In May 2017 I had a trip from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh, normally it would take around 4 hours. At around 09:30 a rental was ready to picked me up in the airport to go directly to Meulaboh, 245 km from Banda Aceh. Meulaboh is the capital city of West Aceh District which the most suffered during tsunami. As I don't like spicy food and the driver informed he's not sure whether there was any restaurant on the way to eat, I bought noodle with meat ball in the airport for my lunch on the way. We would pass 3 mountains and some beaches.
Most of the road was quite in good condition, it's built by foreign country as donation after tsunami in Aceh. I heard whenever the road is not perfect or a little bit broken, they would like to fix and make it perfect. For them safety is number one. In some areas, it's still being repaired because of some landslides broke the road. We had to be careful and sometimes we had to wait for our turn, as half of the road was fixed, only one way could be used. Lucky the traffic in Aceh was not as crowded as in Java. We passed by a beach, some huts were built at the edge of the beach, unfortunately it's empty, nobody there, maybe because of its workday.
On the way I still saw some construction activities, some new mosques were built too although Tsunami occurred in 13 years ago. In Aceh most of the buildings were brand new, as most of them had been demolished by the ferocity of tsunami disaster. We went through a winding road on the mountain, sometimes it's turned sharply almost 180 degrees. It's very scaring as the other side was steep cliff, the driver had to really concentrate and focus, unless we could plunge to the cliff. Going down from the mountain we found another beach. This time the wind blew so hard, the high wave hit heavily to the rock that created water splashed such as foggy. I asked the driver to stop for a while and let me take the picture. No parking area, he just stopped at the edge of the street while I stepped over the fence to get better picture. The driver helped to take my picture once, then he went back to the car. I took some more pictures, even taking selfie :-)
We had to go through another mountain, the driver said that this one had a beautiful scenery, we could see an island from the cliff. Some monkeys at the edge of the street or on the fence could be seen on the way there. After another 30 minutes we reached the place, so many huts there selling food and beverage, most of them sold instant noodles :-) anyway not all of them were open. We stopped at one of the hut, buying tea & cracker, then we ate our lunch there. The seller was kind enough, they allowed us to enjoy our lunch although we brought our own food.
It's called Geurette Peak, we could see the islands from the bench of the hut. Actually it would be good to see the sunset here. The weather was colder than Banda Aceh, the wind blew nicely. I took many pictures even panoramic one, but getting my picture with the islands as the background it's rather difficult as it's backlight. The background was much lighter than my seat. The driver said before tsunami both islands were connected, now it's not anymore. It belongs to a person, swallow nest was available there, it would produce more money to the owner as the nest is expensive.
After lunch when we'll continue our journey, I saw a very stunning scenery, the beach with its greenish land, so I asked the driver to stop. This time he didn't follow me, just staying in the car. I took the picture from behind a fence between huts. I'm still not satisfied, so I entered the empty hut, as I didn't see anyone there to take from different angle. Really it's very amazing scenery, I seldom saw a beach side by side with a very fertile land and you still could see the hill behind it. It's a perfect combination.
Continue the journey, we passed by some small village, sometimes on the road we met cows, even the driver honked the horn, the cow didn't step away, so we had to be patient and try to avoid them. There was a traffic signage displayed "Beware cows" :-) The unique tradition here, if a car accidentally hit the cows, the cows' owner must pay for the car damage, as he/she must be responsible to take care of the cows to avoid walking on the road.
Around 13:30 we reached the last bridge to Meulaboh, unfortunately we stucked on a long queue, they said that the bridge was repaired, it would be opened at 14:00. No other way to go to Meulaboh, so we surrendered to wait for the fixed bridge. Many trucks with heavy cargo, I saw a big truck loaded oil palm. Wait and wait and wait.. till 15:00 o'clock no indication of the bridge would be opened. I called my friend it seemed that I could reach Meulaboh on time, so I asked her to meet me at the mosque near to the bridge. It would take another 45 minutes after the bridge to reach Meulaboh. Finally around 16:00 the bridge was opened, the small car was prioritized, anyway it had to wait for the turn with another direction, as only one side of the bridge could be used. Then the big trucks and buses were allowed to go through. As we had waited almost 3 hours, my driver was not patient enough to wait for my friend to come. We decided to go passing the bridge to pick her up. After meeting her, we decided to go back to Banda Aceh directly.
Poor my friend, she could not see the beautiful beach, as it's getting dark when we passed by the beach. Anyway we still could stop by a beach to take her picture although there's noise on the photo as it's too dark. We stopped by a small hut to have dinner before continuing the trip. It's quite scary journey especially on the mountain with steep turned, it's dark, no light at all, only some sticker available at the edge of the road that could be illuminate when the car's light shines on it. It must be very tiring for the driver, lucky that he's very skilled driver, so we could reached the hotel in Banda Aceh around 23:00 o'clock. I was in the car from 09:30-23:00, what a long journey. It's been paid with the amazing scenery along the departure way to Meulaboh.
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