Hunting Beatles in Hamburg

Star Club Memorial, Große Freiheit 39

It’s the 50th anniversary of the Beatles seminal gig at the fabled Starr Club in Hamburg, which was the seminal point during a two-year run Germany’s second-largest city that transformed them from a bunch of lads from England into superstars. Looking for traces of their Hamburg legacy, I found a few addresses with links to the boys. Mostly, though, I found sun-faded dildos.

The Star Club is most closely associated with the Beatles in Hamburg but it’s long gone. There’s only this sad plaque [above] on the shabby apartment complex that replaced the 2000-seat venue after it burnt down in 1987. However the Beatles didn’t play the Star until it opened on 13 April 1962 by which time they were well on their way to fame and fortune. Their Hamburg gigs began in August 1960, when John, Paul and George plus bass player Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best arrived from England in a busted up old van and began their transformation into sensations.

Indra Club, 64 Grosse Freiheit

The first gigs were in the small Indra Club, which actually survives and once again has live music some nights. They were paid next-to-nothing and played at least four sets a day for what must have seemed eight days a week. Their quarters were an unheated room at a nearby movie theatre (now an apartment house) where they were awakened each day by the sounds of budget-matinee-attending housewives pissing in the adjoining toilets.

Kaiserkeller, Grosse Freiheit 36

In October 1960, the Indra was closed due to noise complaints (I lived in Germany, Germans hate noise.) The boys moved just up the block to the Kaiserkeller, a basement venue of a larger theatre. This place also survives, although in much-altered form.

Gretel & Alfons, Grosse Freiheit 29

As you wander about the Grosse Freiheit, the short and straight road that was the center of the Beatles time in Hamburg, you realize just how small their world was: their venues and scuzzy rooms were all within a few hundred meters of each other. Their favourite cafe and bar durimg their few off-hours, the barely changed Gretel & Alfons, was almost next to the Star Club.

Former Top 10 Club, Reeperbahn 136

In late October 1960, the Beatles broke with their promoter at the Kaiserkeller and went for slightly more money and marginally better living quarters at the Top Ten Club just around the corner. Things quickly fell apart as the old promoter reported George Harrison to immigration authorities (he was 17) and McCartney and Best retaliated by setting fire to a condom in their old daggy living quarters. This added “attempted arson” to their legal woes and the boys went back to Liverpool. The Top 10 Club building survives but has had many incarnations over the years, most recently a now-closed gay disco.

How much for that ducky - or dildo - in the window?

Unlike the early 1960s, the infamous Reeperbahn, the main drag of Hamburg’s renowned St Pauli district, is no longer an edgy strip of cutting edge clubs and bars. Today neon-bedecked strip joints and live sex clubs are as common as bars with shot specials aimed at tourists and weekend warriors from nearby farm towns. Even the goods in the plethora of sex shops look deflated. You won’t find the Beatles of today playing anywhere here. On weekends, prostitutes with so much makeup that they look like grotesquely animated blow-up dolls prowl the streets, chatting with the mobs of cops.

Where the Grosse Freiheit meets the Reeperbahn, the city has created “Beatlesplatz,” a desolate open-space with the outlines of the Beatles formed from stainless steel. You can decide if the drummer is Best or Ringo Starr (who had replaced Best for a Starr Club appearance in November 1962). By 1963, the Beatles were gone from Hamburg. John Lennon later said: “I might have been born in Liverpool – but I grew up in Hamburg.”

Why I Hate Brussels-Midi

Bad food, bad shops and plenty of filth,
Brussels-Midi – a vital transfer hub – is vying to be the worst major train station in the EU. My experiences today follow (and were not helped by Eurostar shambles…).

Want some classic Belgian frites, slathered in mayo and really the best in the world? No! Want some horrible undercooked pizza from awful NYC chain Sbarro? Yes!

Want some delicious Belgian pastries or other local specialty? No! Want a grotty sandwich from US chain Subway, whose outlets have the same vomit-like smell worldwide? Yes!

Want a nice little box of classic Brussels bon-bons (arguably world’s best) to slip into your petit baggage? No! Want an overly large and over-priced family-size box or truffles? Yes! (The station shops had a, er, sweet little box of tasty Neuhaus pralines but they were polywrapped in threes.

Having found nothing to eat or buy at Brussels-Midi, I went to check in for my Eurostar train to London. Recalling my first trip to Russia, it only took 70 minutes. I enjoyed four queues: 1) only one gate open for ticket check, 2) Belgian cop who demanded and then ignored my proffered passport, 3) UK border cop check, who said they were running an Olympics test and scrutinized every passport as if it held the clue to next week’s Lotto numbers, 4) airline-style security to make certain I don’t high jack the train in Calais and demand we take the tracks to Cuba.

Okay, so I finally escaped the appropriately acronymed BM and write this on my iPhone using the WordPress app while zipping west on Eurostar. We’re only 30 minutes late… Bon voyage!

Jeffrey Zaslow’s 1986 Article I’ve Never Forgotten

[Jeffrey Zaslow died in a car crash in Michigan on Friday, 10 Feb at age 53.]

I moved to Chicago in 1983 and lived on what was then the frontlines of gentrification in Lincoln Park. I used to see this homeless guy on the same block of Clark St regularly; as I’d cruise past on the bus I’d see irritated yuppies angling past him, their expressions making it plain that he and his bags of stuff and his inescapable smell were not welcome.

One day he disappeared and I wondered what had happened to him. Not enough mind you to actually do anything substantive or helpful, but I wondered none-the-less. Then I saw this feature in the Wall Street Journal on December 1, 1986 written by Jeffrey Zaslow 9see link below). It explained that the homeless guy was named Jim and that he’d been set on fire mysteriously one night. At the time I was greatly moved by the article and called Zaslow to tell him how much I appreciated it. He was rather flustered with the praise and we didn’t talk long.

But I’ve always remembered that story and the way Zaslow reported and wrote it – just last month I was telling somebody about it. The end is haunting and has stuck with me since; often I ask myself if I would actually help someone in need or simply not see them at all.

• Jeffrey Zaslow’s feature on Jim in a pdf archive
• If you’re interested in the full story on Jim, Grant Pick did a fine article on his life for The Reader

Finding a Cheap Last-Minute Room

I needed a cheap room in Chicago. At the very last moment I discovered I only needed 2102 miles to reach the 150K milestone with United Airlines, which brings a trove of free upgrades and other goodies. My faulty tracking had shown I’d be more than 10K miles short of this level so I obviously missed some bonuses or something. Anyway, on 28 December I planned a quick mileage run round-trip Portland to Chicago which would net me 3484 miles, more than enough for the 150K bonanza.

Credits from United which got me a good fare and I was upgraded to first class on my cheapo last-minute ticket. Although as you can see below, the food is hardly first class, more like Satanic Arby’s (faux turkey product, yuck) – it’s really just the extra large seat that matters.

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Flights arranged, I needed a last-minute cheapo room in Chicago. I compared newcomer Hotel Tonight against old standby Hotwire. Booking the day of my trip (at Portland’s airport), time and monetary savings were essential.

First up, Hotel Tonight. Their hype is that hotels dump unsold rooms at the very last minute, letting you enjoy huge savings. In fact you don’t have access to any rooms that night until noon local time. I was intrigued and installed the app on my iPhone. (Although Hotel Tonight has a website, you have to use the iPhone or Android apps to book.)

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Registration was easy, more importantly, the web is awash in Hotel Tonight promo codes, so I had a $25 credit before I’d done a thing.

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Hotel Tonight sussed out my location – Portland – during the login (and their promo copy suggests that they’re your best friend for a boozy one-night stand). But I needed Chicago; at 12:05 pm Chicago time they had a mere three choices for me that night (despite my prefs stating NOT O’Hare I was given a shot at an airport hotel). On a night with no conventions in town, getting only three choices was pitiful, even if the prices (eg $119 for the Hard Rock) were not bad.

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I switched to old friend Hotwire, which I have been using for cheap last-minute hotel stays for years. The caveat with Hotwire is that you don’t know the name of the hotel you are buying until after you’ve bought it. Vague neighborhood details and even cloudier hotel details mean that there’s a lot of random factors involved. Still if you can live within these constraints, you can save huge. (Read all my tips on booking a hotel room here.)

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Hotwire uses a mobile web interface instead of an app, but functionality is fine: put in your basic details and see what you get. Chicago-area hotels had plenty of rooms given I got back dozens and dozens of results.

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I gave up hitting “Show 12 more results…” after five clicks.

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Obviously I needed to narrow down the results given the limited charms of suburbs like Oak Lawn and Lisle. One huge annoyance of Hotwire’s mobile web interface is that there’s no “uncheck all” button which means individually saying adieu to Itasca, Burr Ridge and other distant hotspots. Oh “O’Hare Intl Airport ORD South,” the memories we’ll never have.

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My choices narrowed to a broad swath of the city from the Loop north, Hotwire still had scads of choices. Of course one of the compromises is not knowing the exact location where you’ll stay, as you can see from the vast blob that comprises “North Michigan Avenue – Water Tower – Gold Coast.” (Note that in some Hotwire cities, the geographic designations are so vast that about all you can count is being in the same region.)

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Even narrowing down my choices, I still get a huge range of places to choose from. A three-star place for $56, another for $72 plus a two-star for $78. Despite any real definition, more stars are usually better, even if you don’t really know what they mean. I’m trying to go cheap, so there’s no reason to go past the first three screens. I’m actually not too excited by staying in the Loop (dullsville at night and I’ll just have that much further to travel to see friends) or in a “Magnificent Mile Area – Streeterville area hotel” as you can either end up almost in the Loop or out in the desert of high-rise condos and apartments by the lake. And based on past experience, the two-star place in Lake View – Lincoln Park – Wrigleyville is usually the City Suites Hotel on Belmont where the cheap Hotwire rooms butt up against the all-night cacophony of the El.

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Given all the variables, I’m thinking the four-star hotel for $71 is calling out to me; I’ll bite.

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Just like the airlines, added fees and taxes turn that $71 into almost $88, not bad and it’s only taken five minutes. After a couple of screens confirming payment details, I await my mystery hotel to be revealed…

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And the results! The Whitehall, a long-running modest but nice hotel off Rush St on the Gold Coast. (A side historic note, when Rupert Murdoch bought – and nearly destroyed – the Chicago Sun-Times in 1984, he forever branded his new hack publisher as a toady by ordering him in front of the staff to “take my bags to the Whitehall.”)

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Less than two hours after landing at O’Hare, I was in room 1010, watching Notre Dame once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in their bowl game against Florida St. With my bargain rate I couldn’t hope for a view beyond my non-view, which would be ideal for reticent exhibitionists. But no complaints, the price was good for my 20 hours in town and I had a delightful night out on the Gold Coast.

Bangkok: Water Water Not Quite Everywhere

Thailand is awash in record flooding. Like a wine stain on a tablecloth, the high waters are slowly oozing across the flatlands of the south and eventually will flow into the sea. But in the meantime there’s been much hype around the threat to Bangkok. Reports of floodwaters around the capital has caused tourism to crash as people cancel trips or go directly to unaffected regions such as Phuket.

In reality, central Bangkok has managed to avoid the worst of the water, leaving people in outlying areas to deal with being inundated for weeks on end. Emergency levees have been built surrounding the city’s core which have spared the parts most visitors see albeit at a high cost to the those on the flood side of the barriers.

I visited Bangkok in late November and found the main parts of the city dry and functioning but weirdly empty of tourists. Here’s what I found.

Flying in we passed over the regions northwest of the city. [above] The land – farms, industrial areas, housing estates were covered with water as far as you could see. Bangkok’s second airport, Don Muang, [below] was completely inundated. This has caused some domestic flights to be cancelled.

The main airport, Suvarnabhumi (BKK), was wide open and – possibly thanks to the dip in visitor numbers – I was through immigration and customs in record time and was soon literally speeding my way into Bangkok on the new non-stop airport express train. [above] Built on elevated tracks, the trains (www.bangkokairporttrain.com) are free from flood worries. Originally the express trains ran to a city air terminal that didn’t link well with anything else. Now, however, some bureaucrat somewhere got smart and you can hop a train non-stop to Phaya Thai station where it’s an easy (yes, easy!) connection to the essential Sky Train network (also not flood-effected). For anyone who remembers the endless hassles with Bangkok’s predatory/rapacious airport cabbies, being able to whizz into town [below] in 17 minutes for 30 baht (US$3) is miraculous.

I stayed in Sukumvit, the commercial heart of Bangkok. Shopkeepers have hurriedly built flood walls in front of their shops (with sandbag steps) should the waters rise, although flooding has yet to happen here. [above] The name Sukumvit has always been leeringly appropriate given that every other white guy you see is with a young Thai woman. But flood fears have numbers down and the ubiquitous sidewalk vendors of sun-damaged dildos and laughably fake boxes of “Viagra” [below] are scratching for business.

Shopping malls and hotels were virtual ghost towns; the Royal Orchid Sheraton on the Chao Phraya River which normally would be buzzing with tour groups and travellers was deserted. Still, Bangkok’s hellacious traffic [above] remains just that.

One of my favourite Bangkok activities is travelling by public boat along the river. [above] Usually a bulging mix of locals, monks and tourists, the boats are still running despite the high water but with many fewer passengers. I was able to snag a seat on the half-empty boat. [below]

The river keeps topping the banks, so wooden walkways – ala Venice – provide access to the ferry stops [above] which in turn are protected by sandbags. [below]

The floods disrupted train services around Thailand but everything is running again from Bangkok. [above] The budget traveller special, the 15-hour slow train to Chiang Mai ($9) [below] is running again and offering non-AC adventure for locals and backpackers. [bottom]

 

Chased by an Elephant, Seduced by a Leopard

And then the elephant charged. I was only 15 minutes into a morning safari in South Africa when we found this lone bull grazing for breakfast. A comparatively cold winter morning, this fellow ignored us while he wandered under the dull grey skies looking for something green amidst the leafless trees and brown seasonal growth. Or maybe he just wanted some coffee – I know I did as it was about 6:45am – because his mood turned ornery as he decided he’d heard enough camera snaps and suddenly ran at us, his seemingly ponderous bulk moving astonishingly quick. Fortunately our collective silent scream “Toyota don’t fail me now!” worked and we zoomed away.

Safari vehicles – besides having useful acceleration – are open-topped with stadium style seating for six or more. Ours was driven by Chris, who has lived his entire life amongst the animals of eastern South Africa in and near Kruger National Park. His knowledge is encyclopedic, his acceleration skills unflinching. The spotter from his perch sees rhinos where others see dead grass and barren shrubs. Here a waterbuck darts across our path.

Waterholes are great places to spot game, who emerge from the bush for a drink with the sort of furtive caution you’d use passing dark alleys in a tough neighborhood; you never know who you’ll run into. This one seemed empty, but their was an almost oppressive sense that eyes were watching and waiting from the bush.

We ran into a whole family of elephants, who, unlike their ill-humored bachelor peer, actually seemed to welcome our interruption to their ceaseless eating of dry grass. This little guy, about two months old, came right over for a look. Okay, anthropomorphism blabber aside, he was awfully cute and I wanted to hop out of the Toyota and give him a pat on his dear little hairy head and have a full-on Dumbo-moment. Then again, his nearby family of watchful females – some larger than the guy who chased us – helped dissuade me from having a Darwin Award moment.

A tedious cliché of safaris is the endless hype around the “Big Five.” Tourists, businesses and ads spout this phrase that refers to elephants, black rhinos, lions, leopards and cape buffalos. But what about perennial faves like giraffes, zebras and hippos? Turns out that “big five” was coined by white hunters who claimed that the animals were the ones most dangerous to a man with a gun hunting on foot. Besides serving as verbal viagra, the phrase obfuscated more mundane details about our hero’s bravery like the dozens of locals serving as bearers, cooks, spotters and more; tents filled with crates of whiskey, cigars and tins of paté; and a mansion at home with a waiting wall where the stuffed head of an African animal which hadn’t yet developed an evolutionary solution to high-velocity chunks of lead (beyond goring, stomping and/or eating the hunter) could be mounted. Still, there’s no denying the sheer menacing presence of the cape buffalo above.

Baleful as the cape buffalo may normally look, we spotted this blissed out fellow enjoying the ministrations of the appropriately named red-billed oxpecker. Although the bird’s taste for ticks might seem like an obvious benefit for the larger animal, in reality the feathered friend is about as beneficial as a heroin dealer. Sure the oxpecker removes irksome ticks but in the process it leaves a little wound which attracts more ticks; the more relief the buffalo gets, the more it wants.

Food. What nature show doesn’t climax with the hapless grazing critter brought down by a hungry cat, jackal or hyena? Here a herd of impalas bounded by, one glancing over to see if he needed to kick it up a notch.

Obviously this impala could have used another shot of spunk. What little of it was left was being carted along by a young male leopard in his prime. Although this might be the money shot for many, we were about to witness the real thrill.

Like impalas attuned to the slightest mood change of the herd leader, a sudden electricity in our guide Chris grabbed us. “Two!” came a sort of hushed shout and indeed there was a pair of leopards trotting past us. Thrilling yes, but Chris’s excitement made it clear this was something more. “I’ve never seen two together utterly ignoring each other like these guys.” We soon learned that leopards are fiercely solitary and when they encounter each other the results get messy, although unlike, say, the US Congress, they rarely fight to the death knowing there’s no future in mutual destruction.

Chris was still marveling at seeing two male leopards when we found this single – and obviously male –leopard having a rest. One of the pair we’d seen before, a tiny wound between his eyes showed that their encounter hadn’t been a kumbaya songfest (which incidentally is an old African spiritual song of unity).

After such a critter- and thrill-filled morning, it was time for a break and we stopped by a waterhole to stretch our legs. If the murky water – and temp – didn’t dissuade us from a dip, the menacing stare of the submerged hippopotamuses did. That these often parodied beasts are the most dangerous to humans in Africa is not a myth. Far from being happy herbivores, they are ill-tempered tubbos known for upsetting boats, squashing people and chomping the hapless in their huge canines. See below.

As you can see, ending up in a ill-humored hippo’s mouth is unlikely to end well, even if they don’t actually eat you. For much more on hippos and their peril (plus their equally fearsome poop and piss habits), see this column from the Straight Dope.

Over three days I went on six safaris in the Sabi Sand Reserve and eventually saw the full panoply of African icons, including giraffes, rhinos, zebras, warthogs (or: “really ugly mothers”) and a whole pride of lions who allowed us into their midst for an amazing amount of time. I’m always adverse to lists of things to do before you die, or take out the trash, but I would recommend you find a way to get out in the bush if you have any interest in nature. It was never especially warm or pretty on my winter drives during September, but that allowed the focus to fall entirely on the animals. It combined the thrill of a treasure hunt – sometimes we drove for an hour or more, just getting a glimpse of some “food” and the odd bird – with that pure sense of immersion we strive for on the road, with the odd burst of adrenaline.

9/11 Resonated for me on 9/14

I was in Melbourne, Australia when the planes hit the World Trade Center. I was working in-house at Lonely Planet as a publisher then and was on one of my frequent visits to the home office. I was due to fly back to my home in San Francisco and my desk in the LP Oakland office on Sept 12. I slept through the attacks, which happened in the middle of the night Melbourne time.

The first I knew of the events was when I stopped into the Greek news agent’s store for my  morning paper. Instead of the usual smile, he gave me a stricken look and handed me the paper, which had an enormous picture of the United plane striking the South Tower. The tram ride into work and much of the rest of the day are a blur. I was streaming US network TV on my laptop while friends and colleagues wandered in and out of my office. People were sympathetic, we talked about what the attacks meant and I shared hugs and tears with the few other Americans in the office.

I also found myself stranded at the wrong end of the world. Something inside me said “go home” but that was not an option. Nothing was flying to the US and it was too soon to look for a freighter. I moved hotels – to one with CNN – and literally lost myself in work. We had dozens of authors researching books worldwide and I wanted to find out where each one was, confirm they were safe and find out if they needed anything. No one knew if 9/11 was the start of something larger and yet more horrible. I could only imagine being on the road and alone, far from home.

 The Return Home

Flights to the US were set to resume on 14 Sept and I got a seat on the first United flight out. The prospect of flying didn’t bother me and I was constantly cognizant of being in the wrong hemisphere, a world away from life-changing events. At the airport, nothing seemed different at first; Australia was still digesting the events in the US and while the attacks were talked about, they hadn’t overwhelmed all other discourse and Australian airplanes had never stopped flying.

But once aboard the United 747 on 14 Sept I began to enter the new reality of life in the US. For the first time since 9/11 I was surrounded by Americans. Faces were taut and there was a palpable tension. Everyone seemed to have a copy of a special issue of Time or Newsweek and the images on the pages conveyed a stark horror we’d been insulated from. I was in my usual seat on the upper deck, right at the emergency exit on the right side. As I sat sorting my thoughts, the purser appeared and knelt down in front of me. He beckoned me closer and as I leaned forward he said in a whisper: “Would you be willing to help the crew?” I knew immediately from the quaver in his voice that this wasn’t going to be the usual special instruction about opening the door in an emergency.

“In case there’s trouble on the flight,” he continued, “we’ll need all the help we can get.” Feeling my eyes starting to bug slightly, I murmured a quizzical and tentative “okay…”

Taking my arm, the purser pulled me from my seat and over to the flight attendant station directly across. “Here,” he said pointing at a big cylinder mounted on the right side, “this is the fire extinguisher. If something bad happens, please take it and hit whoever is causing trouble.”

I stared at the celery-green cylinder mounted on the side and managed another “okay…”

“Here’s how you remove it,” the purser continued as he showed how the latch worked. “You try.”

"My" fire extinguisher is tucked away on the side.

I unsnapped the strap and hoisted the extinguisher, which was surprisingly heavy, maybe about 15 pounds. It felt like cast iron and had a slightly pebbled texture to the cold metal case, sort of like the skin of an orange. “Just swing it, hit them over the head,” the purser said encouragingly. “Okay…” I managed as he replaced the device and I sat back in my seat.

The first accounts of the heroics of the passengers and crew on United flight 93 had been published that day. I’d read them, but now they took on a sudden relevance that left me deeply unsettled. I was blithely going to fly home, I was an outsider to everything that happened in the US. Now I was lost wondering what I’d do if trouble erupted. It was easy to assume some Rambo-like role of heroics but who was I kidding? If the unthinkable happened, would I fly into action with my fire extinguisher or would I freeze? Could I drop my role as the bemused observer and actually do something?

Hearing “we appreciate your volunteering” I looked up to see one of the pilots, a guy right out of pilot central casting, giving me warm smile. “I’m sure there won’t be a problem but its good to be ready just in case,” he said, “we don’t want anyone reaching the cockpit.”

“Okay…”

Once in the air, I found it hard to focus on anything but my thoughts about 9/11 and that celery-green fire extinguisher a few feet away. The Producers was showing and normally a gin and tonic enjoyed while Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel realize their improbable path to wealth through theatrical failure would have been the ideal escape. But I couldn’t focus on it. I drank a soda water. The flight attendants were my new best friends. They came by constantly asking me if I wanted anything, they gave me conspiratorial winks. But they also showed plenty of strain.  Several hours into the 13-hour flight I chatted with a few for a while. They knew crew on the flights that crashed, they worried that this was just the start of much greater horrors and they worried – with good reason as it turned out – what would happen to air travel.

Ten years later I have no recollection of who sat next to me, or if anyone did. I didn’t sleep but passed the hours glancing at the flight attendant station, trying to sense sudden movements from the back of the cabin, wondering if I could be of any use and starting to think about 9/11 on a level deeper than just an almost unfathomable spectacle of horror. We landed in San Francisco and I was soon focused on catching up with a society that was profoundly changed from the one I’d left a few weeks before.

 Ten Years Later

Just last week, I was flying back to the US from Sydney on a United 747. As I have during my many flights on these planes over the last 10 years, I looked at the now-familiar and still oddly celery-green fire extinguisher at the flight attendants station. If anything, it now brings back thoughts of “what if” and self-absorbed ponderings of self-doubt. It also reminds me of how we are all cast into roles. Being white, large and then nearly middle-aged, I must have fit the ideal of someone the crew could assume wasn’t a terrorist and would be useful back-up if trouble happened. Nothing about my appearance I guess suggested that I’ve never hit anyone in my life or that I was always picked dead last at baseball, thanks to my inability to swing a bat in any useful way.

But mostly I just fly. I hang onto my droopy-drawer beltless pants as I shuffle shoeless through security I find a much-larger than allowed bottle of liquid forgotten in an obscure pocket of my bag that has gone undiscovered through at least 40 security screenings, and I read accounts like this (Woman flyer strip searched and locked up) which show us just how much we’ve lost and how we’ve collectively allowed these changes which diminish us all. Where’s my fire extinguisher now and why aren’t I using it?

Old and new rice in Ubud

Rice fields on 10 July

One of the frog chorus

My two months in Ubud on Bali are up. It’s been a lovely stay complete with sojourns to the Banda Islands, Sulawesi and Oregon (!). My little flat is set back on the edge of rice fields and the often cacophonous peak-tourist-season roar of motorbikes and tour busses is but an occasional distant rumble. Instead I’ve enjoyed the nightly symphony of frogs, who range from soprano to alto and are myriad in diversity. Just when you have the rhythm and notes down, a new member joins the chorus with a completely different yet somehow entirely complementary song. Towards morning roosters add accents and by the time dawn breaks behind the palm trees, the frogs have been replaced by birds, hundreds of singing, chirping, warbling birds. From my bedroom, I’ve watched the rice fields, which are different every day. When I arrived in early July, the remains of the old crop were brown in the fields after harvest. Now a new crop in all its iridescent greenness is nearing its peak. This metaphor of old and new is too obvious for the work I’ve been doing updating Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, but I have found much new to recommend for another season of travelers. And I am already anticipating my next Ubud visit, probably early next year.

The rice fields on 29 Aug

Banda Quest: My Amazing Journey

Follow me to Indonesia’s fabled Banda Islands, one of the best places I’ve visited. Start here

Banda Quest: Visiting the Islands

It took me 18 years to reach the Banda Islands, Indonesia’s fabled original Spice Islands. But once there, the wait was worth it. The islands are beautiful, still scented by nutmeg, loaded with old colonial lore and only visited by about 600 people a year (Bali gets 2.3 million).

[Read the first post in the series, Banda Quest 1: Journey Begins here]

And having made the trip, I am surprised at how easy it was. Even more surprising was the cost: shockingly cheap. Read on.

Lion Air to Ambon

Getting There

By Air: Fly to the Bandas from Ambon, an interesting city in the Maluku province in eastern Indonesia. There are plenty of flights here from Jakarta, Bali etc. The three main carriers serving Ambon are:

Batavia Air Non-stops to/from Jakarta

Garuda Indonesia Flight connections from across Indonesia

Lion Air Budget airline with good connections from Bali and major cities, offers passengers prayer cards for safe flights

Once in Ambon, use the services of Michael “no problem” Erenst, a ubiquitous presence at the airport and the star of Banda Quest 2. He can set you up with a room, transport for the hour-long jaunt to Ambon etc (he works with the Banda guesthouses to smooth your journey).

For the short and slow flight to the Bandas from Ambon, your only choice is NBA, a one-airplane airline. There are full details of my flight in Banda Quest 2 but the key considerations are the following:

• Flights only operate one or two days a week, usually Wednesday and one other day
• Flights on the ancient plane are often cancelled because of weather, when this happens you have to wait until the next scheduled flight and a) try to get a seat, b) hope for the best. This can mean hanging out in Ambon for up to an extra week (obviously the same can happen in reverse, leaving you stuck in the Bandas for days longer than you intended – not such a bad thing really).
• NBA has no real phone, email or website. The best way to get a ticket is through your lodging in the Bandas. Details below.

By boat: Pelni, Indonesia’s notorious shipping line, has boats that run on various schedules to the Bandas from Ambon and other more remote islands. But these trips can be an adventure in ways you might wish to avoid. Read more in Banda Quest 5. (The website is good for schedules.)

Public transport

Where to Stay

There are two hotels dating from the 1970s on the waterfront in Bandaneira, the main town: the Hotel Maulana and the Laguna Inn. Both were built by legendary local booster Des Alwi, but since his death (at age 82) they’ve been adrift as his offspring debate their future. Instead I would recommend any of the following guesthouses in Bandaneira, which average about US$15-20 per night (most rooms have air-con). Any of these three can sort out your flights from Ambon as part of your reservation.

Mutiara Guest House (+62 (0)813 3034 3377 • banda_mutiara@yahoo.com) Run by the tireless Abba (who sadly doesn’t answer to Fernando), the four rooms here are clean, simple and built around a small garden. Abba can arrange trips to other islands, tours of nutmeg forests and much more. His wife, Dilla, is the best cook in the Bandas – even if you stay elsewhere, it’s worth booking in here for the bounteous buffet. There’s a fast internet connection.

Vita Guest House (+62 (0)910 21332 • allandarman@gmail.com) A very mellow place with long verandas, views of the ever-ready-to-blow Gunung Api across the harbor and hammocks ready to swing. Lovely, helpful owners.

Delfika (+62 (0)910 21027 • delfika1@yahoo.com) Has two locations, one in an old Dutch colonial building across from the museum, the other in a newish building overlooking the harbor. The cafe in the original building opens onto a long tropical porch.

Boats to other islands from Bandaneira

What to Do

Read Banda Quest 3 and Banda Quest 4 to get an idea of the many pleasures and adventures that await. A brief run-down by island (pulau):

Neira The main town of Bandaneira, streets lined with evocative old Dutch buildings, old forts, a museum, the airport, port (tiny) and market; enjoy hours of good strolling from one end to the other

Gunung Api The pint-sized but active volcano which looms over Neira, climb it and see if the earth moves under you

Banda Besar Largest island and just across the channel from Neira; villages filled with winsome locals who will show you the secrets of nutmeg harvesting while you savor the air that’s scented with same (see Banda Quest 4)

Ai About an hour’s boat-ride west of Neira, triangular Ai has nutmeg, almonds and other treats growing in profusion. It has beautiful, untrod beaches (see Banda Quest 4), ruins of colonial plantations and a couple of dead-simple homestays that offer solitude and endless beach time – reserve by turning up

Run Farthest west and dedicated to fishing, notable as the island the Dutch so desperately wanted that they cheerfully gave the English Manhattan in trade; little-visited, this is real exploration

Diving and snorkeling are good. For the former, the Hotel Maulana rents gear and tanks but otherwise the lack of a pro or guides means you’re on your own. Anyone with a boat knows the best places for snorkeling – especially around tiny islands like Pulau Karaka

What to Read

The Bandas are the kind of destination where you can easily knock off your reading backlog, but bring your own. Books about the islands include:

Indonesian Banda by Willard Hanna. A lost gem that’s both irreverent and packed with detail. Highly readable, it makes the most of the bizarre and often-horrific legacy of the over-dressed Dutch colonialists and their English tormenters. Impossible to find before your trip, it’s found at Banda guesthouses and the museum [read excerpts in Banda Quest 3]

Nathaniel’s Nutmeg by Giles Milton. The first half is almost as readable as Hanna but then the book goes off the rails with endless descriptions of English swells tortured in places far from the Bandas. A tacked-on page at the end trying to justify the bombastic subtitle “Or the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History” fails. Easily found online

Ring of Fire by Lawrence Blair. Superbly written adventure across Indonesia by the scholarly Blair. The section on the Bandas sings, especially the description of the glow-in-the-dark eyes of a local fish that kids use as creepy bedside reading lights. Sold online

The bill, smaller than it looks

Cost

Despite the challenges of reaching the islands, your journey and time there are crazily cheap. You’ll be hard-pressed to spend US$50 a day, making these “most amazing islands ever” an incredible bargain. Highlights of my bill for the two days I was there researching, converted to US dollars include (Abba arranged everything, which is typical of the Banda guesthouses I recommend):

Room – 2 nights @$15 – $30

Tasty dinner buffet @$7 – $14

Flight to Bandas – $37

Voyage of the Damned boat – $40

Daytrip and tour of Banda Nera & Ai – $15

Total cost of trip – $156

Three Final Thoughts

• Stay on the Bandas for a week but give yourself two weeks to allow for transport fiascos
• Bring cash as the one ATM is finicky and credit cards are as useful as a dead nutmeg tree
• Don’t delay, as sooner or later the word on these amazing islands will get out

Which island next?