Aceh Part Uno - The touristy day

So I didn't put up my Aceh photos right away. I did NOT catch swine flu despite my stubbornness with the mask. I DID get food poisoning following carefree kampung food consumption. And this was followed by a flu which DID get me worried enough to go to the doctor but, Clean bill of health!! I suspect someone may have cursed me following my last post though. Anyhoo, this will be more like a photo blog so soak it in!

Taken from the plane cos i was struck by how picturesque the greenery was. The mountains kept making me think Lord of the Rings! More like the map that precludes every good fantasy novel rather than the movie, though.
This is the entrance (well, actually the exit) from the Great Mosque a.k.a Masjid Baiturrahman. Had some tourist time before the work so stopped by here. Wanted to point out the 'Muslimin and Muslimat' dress code sign above

And this is the mosque itself. I thought it was peculiar that it had a black dome. But saw quite a few black-domed mosques throughout Aceh. When asked, they didn't think it was for any particular reason.

Right, Muslimin-muslimat time. This is obviously me in all my ah ma glory. Mak Cik Fatimah (i mean me) was smart enough to bring a scarf along for just such an occassion.

Islamic architecture - i am a fan. But these lamps make me think more of old railway stations. I reckon this is the Dutch colonial history sneaking in.

Just wanted to note that the sign says 'Don't lie on the floor' somewhere, but erm... peek in the background. (i don't blame him though. The mosque is really cool and airy despite no fans on)

More architecture shots. Apparently a lot of people took shelter in this mosque during the tsunami and miraculously, while there was fence-high water around it, inside there was only knee high water. I put that down to the steps leading up to the mosque, but there's a story that a Chinese lontong seller ran in during the tsunami and he swears he saw whitish hands holding the water back. The man is now a Muslim convert.

This is a view of the centre of the mosque from the 'Women's Only' section. (I felt bad violating the privacy of these women but my Muslim colleague said it was fine to take photos) Directly ahead and to the right a bit is the pulpit (i can't think of a better word) bit where sermons are delivered on Fridays.

After that, we went to see this part of town called Punge where there is a memorial to mark the tsunami. It sort of built itself, as you can see from the photos below.
This electric company tanker ship got carried inland by the tsunami. Can you imagine how huge the wave must have been? For one thing, a ship this huge got carried. For another, this is 4 km from the coastline. There are about 3 houses underneath the ship and they couldn't remove anything from underneath it.

This is the ship in its entirety. It wasn't dragged to its final spot, but carried and them promptly dropped when the wave subsided. So the drag back to sea must have been MASSIVE which is why so many people had the clothes ripped off their backs.

This is the view from the ship. Where the tiny towers are, just before the mountains - yeah, that's kind of where the coastline is. Most, if not all the houses are new. NGOs did lots of reconstruction work and they tend to have different coloured roofs to signify who built them. (e.g. red is for Red Cross and blue is for UNDP... but i don't actually know which NGO is what colour)

Touristy shot with my colleague. I'm so shamelessly without my headscarf. *gasp* (and this is end of photos of day 1)

This is just the view from a stop on the 5-hour 4wd journey to our project site. Yes, it was a bum massage cos the roads aren't really that great. But you could be fooled into thinking that picture was taken in Cairns or Tasmania, no? It's a gorgeous place...

This photo actually cost me 16 mosquito bites. Along the same stop as previous photo (we were out of the car for maybe 15 minutes?) Definitely the record for most bites in shortest period of time.

Fruit sellers in Lamno market. I love fruit stalls! They look so gorgeous. Kuinis were in season and that was when i learned that kuini is different from mango. Although it looks the same, you can't mistake the smell.
A goat. Rummaging in the rubbish bin. He's a really healthy goat though. That's the bin outside the fruit stall so it's got lovely organic goodies inside him. But still. It really tickled me. A goat. In a bin. At the market. *snigger*

I'm gonna hold off for a bit 'cos this is a long post already. Still to come - Aceh part deux!