"Where's ya burka?" - Pulau Weh, Indonesia

Maz and I have had a great time on Pulau Weh, which is a little island in the north of Indonesia.  It's just off Banda Aceh, where the tsunami came through.  From the plane, it was easy to see why the tsunami had such a devastating effect here, the whole city is so flat that the wave would have just rolled across it for about 10 kms until the mountains started to rise. 

It hasn't exactly been an action-packed holiday. Maz went diving for a record-breaking drama-filled 6 minutes, and has been competing with a local guy to see who can get to town faster by bike.  The first day took her 50 minutes, and when she got into competitive mode she got it down to 32 minutes.  So, it's probably a good thing she is leaving, because I'm fairly sure her travel insurance doesn't cover kamikazee motobike accidents (or any motorbike accidents). As she was roaring through the jungle yesterday one guy yelled out, 'Where's ya burka?!' which is obvously what constitutes heckling under shariah law. 

Maz in her almost appropriate clothing (you're meant to cover your shoulders).

I had some extra English teaching materials that I couldn't lug all the way to Nepal, so we dropped in at the local primary school to give them some books and flashcards.  The kids were very cute and did a little impromtu dance performance for us (well...I think it was for us, we had no idea what was going on). 

Me in my extremely innaproriate clothing (bra strap showing and you could also see my undies from the back. Big shariah fail for me).

The sea here is blue...very blue. And, the snorkeling is great. This is me qualifiing for lifetime membership of the snorkeling nerds club by blu-tacing my old lenses to the insides of the mask so I can see underwater. The variety of fish here is just amazing, I just went for a snorkel in the middle of writing this and saw starfish, sea anemones and heaps of really bright colored fish...right off the deck where Maz is staying. 

Too cool for schools (of fish)

Maz at her luxury accommodation

Ummm...what else? Maz got told she had a big nose today by a woman trying to convince her to haave a massage. It didn't work. The same woman said that i was 'cantik sekali' (very beautiful), which worked. However, she didn't have time to do the massage right away because she had to go kill and chop up a goat. I hope there was a bit of handwashing in between the goat-slaughtering and massaging components of her day. 

Bu Fatima, sister of the goat killer and monkey murderer...

Fatima using a sling-shot against the monkeys!
(is that monkey blood on the tree behind her?)

There are a lot of Malaysians and Indonesians who come here to snorkel, but because they can't swim, they wear life-jackets over all their clothing...including their hijabs. I am amazed more people don't drown, it is really crazy.  When they are out in the sea, they can hardly move, because they don't know how to propel themselves through the water, so if one of the was drowning you wouldn't even be able to tell.

Here is Maz wondering if she has the stamina to swim to Malaysia for a decent coffee. There was a lot of coffee-related trauma during her stay. Next holiday we will be going to Colombia or West Africa.