Sailing to Sulawesi

29th November

We had one of those 'great ideas' for getting to Sulawesi from Lombok: take a three-day Pelni ferry journey and go 'eko' class - sleeping in open many-berthed cabins with the less-well-off locals. But as we waited in the Pelni enclosure in the port and the numbers of people grew, we started to wonder just how many passengers could be squeezed aboard the ship.

When it arrived, an hour or so late, the gates opened and a huge surge of passengers and porters carrying large boxes thronged along the harbour edge towards the narrow walkway onto the ship.












As we edged closer it became harder and harder to keep a safe space for the boys and we started to worry about the crush. At the foot of the gangplank I had to shove with all my weight into the mass of queue-jumping porters to create the space Maja and the boys needed to squeeze aboard the boat. We did it, but it was a bit scary.

Onboard ship, and a bit freaked out, we realised we had no desire to head downwards into the shared cabins in the ship's bowels and opted to upgrade to a 2nd-class cabin. But there was a big catch. We didn't have to 1.5 million rupiah or so needed to pay the extra fee.













So we started asking the many hawkers who'd come aboard to sell paper wraps of food and fruit and cheap sunglasses and what-have-you if anyone could change money, planning to raid my money belt for my emergency stash of UK pounds. After much chaos and some desultory offers, we realised that we were doomed to stay with the masses, but there was no way we'd find a berth each, yet alone together.

We were on the edge of panic at the thought of sleeping with the kids for two nights on the decks of the ship when a ship's officer in a brilliant white uniform came to our rescue and let us pay in Sterling - he'd change the money at the next port. What a nice man.



















So we were saved, and moved into our four-bunk cabin with shower, semi-functioning aircon and friendly cockroaches, as many poor, berthless, eco-class Indonesians settled down on the decks around the ship. We were glad to have the cabin, but the sense of camaraderie amongst the 'deck class' was something to be admired.













And so followed a lazy trip across the flat Pacific, watching flying fish skitter away from the ship and nameless islands drift past, until the sprawling mass of Makassar, capital of Sulawesi, loomed on the horizon.