Tuesday 25th August 2015
Our adventures
today were a far cry from the peaceful natural wonders of Raja Ampat. But…we enjoyed our Ternate Day very much.
We found a nice
easy jetty – easy to get on and off, and easy to leave the dinghy without fear
of finding it shredded and bashed on our return. There is a promenade all the way along the
waterfront, with lots of big shady trees, a playground and lots of traffic
whizzing past. Ternate is a fairly
frantic little town, bustling and thriving in the shadow of the imposing
volcano, Gunung Api Gamalama. This is
quite a prosperous island – cloves and gold account for this.
There are dozens
of mosques and last night we were astounded by the call to prayer around 5pm –
every single mosque sending forth their call, every one of them different. An extraordinary cacophony!
We went to a big
shopping mall and found ground coffee, to our relief – life on 2XS would become
just a bit primal if we didn’t have coffee on board and our supplies were
nearly gone… It is surprisingly hard to get ordinary ground coffee in
Indonesia. I think it all gets
exported. The locals drink a lot of
coffee but it is all made up into various combinations all including sugar, and
most of them with milk. The large
supermarket had many such combinations so we were very relieved to find a café
where they not only sold coffee beans but also kindly ground them up for
us. WHEW!!
A bit further
along we found a most fabulous market.
Overwhelming amounts of gorgeous fresh produce – tomatoes, chillies,
shallots, aubergines – all my favourite things!
I bought prawns to
make chilli and garlic stir fry for tonight but…Pete had read in the Lonely
Planet about a little shack near the market which sells popeda.
“The full spread includes…fish…vegetables…and that
rich sodium-packed slime which is popeda.
Leave your culinary inhibitions, textural food fears, and sanitation
hang-ups at the door. The locals will be
thrilled to have you. And you may even
like it.”
Well we did like
it, indeed! The popeda slime-stuff is, I
think, sago, in a very delicious salty broth.
The veggies were all wonderful – sour and spicy and tasty – and we both
had a nice small piece of fish as well.
It wasn’t in the least dirty or scary, and the locals did indeed welcome
us with much friendship and hilarity.
 |
| They don't look very hilarious in the is photo but never mind! taking photo is serious business! |
In fact everywhere
we went we were greeted with enormous smiles; Indonesians are very hospitable
and welcoming. And ready with their
phonecameras…I tripped and nearly fell when we were coming back to the dinghy
jetty and about three men were there, poised with their cameras, saying Hati hati, but looking just a bit
disappointed that they didn’t get to film the Balanda falling down…(They call
white people Balandas here, as they do in Arnhem Land – a corruption of Hollander.)
Pete needed to
find hydraulic oil. It is always good to
have a bit of a mission when in a new town.
People gave us directions hither and thither and laughed heartily as we
struggled to understand one another. On
our way up one of the streets we found the footpaths lined with turquoise for sale – how
fabulous! I suppose they must mine it
here??
All of the men
were very keen to be photographed so I snapped away until Pete disappeared at
the end of the street and I had to abandon my would-be models and continue the
oil shop quest.
I have been
swimming around the boat. It is
surprisingly clean here. We are used to
towns in South East Asia being totally filthy, with all of the crapola flung
into the sea. The odd plastic bag does
float by, but for the most part the water is clean and clean and welcoming.
This is a
wonderful island! Tomorrow we are going
to explore a bit outside the town, maybe go up the slopes of the fabulous
volcano.
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