The Last Soldier
In parts of Halmahera, they remember Teruo Nakamura as the good Japanese. You know. The one who didn’t rape and kill and pillage. Didn’t enslave...
Tagged: Travel
Nine Things NOT to Pack for Your RTW
1: Luggage Locks Worried about valuables being nicked while you sleep? Why not stick a small metal sign on your pack saying: “Expensive stuff in...
That Rockstar Feeling
We saw some amazing things from the roof of the slow boat the other day. Flying fish. Not just the big, silvery ones, threading running...
King of the District: Part 2
Governor Hein’s clove cigarette fizzes hypnotically, dipped in the incense, and from the utter darkness the ancestral Moro talks the Tobelo language in an old,...
The King of the District: Part 1
Governor Hein’s people pick us up early. 9.30pm, not 10. It’s a big, slick, maroon people-carrier, a Toyota, I think, not quite as pristine as...
Like Jane Austen But Not: The Single Gal's Guide to Travelling Asia
1: Avoid Spaghetti Straps Shoulders are an erogenous zone in many cultures. Particularly shy ones. In South-East Asia, nothing, and I do mean nothing, says...
In Which We Dive an Undersea Volcano
Indonesia is not, let us say, short on dive sites. And, when you can snorkel with giant manta rays, turtles and jellyfish defanged by evolution...
The Adventure Island You’ve Never Heard Of: Morotai
Ever heard of Morotai? Nope? You’re not alone. But, when it comes to desert island bliss, this smallish island off northern Halmahera in Indonesia’s Spice...
A Country Wedding
In the dirt yard, by the communal sleeping platform her family have built outside their wooden home, Biasri, eighteen years old and five months gone,...
One Man and His Dog: Death of a Serial Killer
It happened during the second gold rush they had, here in Eastern Halmahera, in Indonesia’s Wild East, back in the 90s. When parties of twenty...