Indonesia Chapter 2: Moluccu, Toraja and the Pelni trilogy

The Moluccas are a collection of approximately 1000 small but beautiful islands that lie between Sulawesi and Papua and prove to be more difficult to navigate than the Togean Islands. I explored Pulau Ambon and Pulau Saparua in just over a week but would need nearly my whole visa time to really get to know the area. I was hoping to get to the Banda Islands, but that's a story in itself.

I arrived in Ambon on a Monday and there were two options of getting from here to Banda: a reasonably priced flight or a Pelni ship headed from Sulawesi to Timor which stopped briefly in the islands. By now I shouldn't need to explain the problems associated with the schedule (or lack thereof) of the Pelni fleet. The once-a-month boat which was headed that way was, or was not, coming within the week. No body really knew about this. So it seemed the best option to reach the islands was a 16 seat, small, twin-engine airplane which departed only on a Wednesday and a Saturday. The low frequency of flights meant that the Wednesday flight had already been fully booked so I secured myself a seat on the Saturday flight and headed to Pulau Saparua, east of Ambon on a public boat, in the meantime.