Tunggu

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“Fly is cheap”. That’s the confidence-inspiring slogan printed on the front of our Lion Air tickets. Still, here’s hoping the money they save on corporate image goes towards decent aircraft maintenance. Lion is one of a vast number of recent start-ups in the Indonesian regional airline business. With these airlines, whether your flight departs or not is a matter of luck. Whether your flight arrives or not is, I fervently hope, somewhat less dependent on luck. Having said that, Lion operate a useful direct flight from Surabaya to Ambon, our next destination.

Ambon is merely a stopping point on our journey to our ultimate destination, a far-flung group of islands lost in the deep waters that separate Sulawesi and New Guinea. Tiny specks of land which, although practically unknown nowadays, were for hundreds of years some of the most valuable real estate in the world - a few square kilometers the great powers of the day were prepared to go to war for, repeatedly.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Ambon is the capital of the province of Maluku, arguably the least visited part of Indonesia. Maluku - a region better known by its European name, the Moluccas - is an archipelago within an archipelago, consisting of hundreds of islands sprinkled over a huge expanse of sea, from Halmahera in the north, nudging the Philippines, to Aru and Tanimbar in the south, much closer to Australia than to Jakarta. The province has a troubled recent history, and nowhere more so than Ambon. The reasons for this are clear from the air as we approac Pattimura Airport - for every minaret there is a church spire. Maluku has a large Christian population, which has not always comfortably cohabited with its Muslim neighbours. Violent sectarian clashes brought Ambon to its knees in 1999, leaving many hundreds dead and much of the city in smouldering ruins. The violence flared up again in 2004, and although the city is currently calm, burnt-out buildings bear witness to Ambon's painful past. Despite peace deals and truces, resentment between Christians and Muslims is said to still be strong, and it won't take much to set this tinderbox on fire again. The Foreign Office has, since 1999, not moderated its strongly-worded advice to avoid Ambon and Maluku, and it is only after careful consideration that we have chosen to go against that advice.

Ambon...Amboyna. Formerly a Portuguese stronghold in the East Indies - before the Dutch muscled in - the city sits st the centre of a roughly X-shaped island going by the same name. It is not the largest island in the Moluccas by any means, but Ambon is the region's economic, political and transport hub. The city, Kota Ambon, the erstwhile nerve centre of the global trade in cloves (grown on Ambon and on the more northerly islands of Ternate and Tidore, also fortified by the Portuguese centuries ago) is now a steamy concrete jungle tumbling down a group of lush, green hills. Its location overlooking a huge natural harbour is breathtaking. However the city, still badly scarred from 1999, has a definite edginess to it which is quite unsettling to say the least. Despite this, Ambon is a strangely compelling place: graceful schooners (belonging to the ancient seafaring Buginese people from southern Sulawesi) sway in the harbour, the colourful markets brim with fruit, vegetables and - of course - the spices, cinnamon, pepper, that made these islands world famous hundreds of years ago. Today you would be hard pressed to find a European in a hundred who has heard of the Moluccas. In the seventeenth century it was the name of everybody's lips. Indeed, the Moluccas were better known as the Spice Islands, source of unimagineably valuable commodities coveted by every country in Europe. Portugal, Spain, England, the Netherlands - all wanted to get their hands on these isolated specks of land. It does not take much imagination to picture imposing fortresses in those hills, or clove-laden Portuguese galleons in that harbour. Beneath its ugly, cracked veneer of dirty concrete, rubbish and noise, lies the Amboyna of old.

In this land of islands, the only way to get to where we want is by ferry. We have tickets for the PELNI ship Bukit Siguntang, which sails from Ambon the next morning at 11. PELNI (Pelayaran Nasional Indonesia) is the country's national shipping company, which operates a fleet of very large passenger ships (2,000 passengers on paper - remember no boat is ever full here) on huge loops around the archipelago. That I managed to get a ticket and a departure time is in itself a minor miracle...Very few foreigners take PELNI ships, precisely because schedules are impossible to get hold of, departures and arrivals follow the Indonesia concept of "time", and a missed connection can mean up to a month's wait ! Having said that, this is the only way to get to many of Indonesia's more isolated islands, and no place contains more of those than Maluku.

The Bukit Siguntang operates between Jakarta and Papua, a journey of thousands of kilometres. It's due into Ambon from Bau Bau in South-East Sulawesi at 9am. From the rooftop restaurant of our hotel we have a panorama of the harbour. By 10am there's still no sign of the ferry - it's a massive vessel and its arrival in port must be hard to miss. The hotel staff 'phone PELNI at my request - the reply contains the words we really didn't want to hear. Kapal terlembat - silahkan tunggu/ "The ship is late - please wait".

Apparently an excess of kargo - a word Alex and I will come to flinch at in the next 12 hours - delayed the ship in Makasar (in South Sulawesi, and one of Indonesia's major ports) and it's running over 8 hours late. Let the tunggu commence.

9 plus 8 equals.....17 ? The boat should be in at 5pm and off at 7. Shouldn't it ? Mais non...time here is not a simple linear concept, silly ! By 5pm I'm getting a bit jittery...and for the umpteenth time today I get reception to 'phone PELNI. Then the obvious happens. "Sir, I have just check with PELNI office. Bukit Siguntang is arrive in Ambon and leave in 15 minutes." Like I didn't see that happening...I kick myself for not having doubted the information they gave me in the first place. The harbour is at least 10 minutes away. I can't possibly repeat what I replied to the receptionist but I'm glad her English wasn't that fluent.

Panic mode ! We haul up our bags and dash out of the lobby. The only way we are possibly going to make it is on a motorbike taxi or ojek. If we miss this darned boat then we've come for nothing and have to hang around for the better part of a week in Ambon. Balancing our heavy packs in front of their legs, our two ojek drivers weave in and out of the traffic (yes, Ambon has a rush hour) towards the harbour. We've waited all sodding day and we're going to miss it. Ke pelabuhan PELNI - cepat cepat !. "To the PELNI harbour, on the double !". In Indonesia telling anyone in control of a motor vehicle to go more cepat is borderline suicidal, but desperate times...

The harbour is a huge crush of humanity. The vast ship towers over us - it hasn't left. It quickly becomes clear that the receptionist was not very good at Chinese whispers. Spot the difference.

1. "The boat is leaving in 15 minutes."

2. "The boat arrived 15 minutes ago."

Aha. So that's what she meant...I did repeat what she told me in Indonesian just to make sure and she still nodded. What can you do...who cares ? We've made it. Or have we ?

So now we help ourselves to another serving of tunggu. This time at the harbour. Airport, hotel, harbour - we're doing well. Passengers swarm off the ship - Ambon is the ship's last port of call of any size. Disembarking passengers are still streaming down the narrow steps when the boarding call is made. As if an invisible starting gun had just been fired, there's a huge rush to board. I've travelled on a PELNI ship before (the Rinjani, a.k.a. Cockroach Central and reputed to be PELNI dingiest vessel, in 2000 between Makasar and Bau Bau) and nothing has changed. It's push. It's shove. A complete free-for-all. Every passenger is carrying on his or her kitchen sink. I catch someone with his hand in my leg pocket...oh, the fun of it. Once inside it's not a whole lot better. Imagine a cross-Channel ferry with people sprawled on every available (and unavailable) square foot of floor, with cardboard boxes of noodles on the stairs, with sacks of rice blocking the exits. A cross-Channel ferrywhere the toilets are flooded with so much "water" (I will spare you the harsh reality, O delicate readers) you need a pair of wellies - nay, SCUBA gear - to pay a visit. Behold the PELNI liner.

We were expecting a daytime sailing so booked ekonomi tickets, which theoretically entitle us to a mattress (each ! the luxury...) in one of the large communal greenhouses, I mean cabins. This is supposed to be just about bearable for a few hours at most. The boat being terlembat as it is, we'll have to at least try to sleep a little, so we make our way upwards towards the outside decks and some fresh air. Many of the thousands of passengers on this ship have been stuck here since Java, so it's not particularly fragrant inside I can tell you. Outside we'll at least have a chance to sleep. There are three other foreigners on board and we all stick together - strength in numbers and all that. A few games of Yahtzee help pass the time.

The hours tick by. 6pm. 7pm. 8pm and we're still in port. The information desk below (the crew looking distinctly out of place in their crisp white uniforms and embroidered épaulettes) tells me we're leaving at 9. 9pm. 10pm. The information desk doesn't know anymore. Why are we hanging around for so long when the boat is already so late ? Kargo, they say. Always kargo. There's too much of it, apparently. Curious, I cross to the ship's starboard side, facing inland. Now that is kargo: a titanic jumble of cylindrical bundles, each two metres long, is heaped on the quay. Hundred and hundreds of bundles. Men clamber all over the pile, trying to figure out what's going where. No pallets here, no sirree. No advanced cargo logistics system with barcodes and GPS positioning of each item. The door to the ship's hold, in the bows facing upwards, is open - inside is yet another huge jumble of bundles, each with its destination scrawled on with marker-pen. Tual, Fak-Fak, Sorong...It's a complete mess - this is what's delayed the ferry by 11 - no, 12 now - hours. Yet more kargo is being loaded on in huge rope nets slung onto the ferry's loading cranes. It transpires that the cargo trucks were late arriving into the harbour, and if the kargo is late, the ferry waits.

By now we've given up waiting so we look for a suitable place to sleep, preferably a long way away from that Indonesian speciality, the staring squad. Foreigners are such a rarity on these ships, and the passengers from such far-flung islands, that staring at the white people is a major pastime. We sneak up toward the bows, above the bridge and just in front of and below the funnel. We've clambered over a couple of "staff only"gates to get there so we are alone in a large space bounded by a gently sloping barrier that will provide some shelter from the weather. Small bulkeads in the barrier form little niches - we install a mattress in two of these niches, with another on its side to shut out the wind. Not too bad, dare I say ! Here we can sleep without worrying about our packs being pinched. It's past 11pm and we are just drifting off to sleep - despite the less than ideal conditions - when we are jolted awake by a thunderous noise that almost blows our heads off. In choosing our sleeping place, we have cleverly - and inadvertently - positioned ourselves right under the ship's horn. And believe me, on a ship this size, it's a big ol'horn. That's the signal - departure minus 30 minutes. 10 minutes later a few more of our brain cells are killed off by the double blast, and 10 minutes after that our remaining auditory cortex is frazzled by the triple blast.

Slowly, slowly, but surely, the lights of Ambon - which I can just see over the metal barrier when lying down - start to move. The ship completes a 180-degree turn and we leave the harbour before turning South.

The islands that await us at the end of the 8-hour sailing - out of all proportion to their minute size - changed the course of history.

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Photos

Capital of the Moluccas
Ambon, from the rooftop terrace of our hotel. A sprawl of stained concrete, but strangely compelling.

Schooner
A graceful pinisi schooner in Ambon harbour. Even in the 21st century, these beautiful Buginese ships still ply trade routes around the archipelago.

Street scene
A soldier patrols the colourful market in Ambon, complete with bemos and becaks. The army is a very visible presence in Ambon, and seems to be the force that prevents this city descending into bloody chaos once again.

Ketupat
Beautiful ketupat at the market in Ambon. These are skillfully woven by women in the market, and used to steam rice in. I was a major novelty in the market - cue lots of staring !

Slick branding...
The catchy slogan for Wings Air, Lion Air's "low cost" wing...It's starting to make sense.

Executive suite on the Bukit Siguntang
Alex's room on board - we like to travel in style. Includes 200-decibel alarm clock as a free extra.

Orderly boarding
Bedlam at Ambon harbour. You needn't rush dears, we'll be here another six hours (of course we didn't know that yet).

Whyyyy are we waaaaaiting...
Still, a beautiful evening over Ambon harbour from the deck of the Bucket Siguntang.

Kargo à l'Indonésienne
Loading neatly packaged and labelled cargo onto the Bukit Siguntang at Ambon.

And I thought loading the passengers was bad !
Yes ! It's kargo. It's past 10pm and for the past 5 hours the dockers have desperately been loading the boat with cargo. A complete mess - no wonder these ships are always late !

No ! Lifeboats ?
Apparently, yes ! And here was I thinking we'd all drown like rats if this thing went under...

Can you guess ?
The following morning. Our destination comes into view. Can you guess where it is we're going ?

Last clue...
The islands are full of these.