We had plans to visit Raja Ampat from Sorong, but we soon discovered it was a hyped Instagram destination. Instead, we diverted our plans to spend a couple of days in the Maluku Islands, known in the Netherlands as the Molukken. It's hard to grasp the sheer size of the Maluku Islands, we only visited Ambon because the airport is near Ambon City, along with the spice island of Saparua. There are an estimated 1,027 islands in the Maluku, with Ambon being the most developed, yet relatively small. The Dutch conquered Ambon from the Portuguese in 1605.

We had a comfortable yet affordable hotel in the city center of Ambon, a lively city. In 2019, UNESCO officially designated Ambon as a Creative City of Music. We strolled around for a couple of hours, waiting for the night food market to open. During the day, the food market is a bustling street with cars, but in the evening, the road is blocked and dozens of restaurants are set up. Most places serve grilled fish, but you can also find chicken dishes and goat.

At the night market, you select your fish for grilling. A serving of white rice is included, along with two sauces: a regular sambal and a spicy tomato sauce. The spicy sweet and sour tomato sauce, also served in Sorong, pairs perfectly with grilled fish. We also ordered kangkung (water spinach) and sambal peteh. I thought I had tasted the best grilled fish ever in Sorong, only to be convinced again in Ambon that I had discovered the best grilled fish yet. It was truly that good.

Stir-fried kangkung (water spinach) and garlic, chilis and papaya flowers.

Sambal peteh is made by frying cabai merah (long red chilies), cabai rawit (bird's eye chilies), garlic, shallots, and tomatoes. Lime leaves and peteh beans are added for extra flavor. Some recipes also include tempoyak, which is made from fermented durian.

The ferry to Saparua leaves early in the morning, so once again, we didn't have time for nightlife. I had my first and only beer in Indonesia—a giant 620 ml bottle of lukewarm Bintang beer. The bar had live music, but the songs were mostly international classics. It was almost empty, except for a retired Dutchman, originally from Germany, who had just married a much younger woman from Ambon. He approached me and bluntly asked, “Ben je Nederlander?” He guessed correctly. I tried to finish my warm beer and wished I had ordered fresh fruit juice instead. As we left, we high-fived the singer.

I still have to get used to the idea that Indonesians love to pose with about anybody they meet for no particular reason, like a random hotel front desk clerk in our hotel in Ambon. In a way it’s kinda fun, but who is this guy?

Journey to Saparua

To reach Saparua you first have to cross Ambon to reach a small port where the ferry boats to Saparua leave. The Grab taxi ride takes almost an hour, the boat ride takes about the same amount of time.

Upon arriving in Saparua, you immediately sense its rich history. I could almost imagine the sounds of Dutch hemp ropes squeaking under the tension of the wind as the VOC crew gazed at the same emerald green forest when their ship moored at a distance from the coast. In reality, the VOC ships sailed toward the bay, where Fort Duurstede was built in 1691 after Fort Hollandia was destroyed by an earthquake in 1671. The scale of Benteng Duurstede isn’t particularly impressive; initially, only 10 soldiers were housed in the fortress.

On Saparua, there are very few cars, and the minibuses serve as taxis; they can be expensive if you take one without a larger group. The best mode of transport is on the back of a scooter. It’s about 5 kilometers from the port to Saparua village. I soon discovered that my Indonesian eSIM wasn’t working, and just before we boarded the ferry, I noticed that Booking.com didn’t have any listings available. After arriving on Saparua, I found myself basically offline, as the hotel we found didn’t offer Wi-Fi.

Just across the street from our hotel there was a very decent restaurant. I got myself a bakso soup with a giant filled meatball called beranak. We shared some fried tofu and tempe penyet and Nenik got an ayam geprek, which is smashed chicken. Penyet means squeezed, and refers to the light squeezing of the tempe to release its flavours.

Benteng Duurstede

The fortress (Benteng in Indonesian) was extensively renovated in the 1990s. The original buildings inside the fortress remain as foundations. The outer walls have recently been painted white, and somebody cleaned the few remaining cannons during our visit. The entrance fee is based on a donation, and I contributed a little more than usual on behalf of my Dutch ancestors, even though one family line of mine lived in what is now Germany during the time of the VOC. I had to record my name, and in the comment section, I wrote: “a long and difficult history.”

You cannot travel to Saparua without learning the story of Pattimura. For starters, the airport in Ambon is named Pattimura Airport. His real name was Thomas Matulessy, and in 1817, he led a rebellion against Dutch colonial rule. Matulessy’s forces successfully captured Fort Duurstede, resulting in the deaths of Captain Van der Hellen, his wife, their three youngest children, and a garrison of 19 soldiers. Matulessy has been used as a symbol of both Maluku independence and Indonesian nationalism. He was declared a national hero in 1973 by Sukarno, recognised not by his birth name, but under the title Kapitan Pattimura.

In the afternoon, it started to rain, and we sought shelter in the small shop of a Chinese man. I noticed shark fins hanging from the ceiling, and he proudly showcased some of them. They fetch 1.5 million rupiah per kilo, less than 90 euro. The man was the husband of a lady we had met on the ferry, who was active in the church and also a businesswoman—what I would describe in Dutch as a “handige tante.” Earlier, Nenik had mentioned our interest in buying cloves and sago, and before we knew it, the lady claimed she had already purchased a kilo of cloves and two boxes of sago for us. It was hard to back down, even though I had already bought 200 grams of cloves just before. Nenik handed her some money for the cloves and sago. At that point I still assumed we bought sago flower for making papeda.

The next evening, just before we left, the couple appeared at our hotel with two giant boxes filled with sago blocks and a kilo of cloves. I was stunned. How could we carry these boxes all the way to Surabaya? We quickly gave one box to the hotel staff and managed to lug the other box all the way to Surabaya and the village of Durenan.

While we were waiting for the rain to stop, Nenik suddenly followed her nose, disappeared, and returned with a siomay—fish dumplings with vegetables doused in peanut butter sauce. This dish has its origins in China, where it is called shumai. I had eaten it before at a pasar malam in the Netherlands, and I adore the taste.

Nolot

The next day was Sunday. We hired two scooter drivers and headed to Nolot, a predominantly Christian village on the other side of the island. Most villagers were at church, and as we walked around, some services were ending. Churchgoers, dressed for Sunday, filled the streets. One church had a complete brass band playing songs, which reminded me of the Dutch 1993 anthropological film by Johan van der Keuken “Bewogen Koper” (Brass unbound), which explains the global distribution of brass music through colonial military brass bands. The scenario was partly written by anthropologist Rob Boonzajer Flaes, connected to my University of Amsterdam.

Drying sago blocks in Nolot. Little did we know we would end up with two large boxes of this stuff just a day later. The sago is baked in sago ovens, which imparts a smoky flavor to the blocks. After baking, the blocks are dried and then ready for consumption. Roy Ellen and D. Kyle Latinis published a study in 2012 titled "Ceramic Sago Ovens and the History of Regional Trading Patterns in Eastern Indonesia and the Papuan Coast."

In Nolot, Christmas and New Year's wishes are permanently painted on the walls, along with nativity scenes sculpted from concrete. I dubbed Nolot the village where Christmas lasts 365 days a year.

Due to strong low and high tides, the coastline is composed of mangroves.

We made the mistake of relying on an open restaurant for breakfast, but because it was Sunday and Nolot is a really small village, nothing was available. By 12:30 PM, we were quite hungry and decided to drive back to Saparua village. However, just as we were leaving, we passed a lady’s house with a small shop selling rujak buah, also known as rujak manis.

Side note: There are many different rujak recipes in Indonesia; just on Wikipedia, there are more than twenty. For rujak buah, you need a flat cobek, which is how Nenik noticed the shop. I would have driven right past the house without realizing it was a restaurant.

First, you grind some salt and fresh rawit (chili pepper) into a paste. The lady asked me how many rawit I wanted; I requested five, while Nenik and our two scooter drivers opted for just three. Next, you add fried peanuts and continue grinding until you achieve a coarse paste.

The next step is to add palm sugar, and to balance the sweetness, you can also include tamarind paste. However, I didn't see the lady add any tamarind (asem jawa), unless the block of palm sugar was pre-mixed with it. You can also add some trassi (shrimp paste).

Then comes the fruit. Pineapple is very common, and it was also the season for Malay apples (jambu bol). You can basically add any seasonal fruit, and she also had a bowl of pre-cut fruits available.

Mix everything together, and you have the perfect fruit salad.

We spent our last afternoon in Saparua swimming in the sea, fully clothed. Nenik chatted with many children in Bahasa Indonesia, while I managed little more than responding to the question, “Hey Mister! What is your name?” I took the photos below after swimming, but by then, the golden light of the setting sun had faded. It was a magical afternoon, and the children's faces glowed with a copper hue from the sunlight.

We opened the boxes filled with sago blocks to ensure we weren't smuggling drugs, but they contained only sago. Back in the Netherlands, I tried one of the blocks—you're supposed to dip them in coffee or tea, which softens the block, allowing you to eat it like bread. However, it is quite tasteless, and if you didn't grow up eating sago in this form, it really isn't very enjoyable. Nenik gifted some of the sago blocks to a Dutch-Indonesian friend from the Molukken, as they evoke childhood memories for him.

Our last meal in Saparua was a simple nasi goreng and tempeh penyet. Along with pecel, these are among the simplest meals you can find in Indonesia. I could eat this every day!

Benteng Amsterdam

In Ambon, we had four hours to spare before our flight to Surabaya. Having spent my entire adult life in Amsterdam, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit Fort Amsterdam. The blockhouse inside the fortress was built in 1637 by the VOC. Although the fortress was restored in 1991, it has lost much of its historic charm, likely due to the fresh white paint. Next to the fortress is Café Amsterdam, but it appeared completely deserted; I could only find one bar stool.