Today is the first day that we've ever stepped on Indonesian soil!
Just landed on a three-mile long stretch of white sand beach, and at the very far
corner (we're heading now to Padang Malang) it's a little village here.
We came into this Bay yesterday the first thing we saw were guys in little
canoes, and they were just fishing out in the bay there but I was fascinated by
the fact these guys could paddle very quickly so they're not dugouts there we
get a close-up of one just behind me it's made of a light wood and where it's
joined it's glued and stitched together .
So just left the village on the beach which was beautifully kept neat and
pretty coloured little houses. Lots of places to have coffees and so forth. We're just
walking inland along this road and there's another village or it might be
an extension of the same village... gonna find out.
Well I've heard of people watering their plants but have you ever heard of a man
watering his cock? Because that's what this guy behind me is doing.
I haven't checked out the outside of the village, this is the farmyard area, which
is very pretty. We're now walking through the village
proper, and you might just be able to see behind me a rather
large house and in fact there's three very new what I'd say pretty big houses
so there's obviously a bit of money being made around here from something
not sure what it is. We've seen a couple of big bird houses over in the hills
there but curious to know where the money is coming from because it's not
going to be from tourism.
So we just followed our noses, found a whole line of mopeds and scooters, and
kids in uniforms, and it turns out we've just found the local school. And the
guard at the front gate has said we can stick our noses around and have a quick look...
What is your name? [My name is Majuki, how are you?] You're a teacher? Or student? [Yes yes.]
Majuki can you show us? This is your classroom? [Yes, is what I say...]
Teacher. Your teacher!
What is your name? [Linga!] Hello Linga! Hello!
[Where you come from?] From England. [Wow, so far!] Yeah, long way. We came on our boat.
Out in the bay, in the water. Your English is very good! Thank you!
Fascinating walking around this little school, and surprised actually although I
don't see why I should be so surprised but some of these guys speak very good
English. And also, as Liz pointed out, it's a mixed school as well which is nice to
see. All very friendly
Today we have hired a scooter and we've already been on a local journey
towards what's going to be a new airport, which probably says quite a lot about
the future development plans for this island. And after the airport are a whole
load of quarries, old quarries that are now
disused with a network of very muddy compact roads which were taking us sort
of further and further northeast into the island. We were going
nowhere fast so we've turned round. The airport's just over there and this is
the bay that we're anchored on and we're sort of over on the other side. But I
just had to stop and show you this classic tropical vista. Look at it, it's
beautiful.
Very windy morning here. We're now on the west side in the northern part of the
island and over my left shoulder is the town of Letung. This is the biggest town
in the area and like a lot of these little towns and villages most of it is
built on stilts. So the houses are either on wooden platforms or concrete
platforms because, of course, the contour of the surrounding countryside is very
steep, so they've made use of the reefs, the shallow waters up against the shore
and built on top of those. We're actually on a little island which it appears as
if it's the official ferry terminal so we've just been through the village and
we're just taking a little view of it from this side and then we'll go back
into the village, find somewhere to have a nice cup of coffee, and go and check
out some of those stilted buildings.
As you can see by the light, it's coming up to midday now. It's getting quite hot,
and we've ducked down into one of these concrete elevated roads and then off the
concrete roads are the smaller wooden jetties. So we're just gonna have a coffee
first. We've come around the street corner and the first place we stumbled across
was a local shop, and he's selling something for you gentlemen out there.
Who may be suffering from certain medical conditions that happen
when you reach a certain age and he showed us a tray of what we think are
sea cucumbers and all he had to say about it was "hormone! hormone!". So it's
obviously good for men of a certain age who are wishing to relive their youth
should we say.
OK, seems Liz as if has made some new friends. Who do we have
here? This is Wilya? Yes, she's learning English in school and these are Wilya's
friends, but I don't know their names. [This is Eni] Hello, Eni. [This is Putri]
Hello Putri, nice to meet you. [This is Dini] Hello, Dini.
We are sitting here having coffee with our new friends, and I have a little app here which teaches us basic
Bahasa Indonesian. So "... ..." That
means I'm pleased to meet you. OK "Nama saya" Jaime. and I'm
then going to ask... "... ..."
Wilya, I asked her what her name was, it's Wilya. So, we are trying!
["Name is Dini."] Oooh very good, in English.
I'm with this young lady here. And it's difficult because I don't speak Indonesian, but we've managed to
establish that Liz and I live on a "Cabble? Kappa? Kappal?" which is a boat. and
And we've just explained we're on the other side of the bay I'm not sure who this
lady is she lives in the big orange... this is your house? You? Ahh, so she was obviously
trespassing in the house over there and she actually lives round here. ["Makawan" Makaway maybe her friend?
I need to look this one up.
So, as you can see, we are being guided by our new friends
through this intricate network of raised platforms. The walkways appear to just be
on wooden stakes, whereas the bigger houses are on concrete piles. And really
it's just a network of lots of houses occasionally you'll get a little shop, we
just went past one that sells bananas. The water depth is probably only a
meter and in that water you can see lots of cables running through presumably
providing electricity and water to all these separate little houses. And of
course the community like this invariably everyone knows each other
because your very close-knit. Having said that, each house looks very airy and
spacious, and it's got a really nice atmosphere to it.
We're at the town centre now, we've just hooked up with two yachties who we
met last night at a restaurant bumped into them in town and they're
with a local guide here, kind of like an official guide, but very nice young man
and he's just brought us to this restaurant. He said lots of food, so
it sounds like one of these restaurants that has many many plates. We've
already seen the fish, and it's looking rather tasty. Kind of appropriate
that we should be eating fish, since we are on one of these stilted platforms
Right behind me we've got the open sea and the docks just here, and the fishing
boats tied up.
OK, so I was too busy stuffing my face to show you the nicely
presented plate of "saton". "Saton" is squid. This squid dish I've never had
anything like it before. Garlicky, and a little bit of a kick, nice
oil, but what makes it particularly interesting are the beans. And this I
have to say possibly one of the best squid dishes I've ever had. I don't
know how they cook it, but there's something about the texture of this
squid that's just particularly good. It's solid, and yet it's creamy.
It's kind of stuffed I think, some of it boiled, and some of the things they put in the oil.
the oil stuffed into the squid. Dunno how else
to describe it. But it's good.
This is a little interview. These students are looking at the economic
impact of tourism. So we're just answering some questions. It's all in Indonesian
though, so she's translating for us... ["How many times you come to Indonesia?"] First time, first time!
["What is your motivation?"] Tourism... and photography!