25/7 After visited the custom on the harbour we took a walk in the village. First the Christian part and later in the afternoon the Muslim part. We met a man at the church that could speak a little English. He was lucky being employed by the government after studied political science in Jakarta. He was waiting for his nephew coming from school. When the little boy came he took him on his motorcycle. Here in Indonesia scooter and motorbikes are the favorite transportation, we quickly found out. Back on Alexandra Lars find the fault with the generator. It was a relay that had contact problem. We made a lot of water and I could wash clothes. After some badges we made drinking water. We took the dingy in to see the Muslim part with the little mosque.
26/7 Welcome 2 wonderful Indonesia at the “harbour” with many officials from Java, South Mollucca regency, the island and the village. They entertained with music and dance. There were a lot of speeches so it took a long time. We got our first snack box also with water so we survived in the 30+ºC. In the afternoon we went with buses to a fishing village were the people had worked very hard to prepare for our welcome. There were music and dance and long speeches. The women had prepared local food and beverage for us and it was very special. We had to by coupons for 200000IDR- 88.42DKK for buying food on 6 different stands and the 7 were beverage like water or sweet water with jelly. Afterwords you could see the special local instruments and also the special fishing-boats they were using to catch clusters of small fish. We were quite tired when we arrived at Alexandra in the evening.
27/7 With dingy and Randevåg to the harbour 8:30. Nice fried bananas for 5000IDR=2.21 DKK. and picture taken with the local lady’s, one named Maria. We wait for a bus-tour for quite a while. Finally we arrived to a lovely beach and into the water for the first time in Indonesia. Only seagrass but there were fish to look at. We pay for the nice shed to change clothes as the only one, 50000IDR / 22.39DKK.
16:30 we take the dingy to neighbouring island and get it up on the sand. We had a long bus ride to a beautiful beach with big trees that gave shades for the hot sun. There were a lot of speeches, music and dances. “Gala dinner” later in the evening was special with local food made by the women in the village. I was unfortunate hurting my write knee when dancing with an old lady from the village. The old once are amazing, loving music and dance. Lars had too, almost, carry me to the bus because having weight on the knee hurt immensely.
28/7 Debut. Still hurting write leg and knee and also bad stomach. Lars with Randivåg to Langur after sim card.
29/7 Taxi with driver to Tual with Randivåg and Blue Roger. I wanted to see the town I had red about in the wonderful e-book Spice Islands Voyage, in search of Wallace, by Tim Severin. We visited the old city and there an “Arab” mosque, decorated very expensively with marble. We had a stop at a Muslim congregation around a mosque that was very colourful. All the houses around were coloured the same. Finding a restaurant was difficult but finally we came to the hotel we knew from before and got OK food.
