The road uphill to an Aceh highland...

Continuing the Aceh supporting stories for the series on my travel to Aceh end of January 2010 currently running in the Malay blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU.

OK. There's a big gap between the last article My second visit to the tomb of Teungku Chik di Tiro and the story depicted by these pictures here. So let me fill in the gap as we move through the pictures ya. Here goes...

These pictures were taken as we move up towards a highland in the middle of Aceh Friday afternoon 29th January 2010. What happened was after the visit to the tomb of Teungku Chik di Tiro, we continued taking rural roads to get to a traditional Islamic religious school at Tanoh Abee some 40 km from Banda Aceh.

Along the way we accidently came across the burial ground of Panglima Polem, an aristocratic family of much importance in the palace of Aceh. See Kawasan pemakaman (Burial area for) Panglima Polem in the blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART). We also came across an abandoned set of buildings which turned out to be the original religious school of Tanoh Abee built about 400 years ago. See Dayah Tanoh Abee yang asal (The original religious institution of Tanoh Abee).

We soon reached the current religious school of Tanoh Abee. After a stop there we continued the journey towards south-east of Aceh.



Suffice to say we arrived in Lhoksuemawe some 290 km from Banda Aceh close to midnight. But continued another 15 km to visit the tomb of Sultan Malikus Salih before calling it a day. Look at the article Petualangan Al-Rasyid ke Aceh : Dari Banda Aceh menurut misi ke Lhokseumawe... in the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU.




We spent the night at a hotel in Lhokseumawe. In the morning, Friday morning we visited the tomb of Sultan Malikus Salih again along with a number of other ancient tombs. Look at Petualangan Al-Rasyid ke Aceh : Menjejak kegemilangan Samudera-Pasai .





Having said all that, now we can continue with the present pictures...






You see after visiting the tombs we were on our way back to Aceh when a friend called asking to meet up at a highland. So at Bireuen we took the road and its twists and turns towards the highland and soon reached a plateu.

We have to pass at least 2 towns before we reached our target. Continued...