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Date: 10 Aug 2010 09:22:29
Title: Gobsmacked in Banda - Bandaneira, Neira Island, Maluku Province, Indonesia
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4:31.330S  129:53.848E
 
Ok!  It's now August 9th, and so much has happened in the short two weeks we've been in Indonesia, it's difficult to boil it all down into some semblance of readable order.  Maybe the place to start is a little bit about Indonesia as a whole.  Here are a few fun facts:
 
Indonesia is the largest island nation in the world consisting of 17,508 islands populated densely by 245 million people - quite the opposite of Australia with its huge land mass filled with only 21 million people.
 
The Indonesian archipelago stretches 2,700 miles from the Papua half of Papua New Guinea in the east to Sumatra in the west, and sits on either side of the equator from 10 degrees south latitude to 5 degrees north.
 
The median age of the Indonesian population is 27.  Given the huge number of kids we've seen spilling out from every corner of every town, a median age of only 27 is easy to believe.  We do wonder where all the pregnant women are hiding?  We haven't seen any.
 
Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world.  Generally, however, the form of Islam practiced here is moderate.  Most women and girls wear a headscarf and very modest clothing not because it is required by law, but because it is their custom and they choose to do so.  Women are not sequestered in their homes, but are part of the workplace and move freely in public.  If it weren't for the headscarves, head-to-toe women's attire, near-absence of alcohol, and the call to prayer five times a day, we wouldn't even know we were in a mostly Muslim country. 
 
Now, about that call to prayer five times a day...
It would be one thing if it was simply a call to prayer.  Or if it was a call to prayer from one mosque only.  But it's not.  The call to prayer over the tinny mosque loudspeakers is always followed by a prayer, and a chant, and a song, more prayer, more chants, more songs, but not necessarily in that order.  Often there are at least three competing mosques, so three disembodied, sometimes whiney voices float through the air directly into our anchorage and entangle themselves in an Arabic mass of prayers, chants and songs.  It's not as unpleasant as it might sound, but it does cause a stir when it happens every morning at 4:15.  We can say that we were saved by Allah in Banda though.  There, the early morning call to prayer happened at a more civilized 5am, and as usual, woke us up.  Shortly thereafter, the normally complete calm of the Banda anchorage was ruffled by a brisk 15-20 knot breeze rolling through ahead of a small rain squall.  Not so bad except that it rolled through from a direction 180 degrees different from the way all the boats were pointed.  Our boat swung toward shore with the fresh breeze and promptly bashed into a giant (3 foot diameter) mooring buoy four other rally boats were attached to.  Thanks to Allah, we were already awake, so all we had to do was bolt out of bed and throw some clothes on.  After the interminable 10 seconds it took Don to fish a pair of clean underwear out of a locker, we jogged up into the cockpit to survey the situation.  Our dinghy had wrapped itself around the mooring buoy and we were drifting to within touching distance of one of the boats tied to the mooring.  Don sorted out the dinghy and started to bring up the anchor while I roved up and down the port side of our boat with several fenders in hand, ready to deploy them against the moored boat at a moment's notice.  Of course the Swiss couple on the moored boat woke up with all the commotion (or maybe Allah also woke them up?) and jogged into their own cockpit to see me, a few feet away with fenders in hand, wishing them a good morning.  Yeah, not too pleasant, but no harm done other than the ugly black streak the buoy left on our starboard side (cleaned off by Don later that same day).  We brought the anchor up and moved further away from land, waited an hour for daylight to arrive, and dropped the anchor in 45 meters of water (a new deep water anchorage record for us).  We then spent the remaining two or three days in Banda praying to Allah not to bring any more brisk breezes because we knew our anchor would drag due to the waaay less than standard 2-to-1 scope we had deployed.  It worked.  The rest of our stay was uneventful.  Uneventful in regard to anchoring, but certainly not uneventful in regard to anything else.
 
Picture 1 -  One of the volcanoes we passed on our way from Darwin to Banda.  The sea in this area is extremely deep at 3,000 - 5,000 meters, so the full height from the sea floor of a volcano like this one is probably 6,000 meters or 18,000 feet.
 
Picture 2 -  Entering Banda Harbor.  Gunung Api is on the right, showing the black scar of its most recent lava flow (it last erupted in 1988).
 
Picture 3 -  Soon after we arrived, we were handed a six-page invitation outlining all the planned events for the following day.  In true Indonesian fashion, the invitation was printed beautifully on bordered paper complete with dignitary signatures and several official-looking stamps.  Not surprisingly, everywhere the date, time and location of an event was specified in the invitation, the information was pasted over with a new date, time and location.  Even so, the true date, time and location for most events changed several more times after we received the pasted-over invitations, but this is the charm of Indonesia.  The morning of the main event, Don was picked up along with the nine other chosen yachtsmen, and whisked off on a ceremonial tour of the harbor.  Meanwhile, the rest of us less-special yachtsmen and women (there were about 25 boats in the Banda harbor at the time) dinghied into the specified dinghy dock festooned with ten 'Sail Banda!' banners to be greeted by a multitude of adorable little boys all yelling "Hello Mister!" while they held our dinghies in place and we climbed the rickety dock ladder.  Sometimes there was a "Hello Missus!" and once there was a very solemn and well practiced "Good morning, welcome to Banda!", but mostly it was "Hello Mister!" regardless of the boater's gender.  Once ashore, we were ushered down the street to the event venue (a stage and seating area newly assembled for the occasion) by a series of young girls dressed in the traditional Maluka long straight red skirt with embroidered hem and sheer white blouse covering a white lace under layer.  Gorgeous.  All the girls and women in Indonesia are genuinely pretty.  It seems all the Indonesian people are attractive - very slim with small frames, perfect cocoa-colored skin, abundant black hair, dark almond-shaped eyes and giant white smiles.  Once we arrived at the seating area, we found a food package waiting for us (several small cakes and a rice roll) and an elaborate glass covered Sail Banda plaque made with letters carved from shells and housed in a blue velvet covered case.  In the short time we've been in Indonesia, we've learned that nothing is under done - everything is elaborate and over the top, blazing with color, texture and usually accompanied by a lot of noise and a big crowd of people.
 
Getting back to picture 3...
The Banda Islands are a group of ten small islands populated by about 15,000 people.  We are pretty sure almost all 15,000 were crammed into the small town of Bandaneira for the festivities.  We believe this group of distinguished looking men is the Council of Elders for the Banda Island community.  They were certainly treated with deference (as were we) and were seated in the 'primo' section with the ten yachtsmen for the duration of the welcome show.
 
Picture 4 - Pauperatzi, Indonesian style.  After the ceremonial tour around the harbor, the ten yachtsmen were taken to shore and officially welcomed by the local and regional dignitaries (even the governor of the Maluku Province flew in for the occasion), and given the Spice Islands version of a Hawaiian lei - 37 nutmeg nuts strung together with large clusters of cloves and yards of red and white ribbons (the Indonesian flag is red and white).  In the picture, Don is on the right and looks quite cool, calm and collected in the face of so many cameras.
 
Pictures 5 and 6 -  The dancing.  There was lots of dancing.  Traditional and not so traditional, but always with eye-popping, perfectly matched, fitted, pressed and spotless costumes in an endless array of colors.  Sometimes the girls were dressed conservatively (picture 6), and sometimes not (picture 5).  It should be mentioned that before the dancing, there were many speeches.  Many speeches.  There was the local government representative, and the Indonesian Minister of Fisheries and Marine, and the Governor of Maluku Province, and the Regent of Central Maluku Regency (we have no idea what this title means).  All very proper and official.  Oh, and there was time out for prayer.  Can't forget the call to prayer.
 
Picture 7 - The girls.  After the ceremony, this group of four, like many others, was scrambling around taking as many pictures of boring, white boater people as they could muster.  After we posed for them, they posed for us - looking lovely and fresh in their head-to-toe covering despite the 85 degree heat and 80% humidity (you can bet we looked bedraggled and wilted in the pictures they took of us).  The peace sign is big around here and most often seen when locals pose for pictures.
 
Picture 8 - The start of the Kora Kora boat race.  The Kora Kora boats are replicas of traditional war canoes.  Each village has its own Kora Kora boat kept lovingly under a special shelter near the water's edge, only taken out on special occasions like the Sail Banda welcome ceremony for a race around Neira Island.  Kora Kora races are very serious business as was indicated by the intensity of practice going on the day before when we arrived in the harbor and had to dodge several of them.  These guys would put any crew team rowing down Boston's Charles River to shame.  Not to mention the fact that Kora Kora boats are much prettier to look at and a lot more fun to listen to with their traditional drum accompaniment and constant shouting.  If you look closely at the upper right-hand corner of this picture, you'll see the offending giant yellow buoy we got to know so well during the early morning call to prayer.
 
Picture 9 - After the welcome ceremony and the start of the Kora Kora race, we were ushered down the road lined with smartly uniformed military school students to the 'Culinary Show'  - otherwise known as a lunch buffet with enough dishes to feed all of us boaters, the visiting dignitaries and many of the locals.  Each table was equipped with an English speaking local who proudly explained every dish.  We went for the papaya leaf salad and tuna kabobs and skipped the baked taro (a heavy yam we grew to loathe when crossing the Pacific because it tends to sit like a lump of lead in one's stomach for days following ingestion).
 
And that didn't end the festivities.  That night, a group from each of the surrounding villages performed their version of a traditional dance.  This event was set to start at 7pm, but due to rain and a slow-to-arrive dignitary, didn't get off the ground until 9, but no one seemed to mind.  The dances ranged from the Cakalele (war) dance to the nutmeg harvest dance, all set to music performed on traditional drums and a gamelan, which is a series of brass pots filled with varying amounts of water to create different tones not unlike a cross between the Caribbean steel drum and a xylophone.  That performance finished up at midnight and was followed by an impressive display of fireworks.  The next night brought another dancing and singing performance during which we were seated up front with the dignitaries and fed cakes and cinnamon tea while the masses (hundreds of locals) looked on.  In our travels, we have almost always been welcomed warmly by the local people, but never like this.  So far in Indonesia, we have been treated like rock star royalty and it has just bowled us over.  We are gobsmacked.  The people are so eager to please it would be comical if they weren't so earnest.  We believe part of the issue is the bad rap Indonesia has as a result of the bombings in Bali and Jakarta.  That, and some civil unrest that happened in the Maluku Province between the minority Christians and the Muslims back in 1999.  The bombings were caused by a few bag eggs and the civil unrest is now treated like a bad dream to be forgotten.  The Indonesians are working overtime to repair the damage to their reputation as a country and a people.  Fortunately or unfortunately, we are benefiting in a big way,
 
Picture 10 -  Talk about history.  Sorry for the length of this entry, but a blog about the Banda Islands simply isn't complete without a look at the fascinating history of the Spice Islands.  As early as 1 AD, there is evidence that nutmeg and cloves from the Banda Islands were traded with Arab, Chinese and Javanese merchants, who then traded with European merchants.  By the 15th century, the spices were well known throughout Europe and more valuable than gold, but the exact location of their source remained a mystery.  It was the Banda Islands, the only source of nutmeg in the world, that drove first the Portuguese, then the Spanish, Dutch and English to seek the famed Spice Islands by sea.  One could say that the Spice Islands are the reason most of the world ended up colonized by western Europe.  Amazing to think that could be true after visiting these tiny, remote, blameless volcanic snippets of land.  Anyway, the bloody Spice Island colonization history goes something like this...
 
The Portuguese arrived in 1512 and established several forts used to stockpile and guard harvested nutmeg and cloves.  The Dutch arrived in 1599, forcing the Portuguese out with their superior forces and arms and built sturdier fortresses.  Shortly thereafter, the English arrived and played a cat and mouse game with the local Bandanese and the Dutch over the next 200 years.  Even with the English skulking about in the background, the Dutch dominated, and ruled with an iron fist.  In 1621, the then Dutch governor of the Banda Islands got angry with the local Banadanese for trading with the English behind his back, and hired Japanese executioners to exact revenge on the Bandanese.  What followed was a massacre, and many of the slain Bandanese were thrown down the well in this picture, which is located near the center of the town of Bandaneira.  Our guide Sylvia (shown in the picture next to me) said the townspeople are still reluctant to visit this place.  We visited three Dutch forts on a couple of the islands, one of which the Indonesian government completely restored in the 1990's.  Although bloody and painful, the Bandanese are proud of their Spice Island history, and the roots of it seem to be alive and well in all of the people we met, including the kids.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of love lost for the Dutch, and there is great pride in the fact that Indonesia won its independence from the Netherlands in 1949.
 
As a side note, there was a brief time in the early 1800's when the English had control of one of the nutmeg producing Banda Islands.  After some struggle with the Dutch, it was decided that the far superior Banda Island would be traded with the Dutch for the low-potential island of Manhattan on the east coast of North America.  Turned out to be a good deal for the English since they ended up with both Manhattan and enough stolen nutmeg tree seedlings to start plantations on several of their other tropical colony islands and ruin the Dutch nutmeg monopoly.  Who said the English weren't crafty?
 
History lives on in Bandaneira as the town is chock full of Dutch colonial buildings and homes.  Most are what the Lonely Planet guide calls, 'moldering', but they are still standing and for the most part, still used as businesses and homes.  We took a walking tour of Bandaneira with our guide Sylvia (an English teacher at one of the local high schools), and then a boat tour around the nearby islands with another guide.  Not only did we stop at the base of the volcano's latest lava flow for an incredible snorkel (the best since French Polynesia's Tuamotu Islands), but we also visited a small plantation where nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon are still harvested.  History lives on through the spices that continue to be exported.  Unfortunately they are no longer more valuable than gold, but they do bring in much needed income for the area. 
 
Aside from me, does anyone else not know that cinnamon comes from the bark of a cinnamon tree?  The bark!  Who knew?  When harvested, the cinnamon trees are cut down and the bark peeled off in thin sheets.  Voila!  Cinnamon sticks.  We bought a whole pack in the market for the equivalent of 20 cents.  Now we are hooked on cinnamon tea - a local Banda Island favorite served everywhere in place of beer.  When we toured the plantation, Don was hoping to find a money tree in with the nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, but it just didn't pan out.  Maybe our next Indonesian stop will reveal that mythical beast.  In the meantime, with Indonesian restaurant meals at only $5 per person, we may have already stumbled upon one version of a money tree.
 
Picture 11 - Last, but not least.  Bintang beers all around at the one and only 'fancy' hotel in Bandaneira.  Starting from the left and going clockwise, that's Sue, Tom from American boat Priscilla, John, Don, Magga, our boat tour guide (drinking Coke, not beer, mind you), Robin and Barry (Storyteller guests) and Suzy from Priscilla.
 
And that big blast of words only covers our first stop and first five days in Indonesia.  More adventure stories to come covering our stops in Ambon and Wakatobi.
 
Anne
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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