Backpacker Buzz Issue 83 –Indonesia: Tourism After The Tsunami

EARTHQUAKES, TSUNAMIS, HURRICANES AND FLOODS— Mother Nature’s fury has been on great display lately. The recent devastation in New Zealand and Japan remind us how life can transform in an instant and leave many homes and lives ruined and forever changed. As a traveller, do you wonder as I often do, what happens to places like Haiti or New Orleans after the news cameras leave? After all, global attention inevitably fades, leaving the residents to pick up the pieces of their lives. But I do wonder, how are they doing now?

This article, Indonesia: Tourism After the Tsunami by Jon Azpiri is a look into one of these places. It is part one of a five-part series on life after natural disasters in popular travel destinations. Hopefully it serves as a reminder of their ongoing challenges and the role travellers and tourism can play in rebuilding cities back from the brink.

— Shelbey Sy, Hostelling International

Image Courtesy of Flickr User Miss_yasmina

Reminders of the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami are easy to find in Banda Aceh, Indonesia; but, if a visitor can’t immediately see them, people are happy to point them out. Local hawkers offer tourists taxi rides and ‘tsunami tours,’ which consist largely of visits to ships that were swept several kilometres inland by the 10-metre-high waves.

The best known is a large fishing boat that rests on top of a house in the Lampulo District. Children play happily in front of the boat, while a nearby family gives a friendly wave, and asks for donations to help the community. The site became a symbol of the devastation wrought in Banda Aceh, and has since become a constant reminder of the tsunami.

Not that locals need much reminding. Talk to people long enough and you get the sense that echoes of the disaster can be heard nearly seven years later. While millions were affected  by it, no region suffered more than Banda Aceh, the city closest to the epicentre of the earthquake that triggered one of the largest catastrophes in modern memory. In total, 130,000 Acehnese died.

A calamity of that scale affects every aspect of a community— from the loss of homes and businesses, to the even deeper loss of friends and loved ones. When talking to people in Aceh, it’s hard not to get the sense of how they demarcate their lives: life before the tsunami, and life after it.

You also hear something else in their voices: a glimmer of hope. Locals have teamed with international NGOs to restore at least some of what was lost in the tsunami. They also hope to build something new: a travel destination—the kind of place that suits travellers looking to avoid other travellers.

Local diving instructor Udi Djamil thinks that Banda Aceh has endless potential, despite all its challenges. To him, the area is a blank slate—quiet beaches, untouched jungle—that could be moulded into something which could ultimately help the Acehnese people.

“We can’t be compared to Thailand or Bali, because they have everything,” says Djamil. “But this is still a great place to visit. The Acehnese people are quite open to foreigners. They don’t speak English, but they will invite you into their house to have dinner with them. They are very welcoming, as long as you respect our local customs.”

Most travellers to the region make their way to the tranquil beaches of Pulau Weh, a small island 20 kilometres off the coast of Banda Aceh. The island has long been a popular destination for divers. After the tsunami, it became a spot for NGO workers looking for a place to unwind on their days off.

Santai Sumur Tiga Resort

“The peace and quiet is very important,” says Freddie Rousseau, a retired NGO worker who runs the Santai Sumur Tiga eco-resort in Sabang, the largest town in Pulau Weh. “No pollution, no traffic, no highrises. The fact that it’s underdeveloped, and not com­mercialized, is a very big calling card for this area.”

On the other side of Pulau Weh lies the town of Iboih, a diving destination that is second to none. According to Djamil, the area has a mix of underwater life—manta rays, whale sharks— as well as unique topography, and even a few shipwrecks, to keep things interesting.

Iboih may be an underwater paradise, but it can be a little rough around the edges, once you step foot on land. Accommodation is sparse, with many divers sleeping in bun­galows comprised of temporary shelters brought in by the Canadian Red Cross. The town’s only water source is a well donated by a private benefactor from Victoria, B.C. Djamil says such private donations can be found throughout the region, many from Indonesians who emigrated abroad, as well as from travellers who visited the island back in the 1990s, the last time foreigners regularly visited the area.

Prior to the tsunami, travellers avoided the area due to the armed conflict between the Indonesian government and GAM, a separatist movement that waged a guerrilla war— often fought in Banda Aceh’s lush jungle—against the Indonesian Army. The decades-long struggle between GAM insurgents and the Indonesian military did more damage to Aceh’s tourism than the tsunami ever did. During the conflict, foreigners were banned from entering Aceh province.

After the tsunami, GAM declared a ceasefire that has held ever since. Now that peace has returned to the area, former child soldiers guide foreigners through the rich rainforest. Dutch expat Mendel Pols created Aceh Explorer, a tour company that employs former GAM rebels. Tour guides—with cigarette in one hand and machete in the other—lead travellers through their former rebel base in the Lampuuk jungle. During a typical hike, the former insurgents point out local wildlife and the occasional remnants of conflict—bullet shells and empty tin cans that served rations for soldiers.

One moment they tell you about how they were dragged into the conflict to avenge the death of loved ones; the next they’re pointing out local wildlife as they walk through the brush, slash­ing a new trail with a machete. They tell their stories the way most people in Banda Aceh talk about their lives—calmly, mat­ter-of-factly, and always moving forward.

Next issue, part two of five: New Orleans

This entry was posted on Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Features, Hostelling International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.