Blang Rakal — a halting-place 500-600 metres above sea level — is a rest stop on the Gajoweg in the Gayo Lands of Aceh, at km 46 of the road from Bireuën to Takengeun. In Oost-Indisch Journael by Merac (1947), Blang Rakal is the setting of the chapter Jagerslatijn: the place where the lieutenant, on his journey through Aceh, met the old Acehnese hunter Datoek — the Nimrod of Blang-Rakal — at the largest restaurant of the halting-place.
The halting-place
At km 46 of the Gajoweg was the halting-place Blang Rakal, 500-600 metres above sea level. Here a small military post had been established, but it had been abolished many years before and left no other remembrance than a small cemetery in the high lalang grass, consisting of a few ramshackle, zinc-covered sheds, plank “kedehs” and coffee-stalls along the highway, grown into a sort of little square.
The Datoek restaurant
The largest restaurant there was that of Datoek the hunter, whose authority everyone recognised. The building, which over the years had been built out and rebuilt so that the timberwork had grown together into an architectural puzzle. On the wobbly planks stood a few little-confidence-inspiring Viennese chairs and a little table; when one sat on one of those chairs, one paid two cents more for one’s glass of black coffee, an otherwise excellent brew. Then one should not keep up such chic airs and want to sit. With the coffee one could nibble onion biscuits, a baking of Datoek’s well-favoured wife.
The menagerie
Behind the restaurant the Nimrod of Blang-Rakal kept a menagerie. A peculiar smell hung there. In sturdy cages behind thick bars lay a few beautiful young tigers, and when they uttered a deep growl, the nervous apes in the cage next door screamed with fear. A sombre eagle sat motionless in his cage. Further there were crows, which uttered ominous cries, a partridge, rice-birds, a bush-fowl; in a cage, iguana skins lay drying in the sun; and as hunting trophies hung on a little gallery the skeleton of a Ford and the skins of a rhinoceros-hornbill and a python.
Everywhere the hunting-dogs crept around, sniffing for refuse, of which there was no lack. In the shade of the barracks white flights of pigeons settled.
The Acehnese chauffeurs
At Blang Rakal all the cars stopped and the dare-devil Acehnese chauffeurs, with cowboy hats on and knitted hair-snoods around, slurped their hot coffee, smoked a cigarette, and discussed with each other the latest news of the road.
Significance
Blang Rakal is significant in Oost-Indisch Journael as the setting of the chapter Jagerslatijn and the place where the lieutenant met the old Acehnese hunter Datoek. The book’s argument — that the halting-place of the Gajoweg, with its abolished military post, its lalang grass cemetery, its coffee-stalls, and the Datoek restaurant with its menagerie — was the inter-war tempo doeloe (old-days) infrastructure of the Gajoweg — is the book’s marker of the end of the old colonial era in Aceh. Blang Rakal is therefore the book’s frame for the chapter on Datoek: the halting-place where the close comrade of the great patrol commanders had become the proprietor of a coffee-stall and a menagerie.
Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
Blang Rakal is a bivouak on the Gajo-weg at kilometre 46, at a height of 767 metres, whose zinc-covered sheds shine from afar in their loneliness. The bivouac was about to be wholly abandoned at the time of Broersma’s visit. It still housed an officer with a brigade of twenty men; formerly there were three brigades. The men are always ready for service; the ordinary duty is a number of patrol-days each month; the patrol reconnoitres the surroundings, tries to seize evildoers, and collects the tax in the neighbourhood. The men of Blang Rakal gladly welcome a visit, which briefly stays, delivers and inquires reports, uses the telephone. One can also see the vegetable-garden there, though it grows with difficulty.
See Also
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
K.M. 46 on the Gajoweg, ~750 m altitude; site of the famous coffee woman and tiger hunter Datock’s establishment.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 71, 73.
Sources
Oost-Indisch Journael: Palaver om de tafel met het gat, by Merac, Toekan-Serie no. 2, ed. G. L. Tichelman (Haarlem: De Gulden Pers, 1947), chapter Jagerslatijn.
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), passim.
Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 71, 73.