Friday 9 August Walking tour

ferry squeezing in next to us

diver Dave

fort with volcano behind

king and queen of the castle

koro koro boat

After our Everest climb (OK perhaps a bit of exaggeration) what better to ease the tired muscles than a gentle walking tour of the town. Andy was our guide and we were a group of eight. You know when a town doesn't have many visitors when the guide has to call ahead to borrow the key to open the museum and fort. In the museum, the former Dutch East Indies manager's house, we saw graphic paintings of the Dutch slaughter of Bandanese people which they did to gain control of the lucrative nutmeg production. Among the items on display was an old brass divers helmet which we were allowed to try on. It was incredibly heavy and not easy to see out of.

From the museum we went around to Portuguese fort, unusual in being a pentagon and not a square. The five sides fit perfectly with the topography for guarding each coast and the hinterland. This is Fort Belgique and it has an escape tunnel down to the harbour which comes out in the earlier Fort Nassau which sits on the waterfront.

The Japanese invaded the islands in 1942 and used the higher Fort Belgique as their HQ until they left in '45. The overwhelming feel of the town is 19^th century colonial and the one storey buildings with balconies still dominate the town. There's a perfect early 19^th century church (lightly used) along the road from the more vocal mosque. An interesting insight into the effect of colonialism mixing with traditional culture and modern religion.

Every road we walk along there are scooters buzzing back and forth. Ramadan finished last night and the following two weeks are equivalent to our Christmas with parties and festivities. Festivities which include a lot of fireworks; somewhat perturbing there are young children with rockets, bangers in one hand and a box of matches in the other. No firework safety code here; if the firework fails to go off it's common to see a child put it to his ear, shake it, perhaps look down the top! We were introduced to a new phrase before we came to Indonesia 'different field, different grasshopper'. It is a different playing field.