ride was okay, but the driver was smoking all the time and we didn’t have curtains. I have taken dozens of night busses and this was the only one without curtains. I expected more for the price, but in the end it brought us north. This is also the first time someone smoked inside a night bus. This was really unpleasant, but everything will pass in the end.

We managed to sleep a bit and woke up in the morning in Banda Aceh. This is the north of Sumatra. The people are very religious here and the sharia (Islamic) law is actively practiced here. It is currently the only region in Indonesia that is enforcing these laws. This means, that as a Muslim non married couple you can not rent a room together, because premarital sex is forbidden. Imagine you want to go on vacation. You have to plan for twice the budget. There is also no alcohol sold as well as prosecution on homosexuals. There is beating punishment if you disobey. This area was struck by the tsunami, just like Thailand was in 2004. People took the tsunami as a punishment from god. They think, that they were not faithful enough. The crazy part is that the white mosque ´didn’t get destroyed by the water. If this would have happened to me I would probably start to believe in god as well! The sharia law was legislated in 2011, because local authorities gained more power after 2004.

From here we take a ferry to Pulau Weh. After another hour on the ferry we arrive on the island. People swarmed us every time we got of a transportation. Locals often approached us with a friendly conversation, that always ended up in selling something. We got used to this at this point, but it is still a bit sad on the interaction level. Sometimes someone is just friendly and you directly assume they want to sell something. We were wondering if they would talk to us at all if they wouldn’t have anything to sell.

Pulau Weh is a small island north of Sumatra. Small is of course relative. We still spend an hour driving through the island. Here we booked a small hut in the forest. Unfortunately, there was not much to do, else than snorkeling. In addition to that, I got food poisoning. We ended up staying a week on the island until I recovered. We didn’t do much. We took much needed rest, went swimming once a day. The rest of the time I spend on the toilet. I also didn’t eat much for the week.

On one day, where the food poisoning wasn’t too bad, we visited Kilometer 0 of Indonesia. This is the most northern point of Indonesia. There lies 54.716 km of coastline south of us. Suddenly we get a perception on how big Indonesia actually is. It is the 14th largest country by landmass. In comparison. Mexico is the 13th largest country by landmass. The distance is much bigger in Indonesia though, because of the thousand islands.

The worst part of this place, was the limited food options. Well I couldn’t eat much anyways, except noodle soup. But at some point it was tiring. We were glad, when we could leave this place. The only advantage was how cheap it was. You save some money, when you’re going from five meals a day to zero.

We went back to Banda Aceh. We planned to go to Lho Gna close by. This is supposed to be a great surfing spot. We went with a tuk tuk driver we met another day. Our luck seems to be stress testing us again. It is raining really hard, when we leave. In addition to that we hear, that it is not surfing season at the moment. This spot apparently is firing up from October to March. What a waste of time we think… Our luck really seems to be testing us. Our accommodation doesn’t even has a toilet. We had to use a public one. There is no running water and the showers don’t work. Oh and there was also nothing to do, because it was the day of Tashriq, a Muslim celebration day. Everything was closed. There was no restaurant open, no food to be found anywhere. So we were cold, wet and bored.

We keep telling us, that everything will pass. So did this celebration day as well as the rain. Restaurants were open again the next day. Still there was no wave. We had to wait for our flight which was still a couple of days away. The fun about Sumatra has been the people, that come to us and take pictures. The beauty ideal, is white blond and tall. Sally checks all these boxes. So many people came up and took pictures with us.

The days passed and it felt like an eternity. We played cards, read and killed the time. We found a sweet restaurant next doors. The people were very nice and the family lived there. We enjoyed their wonderful and delicious food. Their specialty was roti, an Indian inspired sweat bread. We probably ate 5 of them each every morning. We usually stayed there, because there was nothing else to do until we get back to Banda Aceh.

Back in Banda Aceh we finally visited the great white mosque. We felt a little out of place. People were giving us weird looks and we didn’t really feel welcome. We also didn’t want to disrespect the people.

At some point a family comes to us and asks for a photograph. We say yes without realizing what we just started. Suddenly everyone wants a photo with us. We ended up taking pictures with everybody for thirty minutes straight. This became a full on psychology thing on the masses. People see, that other people take pictures with us. The obvious reason must be of course, that we are special or famous. In return more people want to take pictures, which turns more people towards us. If we could just let them know, that we aren’t that special after all. So after taking pictures with the whole plaza we left the premise. We didn’t want to disrespect the people by causing such a commotion. Funny how you can misjudge a situation like this. Turns out we were welcome and the people were happy we were there. They were welcoming, and even added Sally on Instagram. Later they asked how we liked their country and what we were doing there! People were telling us left and right how handsome we were. We even caused some local fighting on who is next on taking a picture. Truly a remarkable experience. Being famous must be so stressful. I am glad I am not famous.

These experiences made us happy to travel the less traveled road. To meet people that are so happy to see a stranger was a lovely experience. There are amazing people all over the world. This is what is about in the end and what makes traveling so satisfactory. We soon started to miss this, because our next stop is Bali. This is as far as it can get from the less traveled road. We will see how we will like it.

Cheers and until next time!