Views of Aceh from our hotel early morning...

Tuesday morning 16th June 2009, after a good night sleep at the hotel we decided to have an early morning walk.

It is a refreshing sight to see the locals walking, jogging or cycling for exercise at the public roads, some bare-footed! And this is not even a weekend. It is a good thing that the air in Aceh is still fresh unlike in congested Kuala Lumpur where you could only see views like this only on the weekends and even then at the parks, not on public roads.

Then it's time to get back to the hotel...


The night before, me and wife went up the top of the hotel and found the view fascinating. So we made it a point to come up again in the morning to snap the views. This should be the view direct to the south with the main mountain range of Bukit Barisan imposing in the horizon.



A 30 degree turn anti-clockwise and you could see the further parts of Bukit Barisan...

Another 30 degree turn anti-clockwise and it's the turn of the mountain Seulawah to come into view...



60 degree turn anti-clockwise...





Another 30 degree turn and it's all the way to the north. The view is blocked by these parts of the building but never mind, we'll change positions later...





Another 30 degree turn and you could see plenty of houses...

60 degree turn and you will face the West with the centre of Banda Aceh in view. It is interesting to note that there are plenty of padi or rice fields still existing here, what more within the boundaries of the city itself!

Another 30 degree turn and we are back to where we started except I decided to take the view slightly downwards...

Look more downwards and you can see part of the hotel swimming pool...

By the way the time then was about 7am or so local time, 7+ GMT if I'm not mistaken...

Now, a look northwards from the north-wing of the hotel.

One towards the house 30 degree anti-clockwise turn...

A view towards city centre... that's all! :]

The place called Uleelheue in Aceh

This is a view from the place called Uleelheue just outside Banda Aceh. The name sounded like a Swiss yodel or something isn't it? In fact it sounded so funny to me that I never thought it was the real name of a place in Aceh, a place which gained prominence after the Tsunami of 26th December 2004.

Another superb view there. For Uleelheue being a coastal area was one of the place worst-hit by the Tsunami. Yet when I was there on 15 June 2009 which is actually less than four and a half-years later, all signs of destruction looked almost non-existent...

Bear in mind that most of the infrastuctures here, plants included were totally destroyed and washed away by the huge tidal wave that is the Tsunami. Only few structures managed to survive the impact if I recall correctly and suffered minimal damage. One of it is the Baiturrahim mosque with its later-built minaret seen here. I will post an article on the mosque in the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) later.


Here is an inland view with the mountain Seulawah Agam in the background left. Somewhere behind it lies 'his mate' Seulawah Inong, both noted to be extint volcanoes if I remember correctly. For the record, Agam is the Acehnese word for man of male, Inong is woman or female. Thus the words Seulawah Agam and Seulawah Inong literally mean male and female Seulawah respectively!

The opposite view, that is towards the opposite direction...


And that's my wife to the right and our driver @ tourist guide to the left. That's all here for the night. Cheers! :]

Remembering the Tsunami which ravaged Aceh in 2004...

I believe many know or have heard about the Tsunami of 26th December 2004 which ravaged Aceh and took the lives of over 200,000 of its inhabitants. Well now, some 5 years later they have a museum to remember what had happened.

On its first floor is plenty of water, perhaps symbolic of the Tsunami itself...


However the upper part which should house some exhibits was not opened yet when I went there on 15 June. Still the lower floor has some visitors treating it as a recreational place...

Behind lies a cemetery which if I remember correctly is called the Kherkoff. For here lies the bodies on many Dutch soldiers who lost their lives in the war against Aceh. While it has nothing to do with the Tsunami, it is interesting to note that the cemetery lies within a patch of land which used to be part of the Aceh palace and garden complex. In the background, one could see a famous remnant from that era. Look at the article Gunongan... in the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) .

Slightly further at the outskirts of the city of Banda Aceh lies this huge ship on dry ground.

For the record, this 160-metre plus long ship housing an offshore electric generator was washed up more than 5 miles inland during the Tsunami and then left here when the water subsided!

Nearby, lies another monument to remember what had happened during the Tsunami. We'll procede with another story after this...

In and around the Baiturrahman mosque in Aceh...

And so we arrived in Aceh as told in the article The flight to Aceh... We soon checked into the best hotel in town, in fact the best in the whole of Aceh. After having lunch we went to Kak Ann's office. Then it's time to check what is available in town...

This tower is the highest building in Aceh.

It is situated in front of the famous Baiturrahman mosque...

At the right-side of the mosque lies Pasar Aceh (literally, Aceh market) or what is left of it. I understand it is still under renovation and now under-utilised since a major part of it got destroyed during the Tsunami of 26th December 2004.

Back inside the mosque's compound, from the entrance next to Pasar Aceh one could see this plaque commemorating the place where the Dutch general Kohler was killed in the Duth colonialists first direct attack and invasion against Aceh in 1873.



This is the plaque in relation to the highest tower/building in Aceh...




A look at the mosque compound behind right...

Me and wife then saw these students outside the left-wing of the mosque. I think the mosque also houses a religious school...

Me and wife inside the mosque...

A look at the Baiturrahman mosque from outside the main entrance, that is from the back or rear of the compound (or front, depending on your perspective really...). For more and better pictures of the mosque, look at the article Masjid Raya (Main mosque of) Baiturrahman, Aceh in the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) .

We also posed at this arch which marks the entrance at these parts...

It is situated right in front of the tall tower. Too bad the tower was under renovation and closed to the public. Otherwise we could have a look at the whole of the city of Banda Aceh from its top.

A last look at the mosque as we go outside. Good night! :]

The flight to Aceh...

As promised in the article The visit to Aceh 15-22 June , let's start the story on the recent Aceh trip rolling...

Here is my wife (on the left) and our friend Kak Ann as we were ready to take the flight to Aceh from the LCCT terminal in Sepang...

And that's our plane, an Air Asia Airbus 320 if I remember correctly. For the record this would be my first time on Air Asia.

Flight was smooth and said to take only an hour and 25 minutes or so. After a while, I became very excited as I recognised the landscape which I have seen many times in maps. For the apex-like land jutting out into the sea as can be seen through the window of the plane signifies an area I remembered from a passage out of the Malay classical text "Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai". The area called Jambu Air (or is it Tanjung Jambu Air or something like that?) in old times caught my imagination as the passage related the story of Sultan Malikul Mansur who was sent to exile out of his native kingdom Samudera after making the mistake of taking a woman from the palace of his elder brother Sultan Malikul Mahmud who ruled the nearby kingdom of Pasai.


Now, I thought this is the river Perlak which is related to the ancient kingdom of Perlak also mentioned in the "Hikayat Raja-raja Pasai". But Kak Ann said we have passed Perlak just about 10-15 minutes earlier.


From the windows on the left, we could see Takengon, the huge freshwater lake on top of the mountains of Aceh. I understand it is situated at 1,250 metres above sea level!

As the plane moved on, I rushed back to the right windows to catch the part of land which I believe should house the centre of the old kingdom of Samudera.

There. I try to catch it again. For somewhere down there lies the tomb of the much-vaunted ruler Sultan Malikus Salih @ Raja Merah Silu (deceased in 1297 AD or so) who founded both kingdoms of Samudera and Pasai. For the record, Malikul Mansur and Malikul Mahmud are both his grandchildren. Later do I realised that I had missed the actual area containing the tomb. But you could still see it in this picture... for it lies somewhere in the lands in which the sea looks like an inverted triangle just above the jet engine...

The mountains and hills called Bukit Barisan as we near the city of Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh.

At last, Banda Aceh in sight...

Another view of Banda Aceh, this time with a patch of land below containing the famous tomb of the venerable saint Sheikh Abdul Rauf as-Singkili or Abdul Rauf Fansuri, better known here as Syiah Kuala who lived sometime in the 1600s.

Touchdown. And we have arrived at the new building of the Sultan Iskandar Muda airport which I learned was opened just 2 weeks before we arrived! To be continued...