Manokwari

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We spent only a few days in Manokwari, but it was quite an eye-opening experience for us and the locals alike. Our crew, arriving in a big shiny white boat, and anchoring in the bay, was pretty much the equivalent of little green aliens arriving in a spaceship. I'm pretty sure that nearly everyone in this "city" had pretty much never seen a white person before, or maybe just once or twice before. Even the government officials wanted to take pictures with us. Anywhere we went, people stopped what they were doing to have a look at us. It felt very safe there, as everyone was friendly, but no one spoke any English.

The living arrangements we saw were very......rustic. The people may have been poor, but you wouldn't have known it by how many smiles you saw. No one begged us for money, or anything for that matter. We saw many kids playing, and everyone gave us a wave as we went by.

I was concerned that people might try to board the boat at night, but the only people that came close to us were fishermen in dugout outrigger canoes that just wanted to tie up to our stern and fish off the back of the boat because we had our underwater lights on.

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Photos

Beetlenut
A lot of the locals eat these Beetlenuts, and they mix them with crushed up coral. A dentists delight. It makes their teeth all red and they all look like vampires.

Fish Market
The fish market had a lot of variety, was fairly fresh, but no refrigeration.

Fishing Boats
We saw many of these boats at night. It was difficult because they don't use standard navigation lights, but rather these red, white, blue flashing lights that are also used on fishing nets.

Indo Engineering
Big concrete pipes turned into homes.

Curious Kids
The one in the white shirt spoke a little English, surprisingly. The one in the middle nearly tipped the canoe over, so the one in the white picked up a big piece of wood and cracked him on the head. I gave them each a Coke, and a lid to a container that I didn't want. They didn't drink the Cokes, so I think that they probably were planning on trading them for something when they got back to shore.

Rubbish
It was unfortunate, but the waters were highly polluted with trash. The locals just throw their trash straight into the ocean. They've never been told to do otherwise, but the government is now starting to educate the kids about it now.

Comments

[Pauline]

Thanks for sharing. The world is an interesting place how lucky you are to have seen so much of it!