INDONESIA – MALUKU

INDONESIA – NORTH MALIUKU (Ternate, Tidore, Halmahera)

Day 5 Sun Dec 14
Flight Lion Air, PGK to CGK @17:10-18:30. CGK to Ternate @01:15-10:30 +1

Day 6 Mon Dec 15
THE LAND BELOW THE WIND: SPICE TRADE ROUTE XIII-XVIII AD Tentative WHS:
Pulau Banda, Pulau Ternate, Makassar and Kota Tua.
Spices as luxurious commodities have existed for thousands of years BC. Several manuscripts from the Middle East discuss the use of spices as medicinal ingredients and for religious purposes. Chinese, Middle Eastern, and North African peoples came to the Archipelago to get spices. Europeans originally bought spices from Middle Eastern traders in the Mediterranean Sea. However, with the political turmoil in the Middle East and trade bans, Europeans began to seek a way to the spice-producing islands, which later altered the political map in the Asian region, especially in Southeast Asia.
The archipelago is a blessed land. It is the great home of the world’s biodiversity. About 11% of the world’s plant species are found in the tropical forests of the archipelago. There are more than 30,000 species, some of which are used and known as spices. Because of this, it cannot be denied that the archipelago is the capital of spices which, among other things, gave birth to clove, nutmeg, pepper and sandalwood, the main commodities of world spices, which during their heyday were exchanged for valuable objects.
Early evidence of the archipelago’s role in the trade route came from a Greek astronomer named Claudius Ptolomaeus, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 1st century AD. He wrote a Guide to Geography, an ancient map in which a city named Barus was listed, an ancient port city in Sumatra. This ancient metropolitan name reminds us of an aromatic spice commodity that at that time was very valuable and was always sought after by foreign nations (Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Arabs, Chinese and Indians), namely camphor.
Nutmeg were cloves were important ingredients for medicine, and later for fragrances and flavouring dishes. Their scarcity and difficulty in obtaining them added to their value as a luxury and indicated social status in society. Both are exotic commodities, full of myths and legends about a place far to the east.
The clove and nutmeg-producing islands in Maluku, Amboina and Banda became the direct destinations for traders. Among them, the VOC succeeded in monopolizing those islands by enforcing trade agreements and controlling the territory. After establishing its hegemony over the spice islands, VOC began to apply strict rules in order to maintain trade monopoly and high demand, by centralizing clove cultivation, introducing a new plantation system for nutmeg, building trading posts, and destroying rival ports.
The VOC needed enormous funds to guarantee the availability and quality of spices, and maintain the security of distribution channels. To fulfill this, the VOC used the global stock market for perishable commodities.

TERNATE
Ternate is a volcanic island that was once the world’s single major producer of cloves, a commodity which allowed the Sultanate of Ternate to become one of the most powerful Sultanates in the Malay archipelago. By the end of the 15th century, the people of Ternate had adopted Islam as their official religion, mainly due to the influence from Java.
The first Europeans to arrive in Ternate were the members of a Portuguese expedition led by Francisco Serrão in 1512. The Portuguese were expelled in 1575 after a five-year siege. European power in the region was weak, and Ternate became an expanding, anti-Portuguese Islamic state under the rule of Sultan Babullah and his son.
In 1599, two Dutch ships arrived in Ternate. In 1605, the VOC succeeded in driving the Portuguese from Tenate, and in 1607, the Spanish in 1607.

After arriving, I got a Gojek mototaxi to my hotel and did a walkabout and a Gojek to see the NM sites in town. 
Fort Oranje. Built in 1607 after the Sultan gave permission for the VOC for the spice trade monopoly, it was built on top of an undated Malay Sultan’s fortress in the middle of the city. In 1613, it was the official administration office for the Dutch East Indies Council until it was moved to Batavia in 1619. 
When the VOC went bankrupt in 1799, most of the possessions of the former VOC were occupied by Great Britain, but were restored to the Dutch in 1817.
Fort Oranje is the largest fort on Ternate Island. It is rectangular with four corner bastions, thick walls, a deep moat, and many cannon. Free
Kalamata Fort is a coastal star fort built by the Portuguese in 1540 on the edge of the water. It was restored by the Dutch in 1610. It resembles the four corners of the compass with four pointed bastions. The wooden gates are gone and the walls about 12 feet high. Free
Kastela Fortress and Tolukko Fort were Portuguese, are out of town and basically ruins.
ON Archie 2 Hotel. Average for the price US$18

Day 7 Dec 16
Flight. TTE to AMQ (Ambon). Wings Air @08:30-10:15
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INDONESIA – CENTRAL MALUKU – BURU, SERAM (Ambon)

AMBON
I used a Gojek mototaxi to go to the museum (6 km west) and the cemetery (8 km east) and then back to my hotel. I arranged for him to pick me up in the morning to take me to the airport. 
State Museum Maluku Siwa Lima Ambon. On top of a large hill,  there are two museums here. 1. Siwa Museum. About 20 recreated traditional wedding costumes with a lot of jewelry and brocade. 2. Maluku Museum. Lovely with many indigenous ethnography exhibits: totems, wood carving, archaeology, houses, a loom, cloth, weapons, jewelry, musical instruments (including a series of brass gongs), pottery and a huge elephant tusk that must have come from Africa. 10,000R for both. 
War Cemetery.  A Commonwealth War Cemetery that commemorates British soldiers and officers and men of the Australian forces who have no known grave. Many of those commemorated here died in the defence of Ambonia in the early months of the war against Japan, and others were killed in the Allied assault on Japanese air bases established on Ambonia and Celebes. A large number perished in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps.
There are 694 members of the Gull Force entered here. It is built on the site of the Gull Force Barracks and the site of the Japanese POW camp. Graves were from the HMS Exeter (she was a heavy cruiser built for the Royal Navy during the late 1920s. When World War II began, she patrolled South American waters against German commerce raiders. In 1941, she was in the Far East assigned to escorting convoys to and from Singapore during the Malayan Campaign, and after 1942, she took on a more active role in the defence of the Dutch East Indies. The culmination of this was her engagement in the Battle of the Java Sea, but she was crippled early, and two days later, she attempted to escape approaching Japanese forces, but was intercepted and sunk in the Second Battle of the Java Sea. Most of her crewmen survived the sinking and were rescued by the Japanese. About a quarter of them died during Japanese captivity), many British infantry (dated 1942) and 300 “An Australian Soldier 1939-45 Known only Unto God”. The park is lovely with immaculate large swathes of grass, big trees and flower beds. The Dark Side
Fort Amsterdam is on the north side of the island and was not visited.
ON Pacific Hotel. US$17. A lovely hotel with a nice patio with a pool.

Day 8 Wed Dec 17
Flights. Lion Air, AMQ to Makassar (UPG) @13:55-14:15. 4’35’ layover.
UPG to Bali @ 18:50-20:10. This flight was delayed three times: from 18:50 to 20:00 to 21:50, and then was 30 minutes late. It didn’t matter with my long 24-hour. I probably wasn’t allowed to check in until 3 hours before my 20:10 flight, but I spent a pleasant day at a Starbucks and a Burger King on landside. My initial goal was to use all the free lounge passes I have accumulated.
Thur Dec 18. Scoot Air. Bali to Singapore (SIN) @20:10-22:40 3′ layover. On checkin at the Scoot counter, I was required to have an exit ticket from the Philippines. This was not required on the Philippines travel registration card and I doubt will be asked for at immigration in the Philippines. I bought a fake ticket on Onward Tickets.com for US$16.
Fri Dec 19. Scoot Air. SIN to Davao, Philippines (DVO) @01:40-05:30
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GO TO INDONESIA, MANDANAO

INDONESIA – SOUTH MALUKU – Aru, Tanimbar, Wetar
I didn’t go here as there was nothing to see.