Pulau Weh is a small island north of Sumatra and no, it is not the perfect tropical paradise as you might imagine. There are roads, cars, mopeds and a city on the island. The beaches are not perfectly made of pure white sand and there is a little bit of rubbish here and there.
And yet Pulau Weh is one of the most beautiful places on our journey so far, precisely because of its imperfection. The honest smile and the happiness of the locals are only two reasons. Here you will find the right balance between tourist infrastructure and originality. In the middle of the island there is still predominantly rain forest, a few bungalows at the most beautiful beaches of the island are the basis for water sports and explorations with a moped. Mass tourism has not yet arrived here.
Year after year Indonesia reports new record numbers of tourists. More and more guests are coming from China in particular. This can be seen, for example, in Bali and Gili in massively rising prices. Fortunately, Indonesia has so much more to offer.
For a few days we have a whole beach to ourselves, apart from a few locals and different crabs, which either run super quickly over the beach or move rather slowly in their mini shell houses. Our days are flying by. Swim in turquoise water before breakfast, then enjoy fresh mango juice and banana pancake. Afterwards we go to the next village for a scuba dive, then we chill again and read a book. If you go out for dinner, it can happen that after 45 minutes the first dish comes and the cook tells you that the ingredients for the second meal are unfortunately out and you should choose something else. Couldn’t he have found that out right at the beginning? Yeah, but that’s the way it is on the island. You don’t think that far into the future. Why should you?
Well, they did think a little ahead. On Pulau Weh there are evacuation zones everywhere in case another tsunami like in 2004 should occur. Back then there were relatively few victims here on the island, as it was easy to get to somewhat higher areas. Banda Aceh, a large city on the opposite island of Sumatra, fared quite differently. There the whole city is almost at sea level and with 24 meters high tsunami waves not much remained.
After a week on Pulau Weh we don’t want to leave at all, so we extend our stay. We wonder what it would be like to get stuck here. But after exactly two weeks we leave, we do want to go east after all. Once again, we are very sad to have to leave a place. Pulau Weh, the for us imperfect paradise.
