Makassar has never been kind to us. We visited the largest city of Sulawesi over 25 years ago when it was called Ujung Pandang and it left indelible impressions on us. It has been re-branded but the airport code remains UPG and it is a nice airport. However the city still has some catching up to do with the airport. Some people might take offense to the term "a dump", so let's say that it falls short of what might be called a holiday destination. Flight schedules dictated an overnight stop-over in Makassar.

We avoided falling into any of the lunar-like holes in the pavement and stocked up on local currency in Makassar. Every visit to the ATM can make you a rupiah millionaire; just over 100USD gets you in the club. Some ATM's dispense 50,000 rupiah bills while others offer 100,000 bills which affect the maximum withdrawal amount. Some ATM's don't respond well especially to foreign cards. In all cases, it requires a couple of pulls to reach a daily allowable maximum. So the good news is that despite advances in modern-day banking, getting cash from an Indonesian ATM remains an adventure.

With our pockets bursting with millions of rupiah, we had an appointment with bed bugs at our guesthouse. It was our first such experience in many years of travel. We scratched like dogs for days. We washed all our clothes and seem to have left the bugs behind in Makassar.

Call us chickens, but we avoided three hard days of bus travel by flying to Gorontalo (GTO is the airport code) in Northern Sulawesi. Although we had visited GTO three years earlier, it came as a surprise that a few people remembered us. And we thought that we all "misters" ( see Travel Notes) all looked alike. GTO is a pleasant enough provincial town. It lacks a cuisine culture likely because no one seems to have spare cash; everyone we talked to was complaining about school fees. It was a great place to re-acquaint ourselves with "jam karet" (rubber time). "Ten minutes" seems to mean probably less than an hour. And as time obsessed westerners, we learned how to relax about time. However, sometimes transportation leaves on time, even early; rubber time goes both ways. Hence a "rubber time" corollary is "hurry up and wait".

We took the twice weekly over-night ferry (actually car-ferry, but no vehicles except a couple of motor bikes) from GTO to the Togean Islands. For an extra $3, we traveled Business Class. If the reader is thinking something like Singapore Airlines Business Airlines, you would be heading in the wrong direction. Glenn splurged on a couple of cardboard box sheets (25 cents each!) from a vendor and Sheila nabbed a couple of vinyl mattresses. That combination provided a surprisingly good sleep.

Our first stop in the Togeans was a new operation, called "Sunset Beach". The people were ever so nice, food surprisingly good, the bungalow was comfortable but it lacked good snorkeling so we stayed for only a few days. There was one event that epitomized the Indonesian "can do" attitude, without regard to what may lay ahead. On a windy day, a staff member thoughtfully tied down our hammock using a power line to stop it from wildly flapping about in the wind. Of course, we didn't have any lights in the bungalow that evening when the generator came on, at least until we figured out what had happened and the power line was reconnected.

Next on our itinerary was a week at charming "Poya Lisa" a small locally run resort near Bomba (Togean Islands). Bungalow on the beach, snorkel boat trip each morning, four meals a day, lovely staff & owner, all for IDR 125,000 ($14) per person per day. We still aren't sure why we left but when we arrived at Kadadiri, we were tempted to get back on the boat and return to Poya Lisa.

Paradise Resort on Kadadiri is pretty nice too. The food is good in Paradise and the snorkel trips were excellent too. While in "Paradise", the days seemed to run into each other except for perhaps the day we visited the stinger-less jelly fish lagoon and the day of the sea star (the animal formerly known as star fish). Crown of thorns sea stars are the second largest sea stars in the world and receives its name from it's venomous spines (venomous is a key point here). Outbursts of the crown of thorns have been blamed for reef destruction in many places including large sections of the Great Barrier Reef. They had taken a sudden hold on reef sections near Kadadiri and while were there the Paradise dive instructor organized a snorkel outing for the collection and subsequent destruction of the crown of thorns. During the outing, one of the sea stars slipped from his collection tongs and the venemous spines jabbed the instructor's arm. After much pain, some worrying moments and swelling that lasted several days, the instructor was back to normal.

From the Togean Islands, we traveled by surface to Manado and then air to Ambon, gateway to the Banda Islands

This was our second visit to the Banda Islands. We had pre-arranged air tickets from Ambon to Bandaneira and to meet Leo (Honduras 1998). So, amazingly, we had two people waiting for us at Ambon airport; Leo and a representative with our plane tickets.

The flight to Bandaneira went almost on time and with two and sometimes three flights a week, the Banda Islands looked like they were becoming more accessible. We confirmed our flight out and it all appeared to be too good to be true. Flights ended abruptly at year-end, awaiting contractual negotiations with the central government. We later learned that this service disruption takes place every 6 months.

Bandaneira ( the main town) has changed little since our previous visit three years ago. Fish prices have risen (more international buying of tuna) but it still remains a great place to eat fish. We will be forever jaded after some of the fish dinners, especially at the Mutiara Guesthouse. Please forgive us if you hear one of us say "nice fish, but it wasn't sweet lips emperor".

The wind was up for most of our 2 1/2 weeks stay and that limited our access to mostly sheltered snorkeling locations. Nonetheless, average Banda snorkeling is still fantastic, world-class. We did feel a little cheated as the wind seem to drop off and disappeared altogether as we departed. Leo had a close encounter of the fish kind; a large territorial titan triggerfish attacked him, leaving impressive puncture wounds on his arm.

Due to disrupted air service, we booked passage on the Tatamailau, a crusty Pelni ship back to Ambon. Sheila was in a first class cabin while Glenn was in a second class cabin. Whilst we had some recent experiences of sleeping at 29C (no fans or overnight electricity on Ai), Glenn struggled with sleeping in a stuffy 31C and vowed once again not to take another Pelni ship.

No trip to Ambon is complete without going into the "twilight zone" or underwater world of the harbour. A good muck dive is as rewarding as a crystal clear reef dive - we were not disappointed.

We had enough time for a quick two night trip over to the Lease Islands (Saparua) to catch the market and arrange a day trip to idyllic Molana Island. Then it was onto a couple of flights with Sri Wijaya Airlines to Kalimantan and Leo continued further west to Malaysia.

It was our first visit to Kalimantan and our primary destination was Derawan Island and it's turtles and nearby manta rays. We made a short detour to South Kalimantan because "we were in the area". Banjarmasin is a little less dumpier than many Indonesian cities. After a late night arrival (rubber time on Sri Wijaya), we were advised to start out at 5:00 a.m. for the floating market. We dragged ourselves out of bed at the appointed hour for a motorbike and boat journey only to arrive at the market in the pre-dawn dark, another hurry up and wait. The moderately interesting, smallish floating market did yield an enormous bag of rambutans for a dollar.

We headed north for four hours in a ancient, battered van to the pleasant town of Kandangan and dropped our bags in a hotel. A local "bentor" (3 wheeled motor rickshaw, driver sits in the rear) driver and offered to drive us to and from Nagara. The Nagara area is a massive wetland reminiscent of the Okavango Delta. We chartered a boat to see the swimming buffalo as they returned from the swamp to their pens. The buffalo returned a little later than normal (more rubber time) so that by the time we were on the return drive back to Kandangan, it was well dark. We generally avoid night travel, primarily for safety reasons.

Our cheerful 50-something driver knew the lightly traveled road well. Only one of the small headlights was working at this likely impaired his vision and suddenly the rickshaw flipped over and we all hit hard. The next moment, we picked ourselves up and Glenn knew almost right away he had broken a bone in his shoulder. We went straight across the road to a house, while villagers came on the scene. Glenn's teeth began chattering from cold in the 28C air (shock) even under blankets kindly provided by the house owner. We learnt that our driver was dead (no helmet). Sheila was largely unscathed. The police arrived and they drove us to the small Kandangan hospital (no seat belts). The police chief made an appearance at the hospital. An X-ray indicated that the collarbone was well and truly broken. An ambulance was arranged to bring us to an orthopedic facility a few hours south at Banjarmasin (no safety belts, of course). Our night drew to a close at 4:00 am and we both managed a couple of hours sleep. After a difficult next day, including another police visit, Glenn was discharged wearing a ("figure 8") brace and thankfully no surgery. We said goodbye to the friends we had made in the five-bed hospital room.

Another posse of police tracked us down at our hotel for a longer interview the following morning. At that stage, we were not overly enthusiastic about the local medical system and became slightly paranoid that the police interest might develop into a larger inquiry. We didn't want to spend more time in Banjarmasin, so we set a course for Malaysia. First, it was a soft landing at Tony's and then a couple of weeks in historic and foodie Melaka. Leo even caught up with us again. The shoulder is improving but has some way to go.

FOR THE RECORD

Equatorial Crossings: Six

Indonesia banana index: 22 for one USD.