Our stay on Lembata coincided with the first ever visit of a Pelni liner to the island (Pelni operate Indonesia’s long distance passenger ships). As luck would have it, it was headed for Makassar, Sulawesi so we bought 2 tickets (11 pounds 50 each for a 25 hour voyage) and awaited its arrival. We were very pleased to see the ship when it finally pulled into the port- it was 7 hours late- so we took this photo:
The important folk of Lembata dallied away yet another hour with a ceremony to mark the occasion, meanwhile all the town’s riff-raff stormed the ship to have a boisterous nosy round. We got swept on board with them and soon located economy class which looked like this:
A bit like a prison don’t you think? A prison infested with cockroaches and with unruly children very curious of the 2 Westerners who had appeared (I’m not sure which were worse). Toileting conditions were unspeakable. Meals consisted of dirty rice with a rank bit of fish/vegetables. There were layers of grime everywhere. I had a very traumatic experience in the bathroom early on which left me seriously glowering, much to Chris’s glee. I had used the squat toilet, with my eyes fixed firmly ahead not down at other people’s deposits still remaining below, then went to push the flush and found to my utter horror that this resulted in the contents of the pan being, not sucked down, but instead fired out of the toilet and all over my legs and feet. This incident plus the 2 hours of un-volunteered-for babysitting which followed did not get me and Pelni off to a good start. A surprisingly successful night’s sleep and a good book helped brighten the mood though and we arrived in Makassar the next evening in good spirits.
Two of the best meals since Bali later and we were on a cheap flight, destination Ambon, Maluku. Kota Ambon, the area’s ‘big city’, is a lively place where everyone seems to be vying with the neighbours to have their music playing the loudest on the block. Reminders of the 1999-2004 ‘troubles’ (a conflict between Muslims and Christians which left thousands dead) can be found in the battle-scarred buildings and ever watchful police presence. A plain clothes officer at the airport took our details before we could be on our way and, when we arrived at a guesthouse, the owner had to scurry off to report our whereabouts to 2 different sets of police.
From Ambon, we had our hearts set on journeying onwards to the original spice islands, the Bandas, so we were disheartened to learn that the weekly outgoing flight had sold out (18 seater plane only), the return flight could only be booked once in Bandaneira and was prone to cancellation anyway and the Pelni ship’s fortnightly run to the islands would only allow us 2 days there before having to return. The other tourists at our guesthouse were in the same predicament and gave up, declaring getting there to be an impossible task. We decided to spend one more day exploring less orthodox solutions. And so began the curious case of the non-existant boat……
The next day we were a persistant presence at Kota Ambon’s 2 ports, enquiring as to the destinations of all the cargo ships (and in doing so being the cause of much hilarity amongst the rather rough cargo-loading gangs). We tried our hand (unsuccessfully) at charming the crew of a luxury live-aboard dive boat bound for the Bandas into letting us hitch a ride (we are obviously not charming enough). We talked to the coastguard and even got into the harbour master’s office to look at ship schedules. All the while we were asking EVERYONE we met “Is there a boat going to Bandaneira?” and the response was always the same. ‘No, no boats are going. Only the Pelni ship on Saturday.”
It was 4pm, we had been getting nowhere for many hours and we had pretty much resigned ourselves to defeat when Chris suggested we walk along the quay one last time. We saw a wooden ferry filling up with passengers and I half-heartedly asked a lady where it was going. “Bandaneira” was the reply. Oh. My. God. We sprinted out of the port, tumbled into a becak (rickshaw), told the driver to pedal like the wind (actually we didn’t because we don’t know the Indonesian for that, but you get the picture), then back at the guesthouse we scrambled to pack our things and hustled back to the port where the boat was still waiting (thank goodness for Indonesian tardiness). Soaked in sweat we took our places on a rockhard wooden bench with nothing but biscuits for food and a 15 hour voyage ahead of us.
It turned out to be a warm, still, beautiful night and we watched the moonshine on the calm waters as we chugged on hour after hour with no land in sight. We were stoked that our persistence had paid off, excited to be actually on our way to the Bandas but completely mystified as to why we had been misinformed about 50 times in succession. The curious case of the ‘non-existant’ boat remains unsolved……
November 30, 2008 at 4:16 pm |
We enjoyed our Sunday newspaper AND your blog!! You are having an interesting and eventful time! We are having to use our big atlas a lot but have managed to follow your routes.