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Local running from the incoming high tide

My Twilight-zone Christmas

Thinking of donating, then please hear the cause of my friend Rajan, a kind hearted doctor whom I met in India. He has an orphanage with over 150 kids, survivors from the earthquake that hit Gujarat a few years ago. Now, he is helping out the orphans left behind after the Tsunami swept over the Nicobar Islands in the Andaman Sea. He has ask me to spread the word on his cause. So if you would like to contribute any monetary donation please send him anything you can. This is not one of those big non-profit outfits. He is a simple joe like you and me who decided to turn his life around and help the needy kids. Here is the email I received:

Dear Fernando,
You must of heard of the terrible tidel wave! Is it possible to pass the word around and get a few friends to send us help.I am on my way to cat nicobar to help the orphan children.
In case you get a few friends who would like to help, then you can send us a WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER, IN MY NAME RAJAN SHASHIDARAN, NAIJEEVAN WELFARE ORGANISATION, OPPOSITE ICE FACTORY, BHUJ, GUJARAT 370001.INDIA.
Cheers,
Rajan.

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And now back to my trovelogue:

Hello y'all,

Just wanted to drop in a line and let y'all know i'm alive and safe in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. Needless to say, I didn't had a normal Christmas, but where to start? Let me tell you what happen in as much detail as I can. It will also help me to settle my mind a bit after all i've been through. Ignore for a minute the timeline of my trip. I last left you in India, about 4 months ago. Fast forward into the present and perhaps it'll make more sence.

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Families all tried to salvage what they could

A couple of days before Christmas, Eoin (a friend i've been traveling from Ireland) and I found ourselves in the bus station of Bukettinggi, a small city in Sumatra, Indonesia. We had just spent a wonderful week there exploring the nearby jungle and doing our best not to get soaked during the monsoon rains (a task we failed miserably day after day). We were destined to go to Lake Toba in the northern part of Sumatra to relax over Christmas. Destiny had a different plan for us as the road was closed due to a landslide and so we where forced to divert our plans and grab a packed bus. We were right smack on the last row of the bus, which was design for 5 people, but the creative geniouses in Indonesia managed to squiz 6 of us tonight. To top it off, the smoking laws are non-existent in Indonesia. That, top with the small windows on the bus meant trouble. In no time, we found ourselves in a smokehouse. The bus was head to Sibolga, a city on the north-west coast of Sumatra. Damn, where is that? I read on my guidebook that it's the ferry point for boats headed to Palau Nias, a surfer's paradise with beautiful beaches. Hmm... why not we said? We had scratch it off our list a few days ago, but now that we are here might as well go. We arrive early in the morning and found ourselves runing to a hotel to find some sleep.

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Local lady running to higher land

We awoke around noon, dead tired in that sort of transe one finds themselve after a long tedious bus ride with no sleep. We dragged ourselves to the ticket office and bought a ticket to Teluk Dalam, a town in the southern part of Palau Nias. We had all day to kill so we just wondered in town hoping the boat will depart on time. It didn't of course. We were finally off by 9:30 PM though, a good two hours behind schedule. The people of Palau Nias are 80% Christian, a rarity in the Islamic majority Indonesia. As such, the boat was packed with locals headed to the Island to spend Christmas with their families. The normal capacity was around 100 ppl, but tonight was so packed I wouldn't be surprised if we were closer to 200 ppl with all the children, women, and men sleeping close together on the floor. Mind you, we were not better off as we were in a bunk-bed system. The boat had two levels you see, and to each level there where to bunks: a lower and upper one. The bunk was then sub-devided in small spaces for people to sleep. We were jammed in a corner. People where not the onlyones aboard though, along with us where roaches, rats, and god knows what other little demons that could be heard or scene around you. The ardeous journey took 18 hours, 6 hours more then schedule due to an unusual rough sea.

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One of the best resorts, during the flood

The scene that unfold as the boat approached dry land was pure paradise. In a sence, it is true what they say, sometimes you have to go thru hell to reach paradise. We arrived dead tired to the town of Teluk Dalam on the 24th of Dec. As soon as we where in dry land, we took a truck to Lagundri Bay. Clueless to these new lands in Palau Nias (Palau=Island), we were dropped off a few kilometers away of the bay in the surfer beach. We had dreamed of a white christmas, one where we could just woke up and walk straight to the beach, so off we went to Lagundi Beach, the swiming beach. The bay has a perfect horse-shoe shape. There is a vast corral reef in the exterior that shelters the bay from the ocean and creates an amazing right curve waves for surfers. Palau Nias is among the best surfing spots on the planet, when in season. We were in the off season, the monsoon season of course, but never in our wildest imaginations did we expect to be the only tourists there. At least it felt that way when we arrived. It was as though we where thrown into a Twilight Zone episode. We even began to sing the tune as we went into hotel after hotel devoid of any tourists, devoid of any people it seemed. We finally settled in at the end of the bay in a nice concrete two-story lodge.

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My hotel is on the left

Paradise wasn't perfect of course. As I mentioned earlier it was devoid of tourists. It was an imbalance we weren't expecting. We all dream about an abandoned beach, but when we find it, it comes as a shock to the system. Except for the few locals, there didn't seem to be tourist life in this resort village at all. By the time we left, we had only met 6 other tourists (2 Swiss girls, 1 Aussie, his gf from the UK, a french guy, and a German who knew no English). Hotels where plentiful with over 15 or so scattered along the bay and thru the surfer beach. Clearly a sign of better times. Indonesia had been hit by several terrorist incidents that had tarnishes its image world wide and thus caused a drop in tourists. Palau Nias was hurt more then Sumatra. The locals where so desperate for money that they didn't realize they where alienating the tourists. See, they saw us as nothing more then free standing ATMs, you know that automatic machine ready to be probed to collect what they saw as free money. Ride into town Mr? Postcard Mr? Souvenir Mr? Food Mr? No problem, just pay us now and pay us 10 times the fair value of the goods! What? No, fix prices, no bargaining Mr. Their faces turn to near crying frawn as both of us refuced to be part of their money scheme. Imagine leaving thru that day in and day out. No surprise that we were felt hassled and in no time desided to leave as soon as possible, which meant on the next ferry on the 27th.

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Eoin taking a mad shot of the waves. Move out bud

Despite the greedy locals, we did spend a wonderful christmas in Lagundri Bay. We slept in thru the morning rain and ordered ourselves a big lobster feast. As the rains receeded, we stepped out of the hotel restaurant and went for a walk at the beach. We swam for ours at end, right until sunset. The ocean was caotic to say the least with the full moon around the corner. The undertoe was spectacular as it created equally large waves that clash to the incoming waves. I had never seen such a seen. The incoming waves where powerful enough to allow for some excellent body surfing. We had loads of fun. Most importantly, the greedy locals left us alone as they couldn't be bothered swiming in the sea :). That evening we went out to the only non-hotel bar in town, Toho Bar, located by the surfing beach. It was Christmas theme tonight, but we didn't want to be depressed so we ask the staff to change the music. After a few beers we called it a night. We felt great. We could easily spend one more day relaxing in this awful paradise. Oxymoron, I know, but it only highlights how beauty can be decieving at times.

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A lone palm tree, a survivor during the high tide

I couldn't sleep that night at all. Something was bothering me and I didn't know what. Perhaps it was the ants biting me on the bed or that hard rain landing on the roof. Perhaps it was a forshadow of things to come. I awoke the next morning around 10 AM. Eoin knocked on my room, pretty much as he had knocked an hour earlier. Apparently, there had been an earthquake that had shaken everyone in town out of their beds. Everyone, excpet me of course. I wasn't too blame though as it wasn't too strong according to the witnesses. A tremble I say, damn, my first major earthqake and where I was? Asleep, comfortably inside my bed sheets in my cozy bed. News began spreading fast through the village grape vine, just as its expected from small villages... Big underwater earthquake... 5 kms off the coast of Aceh Province in Sumatra, which is directly across us, a couple hundred kilometers from us in Sumatra... 8.9 in the Richter (sp) scale... ***! We gasp over breakfest as the bay unfold a scene never before scene by the locals. At one minute, the entire corral reef protecting the bay was visible. Ten minutes later, the tide had risen deep into the beach, almost to the end of it in fact. Ten minutes later and the corral would be visible again. It continued on a measured cycle for the morning. All, but one local, were oblivious of things to come. This guy just grabbed his bike and said lets all head to the hills. No one put much attention. It really didn't even hit us there and then.

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An old man walks thru the flood

We had planned on going to Teluk Dalam, the town we had arrived to, located a mere 13 km away. We shared a ride with a local on his motorbike and in no time found ourselves in town. We met the Swiss girls there. We had seen them the day before and like us they were pretty much stunned by the lack of tourists. We had a pleasent Sumatran Milk Coffee (a mix of the best ground coffee on earth with a load of condence milk) as we accompany them for lunch. They let us in on the news of the ferry. It had been out of commission since the day we arrived, engine failure of sorts. ***! No worries, we could go to the north and take a ferry out of Gunung Stoli. We agreed on sharing a taxi with them as they were flying out from the same town tomorrow morning. We foung out the cost of the plane, a mere $40 USD and we jumped into the idea and used their cell phone to make a reservation for tomorrow's flight. Cool, we where going out of here! We parted away, each on our own way. We did arranged to meet them around 6PM that evening for dinner and drinks.