TRAVERSE 86
Teng ran out of time and had to go home to Singapore, but I was so taken with the place I stayed for another week or so, and decided to head north, towards the coast and Aceh. This is very pious Islamic territory; mosques outnumber petrol stations and vie for pre-dawn‘ fajr’ wake-up honours with multiple high-volume speaker systems that guarantee nobody accidentally oversleeps.
All the women in Aceh were strictly veiled in headscarves( tudungs) and most cafes only had men in. I was ready to quietly tut in a Western way at the subjugation of Muslim women, but this view soon evaporated whenever I stopped. Every time I did, groups of local women would rush up to me and pose coquettishly for selfies, pushing each other to get front of the queue with the orang puteh( white man). Men hung grumpily in the background as I basked in the
TRAVERSE 86