Life is returning to normal gradually as prices for food, accommodation and traffic arebasically stable in Banda Aceh in the western tip of Indonesia, where more than 220,000 people died or are still missing after theearthquake and tsunami on Dec. 26.

Food

A street market with all sorts of vegetables and fruits are crowded with residents busily selecting their favorable goods or bargaining with sellers.

According to shop assistants, prices for most locally-produced vegetables are similar to December just before the coming of the tsunami, but prices for vegetable transported from outside such aseggplant, cucumber and cabbage are higher. The price for cucumber in particular is twice as much as the price before.

"Such prices are acceptable," said Suryati, a middle school teacher who was to ride on her motorcycle for home with two bags of eggplants, cucumber and ginger just bought.

She noted that vegetable varieties were as many as before, but the number of residents coming here to buy goods went up.

"One of the reasons is that the city's largest vegetable marketwas swallowed by the big wave," she explained.

On the other side of the street is a bargain between two housewives and a fish peddler who failed to sell fish and shrimps at a price too high for the two buyers.

Many shops and restaurants reopened with similar prices for goods. Lacking sufficient clean water to wash tableware, some restaurants have to sell packaged goods.

Accommodation

Hotel Medan, one of the largest hotels in Banda Aceh in Indonesia, began to receive the first groups of guests on Jan. 28 after the horrible tsunami.

Its condition has not yet reached the standard before the coming of the tsunami: most of the rooms are damp, full of mildew odor and lack of hot water, telephone and television.

According to the landlady Tjong Jok Feng, an Indonesian citizenof Chinese origin, the hotel tries to supply each room with two bottled drinking water a day and hires a truck to fetch 24 tons ofclean water from the mountainous area to meet the needs of water demand.

"This is why that rent is now 250,000 rupiah/room a day (some 28 dollars), up 50,000 rupiah over last December," the landlady explained.

The landlady noted that her guests used to be business people from other parts of Indonesia. At present, many of them are neighbors whose houses were destroyed by the tsunami.

"They rebuild their houses in the daytime and stay here at night," the landlady said.

Traffic

It takes quite a long time for people in this worst-hit Banda Aceh to find a taxi.

According to the driver of a white colored taxi, the number of taxis in the city has dropped from 30 to 15.

"I don't know where the drivers are," said the driver.

Taxis in the city have no meters and the fee is based on streetsections: one dollar something for a ride in one street section, and five dollars for the section outside the city.

"The price is the same as in December because the price for petrol remains the same," the driver explained.

"People will get angry if we raise the price in this heartbroken period, and we will by no means do it," he added.

The driver works from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm and earns some 40 dollars a day.

Daily necessities

According to a female boss of the Mandiri Grocery, her shop is crowded with customers now because at least two large supermarketsin the city were destroyed by the tsunami.

"Prices for all goods in stock before the tsunami remain the same as before, and prices for new incoming goods are higher because of the increase in transport fees," she explained. The terrible tsunami destroyed many roads and bridges.

She believed that the prices will go down with the improvement of the transport facilities.