Ternate - Moluccas - Indonesia

After I had a pleasant and enjoyable layover in Abu Dhabi, I landed once again in Jakarta after a very comfortable 8-hour flight. It's a crazy city, and I won't rewrite it again here, as I've already done so in my reports from 2018.

I immediately focused on my onward journey. This time, I chose the legendary Spice Islands, or more specifically, the Moluccas. So, two days later, I took a night flight with a short changeover in Makassar, Sulawesi.

At some point, the first rays of the sun emerged on the horizon, dispelling what felt like a very short night due to our time travel.

And soon, the first tiny islands appeared beneath us, and shortly after, we landed on the runway of 'Sultan Babullah Airport' in Ternate.

After a brief taxi ride, I stood in front of the door at Aty's place with her mother and her 'Kurnia Homestay'. I was warmly welcomed and soon settled into my non-air-conditioned room with an Indonesian shower, basically a water barrel.

In the afternoon, I walked about 5 km through the traffic-congested city of Ternate to 'Kalamata Fort'. Not much remains there, but you can easily imagine its former scale.

For the next two days, I explored the island with my rented motorbike. The first challenge here was the traffic in the city. A constant chaos of cars and even more motorbikes, which, and this is typical for Indonesia in my opinion, drove quite leisurely, yet always seemed to appear from every direction. From the right, from the left, from behind – every gap gets immediately filled. And forget about standing at an intersection for a moment to think; you'll lose your chance. No, you always go where you want to go. You adapt. However, once you've passed the city limits, you drive mostly alone for the remaining 30 km while circumnavigating the tropical island.

And when you have been greeted with a 'Hello Mister' for what feels like the hundredth time, you eventually don't know anymore whether it's still cool or already testing a tourist's nerves.

In the middle, the probably most active volcano in Indonesia, 'Gamalama', towers at a height of 1715 m. This volcano can also be climbed, which I considered, but the temperatures deterred me.

There was actually the possibility to cross over to Halmahera or first to Tidore. Since decision-making turned out to be difficult, I discarded the idea and booked a flight towards the south of the Moluccas.

Historically, it was first the Portuguese who came here in 1512, followed by the Spaniards and then the Dutch, who wanted to create an important monopoly through the trade of the locally grown clove spices.