Field Trip to Banda Aceh, Indonesia!

By Sarah - June 17, 2019

Story by Michael.

Yesterday we woke up at 5:30 a.m! EARLY ALERT! We hopped into the dinghy and drove ashore.

Our taxi arrived, and we hopped inside. Then we drove and talked with the driver. And drove and talked with the driver. Aaaand drove and talked with the driver. The car finally arrived at the fast ferry’s port, and the four of us climbed out. Mom bought a few unknown breakfast foods that some ladies were selling outside the ferry. None of us knew exactly what was inside the tightly wrapped banana leaf, but we hadn’t had breakfast before we left, so this was it! The steamed rice, fried egg and tempeh with hot sauce was actually really good! We waited for about ten minutes, then we boarded the ferry!

Boarding Ferry

Mark sleeping as we head off to Banda Aceh

Our Taxi

The ferry drive was 45 minutes long (and really boring), but finally we arrived at Banda Aceh. Pronounced Ah-ch-ā. Not Ache like stomach pains! We stepped off the ferry to a mob of people crying out, “TAXI, TAXI!”, and, “YES, YOU WANT TAXI?!”. (Sensory OVERLOAD!!) We found one guy that wasn’t that loud and he said that he could take us around Aceh for a cheap price. He said his name was Awi (pronounced ow-ē), and he drove a tuk-tuk. We climbed inside the small, covered area with wheels (attached to his motorcycle), and off we went!

The first place we stopped was an immense offshore generator barge that weighed almost 3,000 tons! It had washed 5 kilometers inland because of the tsunami (or 3.11 miles, or 16,420 feet, or 197,040 inches, OR 5,004,816 millimeters, OR 5 trillion nanometers, and so on...) and was now turned into a small museum. Inside there were screens showing what had happened when the tsunami washed it ashore. There were even two levels, and a gift shop! Wow!

The Barge Museum in the background

Mark and E looking at Mosque from top of ship

Tsunami Museum

The second stop was the Tsunami Museum, where search crews had found parts of things left over from the giant wave, and had put them on display. There was a real helicopter, some torn up Qurans, and electric fans! There was this part where you walk along a walkway in the semi-dark, and you could see water flowing down the walls. You could even touch it! There was another section that was made for classes that came for field trips, and so there were a lot of screens on weird pillars. The only light was above the desk in front of all the pillars. It had a weird creepy effect, and all of the walls were mirrors! CREEPY!

We stopped and had lunch at a local noodle place, and I got Mie Goreng Aceh (pronounced “Me gor-āng”, and then you know the Aceh part!). It was really good, but, MAN was it spicy! I thought I was about to turn into a fire-breathing dragon! Then we drove to a house, but this was not a normal house. This was a house that had a fishing boat on top of it! The tsunami lifted up the boat, and now it is a tourist destination!

The last stop was the mosque. It was HUGE!! The whole courtyard was made of marble. Scorching. Hot. Marble. That made it feel like the bottoms of your feet were gonna get scorched off. (Yeah, we had to wear no shoes!). Sadly we could not go inside the mosque, but we checked it out from the outside. I stayed in the shade with our driver and Elizabeth, while Mom and Dad went around the whole thing!