Our next stop after Ketambe was an island called Pulau Weh, placed in the north of Sumatra, where you can find Indonesias kilometer zero.
To get there, we were traveling from Ketambe via minibus, then we had to take a ferry.
In total, the whole journey took us around 15 hours, 13,5 hours by minibus and 1,5 hours by ferry (we decided to take the slow ferry, you can take a speed boat and get there faster if you want).
We booked our accommodation via booking.com because we knew it will be prime time for this island (Chinese New Year) and we didn’t want to risk it with arranging at the spot.
In general, the island is small, but incredibly beautiful, both, above the water surface, but especially under it. 🙂 It is one of the greatest spots for diving. Not only Weh is having beautiful coral, but also underwater volcano (sounds awesome, right?! But its less then you are expecting, trust me :P) and some wrecks from past wars. Despite that, we decided we will stick to snorkeling and our bungalow happened to be placed just where the best snorkeling spot on the east side of the island is.
These few days we didn’t do much. We just enjoyed our time observing colorful fish and other sea creatures. We also met there our friends from the exchange in Taiwan (Gonzalo and Jay <3), we did in 2015, so we wanted to mainly enjoy our time together as long as we could.
Besides that we also visited mentioned before kilometer 0, underwater volcano (or as you may call it, underwater bubbles smelling like egg :D), we took a boat to the smaller island just next to Weh, to also chilled there at the beach. Although, when it comes to the beach, we had our perfect spot, it’s called the Secret Beach (it’s not fully secret, but its also not crowded). So far it’s our no 1 beach, and we recently already have been to a lot of beaches. Defender of the title, no doubt! 😉
After we said goodbye to our friends, we went to Kuala Lumpur, to catch up with our other friend from university exchange, Marco. He was so kind and let us sleep at his pace, also he took us to traditional New Years’ dinner, where we could for the first time experience ritual of eating salad, called Yee Sang [1]. Nice experience. We also went to a unique place.
I don’t know how to call it, burlesque or cabaret…neither fits really, but you know what I mean. Unforgettable, that’s for sure. 😀
Except that, we did Batu Caves, Petronas Towers, and National Museum. We wandered around the city and ate plenty of delicious food. We had our private food guide, Surin, Marco’s friend, who made sure that we are trying the best of the best. 🙂
[1] Yee sang, yusheng, or yuu sahng, or in english prosperity Toss is a Teochew-style raw fish salad, consists of strips of raw fish (sometimes salmon), and mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments. It is a traditional dish for Chinese New Year and symbolic of good luck. So toss away the food and remember, it’s okay to make a mess because of the higher the toss, the better the new year.
Facts we found out about Chinese New Year:
- Story says, that every new year creature called Nian (body of bull, head of lion), would come to terrorize villagers. It was attacking them and destroying their belongings and houses. They have been trying to fight it back for many years, but never fully succeeded, although they realized that it has 3 weaknesses, it was afraid of light, noise and color red. So for next year the villagers prepared all three things for new year, and Nian run away.
The tradition is continued like this till today. - It last for 15 days, but 3 first days are the most important, when you should celebrate with family. Rest is for friends and traveling. 🙂
- Typical gift is money, given in small, red ang-pao packages.
- You great everybody with saying “ I hope you get rich!” 恭喜发财 – gōngxǐ fācái.
- Usual entertainment while meeting with family members is playing games, mostly cards and small gambling.
Jay, Magda, Gonzalo 
Julia’s bungalows -place we stayed in Pulau Weh 
Freshly grilled fish 
Snorkeling around 
View from our place 
Sunset at Secret Beach 
Our lovely bungalow 
Secret Beach 
fot. Gonzalo Bendito 
fot. Gonzalo Bendito 
fot. Gonzalo Bendito 
Tsunami monument 
yummyyyyy (we went there twice, that’s how good it was!) 
Sweet coffee served with even sweeter condensed milk 
Except us, there was also Gon’s brother and his girlfriend, also Heidi, friend from Taiwan 
Caption of how ritual with yae sang looks like 
Everywhere green – typical Kuala 🙂 
Batu Caves 
Petronas Towers 
Titty time 
Batu Caves 
National Museum 
Masks borrowed from Surin – all pharmacies we visited in Kuala were out of stock (and we visited around 10) 
Nasi pandan 
Cendol 
Laksa 
Breakfast soup 
Nasi lemak 
Marco 🙂 
Shark fin soup (we did not know we will get it) 
Chinese New Year dinner 
Baozi 
Dumplings 
China town 
Petronas Towers 
Rendang (black bowl), Mee goreng mamak (noodles), grilled vegetable and delicious tofu
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