Maluku Moluccas – World Travel

Pulau Ambon Maluku Moluccas Indonesia Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:01:37 +0000

Manageably small yet offering plenty of contrasts, Maluku’s most prominent island is lush and gently mountainous, indented with two great hoops of bay. Close to Kota Ambon, the main town, villages merge into a long suburban ribbon but further out light sparkles brilliantly through alluring flower gardens and swaying tropical foliage. Religiously divided, the island was the epicentre of the 1999–2002 troubles. But recovery has been amazingly swift. Don’t be fooled by old reports of dangers or civil unrest: Ambon is back in business and is now the ideal hub for visiting some of Indonesia’s most delightful yet utterly undiscovered gems: the Lease, Banda and Kei Islands.

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Maluku Moluccas Indonesia Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:01:05 +0000

Formerly known as ‘the Moluccas’, these petite little morsels of paradise are a dream-come-true for seekers of superb snorkelling and picture-perfect white-sand beaches. Protected from mass tourism by distance and a (now outdated) reputation for civil unrest, this is one corner of the world where dreamy desert islands remain remarkably hospitable and inexpensive. In Maluku everything still moves delightfully slowly, except perhaps the lilting sound of Poco Poco, the home-grown answer to line dancing. With rustic but acceptable facilities and not another tourist for miles, this is somewhere to wind down a few gears, to learn Bahasa Indonesia and to revel in a tropical discovery that seems almost too good to be true.

Maluku also offers a thrill for history buffs. The Moluccas were the original ‘Spice Islands’. Indian, Chinese, Arab and, later, European adventurers all came here in search of cloves and nutmeg. Until the 16th century such spices were worth their weight in gold and grew nowhere else. Thus in Maluku money literally ‘grew on trees’. Today it’s incredible to reflect that the search for this wealth began the whole process of European colonialism.

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Kota Ternate Maluku Moluccas Indonesia Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:01:13 +0000

Clinging to the volcanic cone of dramatic Gamalama, Kota Ternate offers some lovely glimpses of neighbouring islands but is mainly useful as a base for exploring North Maluku. There are a couple of partly restored forts and a palace to visit. For now most other architecture looks rather drab and haphazard, spiced painfully in some suburbs by occasional ruins of churches gutted in 1999. However a massive land-reclamation and building programme seems set to transform the city over coming years. Several fine new mosques are already under construction.

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Kota Ambon Maluku Moluccas Indonesia Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:01:14 +0000

By the region’s dreamy tropical standards, Maluku’s capital is a dusty, throbbing metropolis. But compared to ‘real’ cities elsewhere, Kota Ambon retains a languid charm emphasised by a perfect arc of bay and its lushly mountainous backdrop. Sights are minimal and architecture wins no prizes but the scars of the 1999–2002 civil war are quickly healing and the town has regained its role as the regional transport hub.

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Pulau Ternate And Tidore Maluku Moluccas Indonesia Travel

WorldTravelDB.com — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:01:42 +0000

A string of perfect volcanic cone islands lurk off the western coast of crazy-K shaped Pulau Halmahera. Of these, Pulau Ternate and its neighbour Pulau Tidore are the most populous, visually dramatic and historically significant. Both islands are ancient Islamic sultanates with a long history of bitter rivalry. As the world’s only major producers of a globally important product (cloves), their sultans became the most powerful rulers in the medieval Indies, wasting much of their wealth fighting each other. At certain times both sultans could claim nominal influence that spread as far afield as Ambon, Sulawesi and Papua.

In 1511 the Portuguese were the first Europeans to settle in Ternate. Tidore’s then ruler quickly responded by inviting in the Spaniards. Both sultans found their hospitality rapidly exhausted as the Europeans tried to dominate the islands, corner the spice market and preach Christianity. Ternate’s Muslim population, already offended by the European’s imported pigs and heavy-handed ‘justice’, were driven to rebel when Sultan Hairun (Khairun) was executed and his head exhibited on a pike in February 1570. The besieged Portuguese held out in their castle till 1575 when the new Ternatean sultan took it over as his palace. Five years later he entertained the English pirate-adventurer Francis Drake. After an amicable meeting, Drake astounded his host by his almost total disinterest in buying cloves. In fact, Drake’s ship Golden Hind was so full of stolen Spanish-American gold that he simply couldn’t carry any cloves.

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