Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
I took this post’s photo 8.07 am on 09 0ctober 2024, as we were preparing to head to the pictured shore – that of Misool Island, one of Raja Ampat’s four “main” islands.
The other 1500+ islands, islets and atolls are all much smaller; most are rainforest-clad.
The waters around them are currently “our” planet’s’ most species-rich; their clarity is oft-astonishing.
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The mostly-uninhabited islands of the Guraici Archipelago offer something rarely found in north easternmost Indonesia: “white” beaches.
At 9.36 am on 06 October 2024 my feet and those of the pictured, very petite hermit crab shared one such, on an also-tiny island.
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Only India, China and the United States are home to more humans than is Indonesia.
The north easternmost islands of the Indonesian archipelago – those east of Sulawesi – are huge in number, but most are small isles and islets…”invisible” on most maps.
Collectively, they account for a miniscule portion of Indonesia’s human population, which now exceeds 283 million.
The islands and waters of North Maluku, Maluku, and Raja Ampat are extraordinarily biodiverse, species-rich, and scenically splendid; this is a region of rainforests, reefs, karsts, astonishing marine life, birds of paradise, incredible cloudscapes…and surprisingly few humans.
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Just south of Ternate, Tidore Island is also just “a dot on the map”, and was likewise “built” by its volcano.
Ternate Island and Tidore Island were once the centres of two rival sultanates.
Tidore’s big volcano – Mt Kie Matubu – dominates this post’s photo, which I took from Ternate’s eastern (Ternate City) shore.
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On Ternate the third afternoon of October 2024 was very wet – a not unusual circumstance on an island where annual average rainfall comfortably exceeds 2,000 mm.
At 3.46 pm the rain was easing, as we stood on the rim of Tolire Lake.
We failed to see any of its resident crocodiles, but the view across the crater lake – and up to Mt Gamalama’s highest peak – was becoming progressively clearer.
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Our first primary destination was the quintessential “spice island”,
In eastern Indonesia’s North Maluku province, Ternate is small in area, but handsomely that province’s most populous island.
Its active volcano – Mt Gamalama, which rises 1,715 metres ASL – has long been Ternate’s key benefactor and destroyer.
The Maluku Islands are also known as “the Moluccas”, or “the Spice Islands”.
In pre-colonial times the Sultanate of Ternate was wealthy and powerful, thanks to it then having a global monopoly over a highly prized commodity.
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I took the photo at 8.54 pm on 04 May 2024.
At that time my vantage point – an entertainment barge – was loud and lively, as the preceding several posts have illustrated.
However, if one looked out across the waters of Dal Lake – and up to the ridge overlooking its southern shore – the scene appeared utterly serene, unruffled, “silent”.
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As this post shows, our Dal Lake entertainment barge’s singer-dancer was a very effective encourager-teacher.
During the course of the evening, most physically-able-enough members of our party were coaxed onto the dance floor.
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By 7.15 pm, as pictured above, the singer and dancer on “our” Dal Lake entertainment barge had already shown us that she was a capable and committed performer.
Relatively speaking, however, she was still in “low gear”…but only for another minute or so.
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By the time it was fully dark outside – and we were well away from inhabited shores – our “party on Dal Lake” had become very exuberant.
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