Bye, Besse
The jeep begins her long sea journey home while I head to North Maluku
In my last post I mentioned that I intended to take the jeep on a car ferry to the ‘Spice Islands’ of North Maluku after exploring northern Sulawesi. The latter part of that is still true — I’ve just landed in Ternate, a small volcanic island that was once home to one of the most powerful sultanates in eastern Indonesia — but Besse the jeep has already begun her long sea journey back to Lombok.
I made this slight tweak to the plan for a couple of reasons. Bitung, the major port in North Sulawesi, is a huge departure point for container ships heading back to the Sunda Islands in the south. I found a solid logistics company in Manado that would take her all the way back to Lombok rather than to Surabaya, as I had expected to do from Ternate. This means I don’t have to pick her up in eastern Java and drive back to Lombok via Bali, a long, two-day journey involving even more ferry rides. Frankly, at this point in the trip I’m tired of car ferries. Short hops between the lesser Sundas are fine — nice, even, sitting out on the upper deck and enjoying the view with a cooling sea breeze — but after so many of them on the expedition I honestly wasn’t looking forward to another overnight, 12+ hour trip between distant islands. And ultimately, I’ve accomplished what I originally intended to do — driving from Lombok to Manado, with the jeep an absolute necessity to explore the remote, fascinating, and little-visited inland areas of the vast island of Sulawesi. So, off she goes, and off I go using the quicker and far more comfortable airborne option.
Over the next two weeks I’ll be exploring Ternate, Morotai, Halmahera and Bacan — among of the most fascinating places in the Indonesian archipelago, for very different reasons. More posts to come — stay tuned.
After so much dreaming and planning you have made it and with a sense of humor intact no less! So very proud of you. H