Maumere Welcome
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Sun 21 Aug 2016 22:57
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Maumere Welcome
Day
   We shared a car with Catherine and
John (Afar VI) and headed out of Sea World for the twenty minute
journey, first to the ATM, a huge surprise was seeing a
statue of a man in a kilt in typical attack pose...... The road was a good, straight tarmac affair busy with
motorbikes and scooters with two or three people aboard........ and on to Roxy the Supermarket. Our driver spoke
fairly good English and waited patiently with the other drivers for
us.
  Children in a toy
shop sprang to mind as we saw bright, exciting things
– including sliced mushrooms at a price I haven’t seen since Trinidad, crisps,
bread, photocopy paper, whey powder and several sets of yachties all with the
same _expression_ of wonder. Then I bumped into my favourite photo-bomber,
Deb.
 Deb had us pose and I’m sure some of you blog readers would
like to see this as a permanent
fixture........................
 Bear thoroughly enjoyed
himself.
  Just as well we
had a driver as we would never have guessed this was the
town’s main market. A place bustling with all sorts of fruit and veg but
not to be bimbled about without looking down all the time as some of the
thoroughfare was to be negotiated with some
care.
 I simply adored
the fishmonger.
  I stood and
watched the jolly little man work for a minute or two
before carrying on through the covered market in
search of the egg man. We shared a tray of thirty with Afar
VI paying one pound ten each boat.
   The plan then was
for several cars to meet for lunch but Mary (El Gato) couldn’t
remember the name of the restaurant that had been recommended to her so sadly we
didn’t see anyone again. Our driver tried several likely establishments to no
avail so he took us to one of his favourites. Walking through a huge tackle shop
(would have loved an hour bimbling in there picking the owners brain for lure
set-up etc.) we walked out the back to “choose your own
fish”. Some tanks had sad looking chaps, the far tank had two dead, one
dying and a scared looking lobster of small size. We went upstairs and settled
with our driver with the menu. A beer was the first
order from the pleasant lady took our order after explaining what was what. The
food was delicious and after our big splurge, seven big Bintang beers and two
Sprite; the total came to forty four pounds for the
five of us.
 Children playing outside the
restaurant.
 We could see the rally yachts in the background (middle of the
picture).
   Walking back through the shop to the car there was a myriad
of interesting things to see. Next stop – alcohol shop. Medicinal fluid
purchased, it was time to head back with our many shopping bags. Once again on
the beach by Sea World, we were met by Raymond (our Indonesian rally
coordinator) who handed our very smart black tee shirts with the request to be
back at six for a photo call prior to the festivities.
 The evening began
with a local band of traditional drummers, wearing
sarongs - just up my street, chaps behind were clanging a cymbal type instrument
and then ladies danced in wearing bells on their ankles. The older the lady, the
more rythm.
   After several dances the ladies got us all to join in. Next came
a fashion parade and then we were called up to eat a
buffet feast completed with a glass of local hooch. Very few speeches and more
dancing until another local band came on. This group was accompanied by a big
bass lookalike played with it laying down on a table. It looked like it only had
one string but made for a very interesting sound that blended beautifully with
the guitar-playing singers – all sounded remarkably Hawaiian. A really good
evening.
ALL IN ALL A BUSY, FUN
DAY
DIFFERENT DANCING AND
DRUMMING |