Khao San Road - The Starting Point

Khao San Road - The Starting Point

July 25, 2018 From that blog I started but closed down again 

This is a picture taken with film and developed by me. 

Khao San Road, year 2004.
 

The starting point for so many of my adventures, the homecoming point in between rough backpacking stints, the eating and shopping mecca, the place I landed and felt uncomfortable in, only to come back a few months later, comfortable, relaxed, tanned and with so many more experiences in my heart. 

The very first time was in 2000, my first time outside of Europe. I was feeling bloated, awkward, afraid, uncomfortable and freaked out. How much one can change and experience from just a few months of travelling... wow! Once I got back here, four months later, I'd been through a lifetime of experiences and expansions. 

One of the experiences I'd had was living with a family in Aceh, in a village called Lhok'gna. Me and my travel friend, Lamyai, met a Californian surfer in a hostel in Penang, Malaysia. He told us about northern Sumatra, the province of Aceh. I fell in love with his green eyes and wild surfing soul. I vowed to find a way to get there, to meet him, and this incredible place that he told us about. It sounded like the life in the book "The Beach" and much better, even.  
 

We got there, and it surpassed my expectations by a thousand times. The place was beautiful as a fairy tale. There were turtles swimming in the turquoise waters and freshly caught grilled fish for dinner every day. Freshly harvested weed was brought over by boat daily from a nearby secret island where the herb was growing. There was only electricity a few hours daily, and we showered with buckets from a well. 

The love story? Incredible. We lived in a bamboo bungalow on the property of a beautiful family and strolled around the village every day, drinking kopi susu, (Indonesian coffee with condensed milk) watching blood red dramatic sunsets on the beach with a glass of forbidden banana whiskey, and rode his motorbike to far away villages where I was told I was the first western woman who has set foot there in 40 years. 

I think my next book will be about this. Not just my story - but the story of Aceh, the incredible province of northern Sumatra. When I was there, the province wad at war with Indonesia. The GAM guerilla soldiers were hiding in the lush banana plantations. You saw them passing in their military trucks. Nobody walked around outside after dark. People mysteriously disappeared at night. People whispered when talking about the war. No tourists dared coming to Aceh. 

On the 26th of December 2004, a massive and devastating tsunami had its epicenter in the village of Lhok'gna. Everything was destroyed. 130,000 Acehnese people were killed. A massive amount of foreign aid poured into the province, which started demanding pressure on the Indonesian government to end the war. 
 

A few months later, in August 2005, a peace deal was signed between Aceh and Indonesia, ending a 30-year long conflict. 

Aceh, and especially the northern coastal regions, looks completely different now. It's all been rebuilt. All different, all new. 

When the tsunami struck, I was on a remote island in the Philippines. Coming back to Khao San Road in the beginning of January 2005 was heartbreaking. Lists and lists of missing people, pleading people walking around with pictures of missing loved ones,  people crying and praying at the shrines that had been set up for missing travellers. I hesitated for more than a week - should I go back to Aceh, to try and help, do something - anything? What could I do?
 

I decided against it, and continued with my planned trip to Bangladesh and India. But Aceh remains in my heart. It was such a beautiful experience, in a place that actually no longer exist. It only exists in the hearts and minds of those that were there before December 2004.