Aceh Day Three

It took me 3 days to finally see the view from my hotel room at Hermes Palace. Wasn't bad, but wasn't exactly spectacular, either.

Work

It was hectic today. Fabio and I were at breakfast at 8 something when he got a call that 2 luxurious hotels in Jakarta were bombed. They were the Ritz Carlton Hotel and J.W. Marriott Hotel.

Speculations emerged soon after the bombing which killed 9 people, 2 of them being completely destroyed. Some security analysts said that although it was too early to decide who was behind this, there was a possibility that Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) was behind this. Politicians linked the bombing to the election since it was just a little while ago the Presidential election of Indonesia was conducted.



In the mean time, Indonesian football enthusiasts were deeply disappointed and angered by the occurence that soon after the news went worldwide, famous English club Manchester United had to cancel their trip to Indonesia given the fact that they were supposedly to be staying in Ritz Carlton hotel.



So we spent the day going for rounds of live interviews with the government of Aceh while in the mean time making calls to some analysts so that Fabio could write it in the 30 minutes to one hour window time he had within one interview and another.

Change of ticket

We survived the day, nevertheless. And I've decided to stay longer to see more of Aceh. Vincent did not like the idea, but I hardly saw anything during my three-day stay. I just had to change my Garuda ticket so that I could go home on Sunday.

World Bank Aceh staff

I like them. They're sweet, friendly, very accommodating, and helpful. Some of them like photography and so I shared some of photography tips with them and they almost immediately thought that I was a pro photographer.

"I am not," I said, "But I will be."

That's a positive thing to say about your future career. Hehe...

This is Dhea. She works at the front office and she definitely has an interesting face. I also found out that Dhea and the other WB girls seemed to collect cute stuff and display them on their desks. Look at this one over here.

Food

One of the most important things in my travel is the specialty food of the region I'm visiting. I made some research in advance and decided that I wanted to eat Ayam Tangkap, just because of its name. Ayam means chicken and Tangkap (verb) means to catch. Wasted name like that caught my interest. I mean of course you have to catch the chicken first before you kill it and cook it, right? Anyway, below is Ayam Tangkap.

Review: I have to go rough this time, I'm sorry. But ayam tangkap is not that much of a special food. It consists of small pieces of chicken that are deepfried along with some herbs of I don't remember what kind (I don't think I've ever heard it before). I liked the fried greens but the chicken was just.... ordinary.