“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
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