Day 16
Again, dawned very early, pick up 04.30, half an hour to the airport, flight at 06.15. We are leaving it later and later, the joys of online check-in and no baggage to drop. It was our first Lion Air flight, part of the same group as Batik but seems to have the worst reputation. This plane was old, and smelled of wee, but it got us there.
There was Ambon, one of the Maluku islands. Just a driver, with little English, but lots of enthusiasm, got us to the hotel by 10.00, which was 09.00 in our heads, we've lost another hour, we are now 9 hours ahead of the UK. When are we going to get them back?
They actually made an effort at the Natsepa hotel, to get us into the room early, though it was Sunday and they were full, we were in by 11.00, hurrah.
This place is definitely a resort, white faces around the swimming pool. We didn't go, all the sunbeds with any shade were taken and our cossies wouldn't have dried. We do come back here though. Our next flight is 10kg only, so normal people would be leaving luggage to come back to. Not us!
Blog, chill, lunch, dinner, beer, not necessarily in that order and early bed. Not as early as I would have liked, the 'sunset vibes' duo were performing, though I think they finished before 21.00
Day 17
Yup, another early one. Pick up at 05.00, doesn't sound quite so bad except it still feels like 04.00. Didn't want to leave this one too late as we haven't checked in. This was the flight the agent had to book, on the small plane, so we have a ticket, but nothing else.
The same driver picked us up, and came in with us, took pictures of our tickets and took our passports. We didn't go anywhere, as there was nowhere to go. We did have to wait about 30 minutes for anyone to show up at the desk though.
We were front of the queue, in fact we were the queue. We had to stand on a set of bathroom scales, with our luggage, including the packed breakfast. That's a first. Brian's boarding pass said 11.00, mine 23.30 hmmm. They started again and we got two more, seat 1a and 1c boarding 06.30.
Here's a short video of our landing
We were expecting a small plane, but this was very small. Pilot, co-pilot and 7 passengers on a Cessna 208 Grand Caravan. Having just looked it up on Wikipedia, I'm quite glad we are taking the 5 hour fast ferry home. Look up the notable incidents if you dare! We however are fine, and now on Banda Neira at the Cilu Bintang estate. It's beautiful. The owner is lovely, and it's got cats and everything. We are being joined for a couple of our excursion days by a Julie and Martin, originally from NZ, but who have lived in Indonesia 25 years, who were also on the flight. They want to go to Rhun too, but can't come with us as we are staying there 2 nights. Why? When we could stay here. Brian will have to explain, and owe me more!!!!
Afternoon was a town tour with Deni which was a total of 3.2km, so it's not big. First stop was a Dutch church (Hollandische Kerk te Banda) a church built over the graves of 30 Dutch soldiers who died in the Banda conquest with tombstones on the floor. We moved on to the house of Captain Christopher Cole, of the British Royal Navy who commanded two large troops and successfully took the Ambon and surrounding islands in August 1810 until the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1814, in order for the British to control the very profitable nutmeg and mace trades. The board outside states that the treaty to exchange Run (Rhun) island with Manhattan island was signed in the building, but Deni says that was incorrect.
Further on were two cannons lying in the gutter, something that Deni says he remembers many scattered around the town when he was a child and, further on an archaeological museum that we walked round that covers a lot of the history of the spice trade.
Walking down towards the coast we walked through the old Fort Nassau which only has the defensive walls left and a shallow ditch round that used to be a moat. The big green area inside is used by kids to kick a football about and our hotel, the Cilu Bintang Estate, a beautifully restored old colonial house is just the other side of the wall. The fort was built by the Portuguese, the first European power here and it was used as an area to store the valuable spices before shipment. A doorway in the wall leads to a jetty out to sea. The Dutch took it over but soon after built a fort higher on the hill overlooking it and built a connecting underground tunnel to connect the two. The tunnel was destroyed during the eruption of Guning Api in 1989.
Further along facing the sea is Istana Mini (Mini Palace), the old Dutch governors building. It's also a place where the last homesick French governor hung himself, etching his suicide note in one of the windows in French, using his diamond ring, which can still be seen. It's a grand old building with huge rooms and marble floors with extensive grounds that are quite overgrown and the whole site is very sad and unused. It would make an amazing hotel if someone had the vision, but they'd better be quick as it's decaying rapidly, as are many of the buildings in the town. It's a shame, but given a few years there won't be much left to see unless someone finds a lot of money.
Our last call was up a short hill to Fort Belgica, the main Dutch fort overlooking Nassau below. It's double fortified with internal rooms that apparently held 400 soldiers. Its position high on the hill overlooks the town, the harbour and sea and the volcano, a great place to end the tour. Time for a beer!
Day 18
After a beer, a lovely meal and the best night sleep I've had since I've been here we got up for a gentle breakfast at 07.30. Meeting time for our island hopping boat trip was 09.00, how civilised. Ipan p, our guide walked the four of us through town to the harbour to meet the boat. Felt relatively big after the last couple we've been on, perhaps as well as the sea is looking a bit rough.
After about 45 minutes we approached Hatta Island for our first snorkel. Brian and I put more clothes on than we took off, both of us in long sleeves and long trousers, and a cap for Brian, though it's not as sunny as it was in the Maldives when we first did this. I've no fish book, and the video Brian took is better than nothing, but doesn't really give a good idea. It was lovely. A small reef with a steep drop off to who knows where, so reef fish and schools of deeper water fish including some lump(or bump) head parrot fish who can grow up to 1.2m in length. I don't think any of these were quite that big, but they were probably a metre or so. Highlight for me, and probably all of us, was half a dozen or so turtles lazily swimming about, what a joy.
Hatta Island was our lunch stop. The boat couldn't beach quite where we wanted to be so we had a short walk, but that's fine, we don't mind dripping along in our wet clothes. We all decided this was better than taking them off and having to put them back on clammy! We sat looking at the sea and talking until lunch arrived, soup, tuna, vegetables and rice. Who knows where it came from, along with a jug of water that smelled decidedly smoky, most odd.
Back to the boat and back to Naira Island and a soft coral reef. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that, but again, I don't know how to describe it. The snorkeling was amazing, and curiously although November is the start of the wet season in most of Indonesia, it's part of the best time to come to the Banda Islands.
We got back, to a different mooring and seemed to exit, through someone's house. Still dripping. We squelched a very short route back to the hotel and went straight into the shower, fully clothed. It's a pleasant temperature as we sit outside our room writing (Brian is doing the history bit of yesterday's town tour, where the highlight for me was kittens, everywhere, in case he doesn't mention them). The clothes are on the roof drying, possibly, it's quite windy, we know the airer has blown over at least once, but I'm not sure everything had been on it when that happened! Fingers crossed we don't lose anything!
Day 19
All over the islands. No wonder they built the fort up here
Inside it's a pentagon courtyard with rooms round the outside. Some were used for soldiers quarters, some as prisons and.....
...some for metering out punishment. The two blocks at the front are where prisoners had their heads chopped off, the others are stools for spectators
Walking to the dock for our day of snorkeling at Hatta Island. The ship in the dock delivers daily supplies for the islands from Ambon and is being unloaded
Our boat (which will also take us to Run)
Fort Belgica and the town as we motored past
A spice islands trip today, with Denny, our guide from the town tour here, and Julie and Martin. Down to the boat and across to Banda Besar, joined by an old university friend of Denny's, but that's fine. Apparently we need to tour the island by moped, first we've heard of that, but there were 5 bikes and 4 drivers, and no helmets. I went with Denny, who was very careful with me, as this was all a bit scary! Martin would rather have driven himself and has an Indonesian licence, but no, he had to pillion like the rest of us.
It was ok on the flat, but then got very hilly. I'm sure I got a good core workout going up and down, that was really quite scary. It was pleasant, in a way when I got used to it, but it was still hot. Better than walking though I guess.
We stopped at old forts, Batu Berdarah, Perigi Pusaka and Hollandia Fort. A nutmeg plantation where we had a go at harvesting nutmeg and had some lovely cinnamon tea. The others bought nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla which along with cloves, almonds and mace are readily available. Mace is the outer skin of the nutmeg, both inside of the fruit, and almond trees are grown to provide shelter and protect the nutmeg trees, some of which are 350 years old. We continued round the island stopping for another great lunch before getting back on the boat and returning to the hotel.
It's the nutmeg that these islands are famous for, until the mid 19th century nutmeg was only found in the Banda Islands. The location of the islands was kept a secret by the Arabs who traded in Venice. The location was found by the Portuguese in 1512, so they filled their ships with as much nutmeg, mace and cloves as was possible.
The Dutch arrived in the early 1600's and signed an exclusivity deal with the islanders. The British didn't take long to get involved, and there was a skirmish involving Rhun island, where we go tomorrow. The Dutch were really quite barbaric, to try to maintain their exclusivity massacring 40 of the wealthy local Bandanese Chiefs and putting their heads on bamboo poles.
The Dutch had the sole production and export of nutmeg for 200 years. The British however invaded in 1810 and managed to remove and transplant many nutmeg trees to Sri Lanka, amongst other places so destroying the value of the Banda Islands to the Dutch.
And that's my potted history, there will be more, including Rhun,.but I'll probably let him write that!
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