Motorbikes and ferries (and buses and trams)

Seeing as I've had to turn up unwillingly for work today instead of being halfway to Larantuka by now (I'm joking of course...) I thought I'd post a few more photos of yesterday's harbour activity (there ain't a lot else to take photos of in Maumere except a huge black pig that snuffles through the rubbish but I never seem to have my camera with me when I see it).

Everybody (well, almost everybody) here has a motorbike. Private cars are very much a rarity and most four wheel vehicles are either government owned (easily identifiable as they have red number plates), public transport of one form or another, or commercial vehicles. A traffic jam consists of motorbikes, not cars. In Maumere I can think of at least five places where I could go to buy a new motorbike where a brand new version of my Honda MegaPro 160cc would set me back about Rp19.000.000 or just under €1400 but I can't for the life of me think of one place where I would buy be able to buy a car.

Yesterday at the harbour, there was a shipment of new motorbikes being unloaded, one by one, and being driven off to their new owners.

 

 Meanwhile, elsewhere in the harbour, this ferry was arriving from one of the outlying islands ready to load up and depart again.

And, at another pier, these ferries were completing loading and were about to depart. Note the passenger with the cockerel in his left hand near the back of the boat in the first photo - he leapt aboard just seconds after I took this.

Finally, this one is not from Maumere ! While not wishing in any way to detract from the seriousness of the recent Dublin Bus & Luas accident in Dublin city centre, I was amused to see the advertisement on the side of the bus involved in the accident. (Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it.)

Thanks to Grahame N for pointing this one out to me !

   

Shipping news

This rather fine looking vessel has been anchored outside the harbour on and off for the last few days. I haven't been able to find out anything about her but I suspect that she is home to a large contingent of very conspicuous bule (white) tourists seen roaming the streets the other day.

[Don't forget, if you want to enlarge a photo, just click on it]

The usual harbour activity is more commercial, with daily arrivals and departures of larger ships and much loading (usually of bananas) and unloading (of everything else).

The harbour also serves as a departure point for many small ferries to neighbouring islands – here is one of them being loaded at the jetty, note the goat tethered at the bow ! The cargo includes motorbikes, steel reinforcing rods, drinking water and pretty much anything else you can think of.

I must go down to the seas again...

One of the busiest and most interesting places in any coastal town is the port or harbour – it is here that most of the comings and goings take place and there is generally plenty of activity to sit and watch (and sitting and watching are, of course, themselves important activities in Indonesia). As anyone who knows me will testify, I have a keen interest in sailing, shipping and things nautical in general so the harbour in Maumere has a natural attraction for me and I pay the Rp1,000 entrance fee (about €0.07) most days to see what is going on. In a country of 18,000 islands where air links are relatively expensive, sea transport provides a vital link between the islands and is the means by which most freight and passengers are transported.

Maumere harbour is a busy place with both ferries and freight ships coming and going on a daily basis and is also the centre of activity for fishing and swimming - after school every day, there are lots of young boys leaping into the sea from the jetties and ships and later in the evenings, dozens of people fishing. The harbour also has some of the best restaurants in Maumere (but believe me, it's all relative !) so is also a regular haunt for lunch or dinner.

Flores has plenty of volcanic activity – the most recently active volcano is Mt. Egon, to the east of Maumere. In this rather dusky shot, you can see where the summit of Mt. Egon used to be just in front of the bow of this ship. The light grey coating below the top is the ash from the eruption about a year ago.

Every evening, there are usually half a dozen or so large trucks like this loading up and waiting for sailings later that night.

Most of them arrive at the harbour already fully loaded but there's always room for a few more bananas.

Indonesians love having their picture taken – these two guys spotted me with my camera on the jetty opposite where they were and gestured to me to take their photo.

I duly obliged but it was only after I had taken the photo that I spotted what the guy seated was holding ! (Look at the photo again if you missed it the first time around.) I hopped onto my bike and sped around to the other side of the harbour to where he was sitting and spent some talking to him. He was a policeman from Jakarta on a tour of duty on a police boat with about 20 on board spending a few weeks in the province of NTT. He had just bought this 3 month old sea eagle for about Rp130,000 and appeared to be planning to take it with him when the boat left the following day. The one question I did ask but didn't receive an answer that I could understand was "kenapa ?" (why ?). I have seen some of these sea eagles in the air and they have a wing span of up to 2 metres. This little baby was not yet able to fly and I have no idea what he thought he was going to do with it on a relatively small boat when it starts stretching its wings...

Like I said, harbours are interesting places, you never know what you'll see next !