Weh Cool

In pulau weh and absolutely loving it! While bigger (in size) and more developed (in terms of roads and motorbikes), pulau weh is somehow even more isolated and chilled out that the Perhentians. There is only a dozen westerns here... and this is "busy" for them! Its a real, true life, non commercialized, living indonesian island town. With more indonesians than westerners and a perserved way of life, this is out of the norm for a traveler to find. Love it! The diving here is INSANE - so freakin awesome you wouldnt believe it. Stunning reefs and OOC marine life. Good thing too since there is nothing to do here besides snorkel and dive! Rom (the english girl im travelling with) and I have a really great room right on the sand where the major highlight is the big wrap around porch. We have done a lot of good sitting on that porch! Besides the porch sitting we spend most of the time at the dive shop - they have a library of interesting books and a computer with internet that occasionally works (only when its very sunny out because of the satellite). Today we rented a motorbike (which means paid one of the guys US$10 to use his while he was at work at the dive shop) and drove around the island (roads! what a novelty!). We got chased for a bit by some crazy monkeys, but made it safe and sound besides that. All in all its been a fabulous week!
Monday I leave with Rom and she gets on a plane back to england and i will catch a flight to jakarta to go down through java and check out some temples and volcanos before making my way to bali. ohhhh bali. the only weird thing is that apparently for these inter-indonesian flights/airlines, you dont book a ticket ahead of time, you just show up at the airport. strange. will take some adjusting!
Another good discovery is that indonesian is verrry similar to malay, in that all the worlds i know in malay are the EXACT same in indonesian! (at least in sumatra) which means instead of learning a whole new vocab, i can build on the one i already know.
Learning more about the tsunami and how devastating it was for this area has made me really sad but grateful for the safety we have had in the states!