Tonight's the night. There's a street party going on, truck loads of boys and men dressed in head scarfs being driven at breakneck speeds down the streets to the main mosque, police every where with guns ..big Russian looking guns!
Every one is in a happy mood and the ambiance reminds me of the build up to a summer Festa in a Maltese village. Kids are throwing fire crackers, fireworks are being set off and there are people on balconies or roofs watching the scene below. I decided to pick up last minute supplies for the Kei islands after dinner and spend an hour or so at an internet cafe I found along the way, near the mosque.
The truck loads of men in head scarfs are just the sort of scenes right off the TV news only on the news they look really sinister, here you get the feeling that they're just the village boys dressing up for the party. Idul Fitri or Eid is just like Christmas to the Muslims, its a big annual event. But as I get closer to the action, the very thought of being the only white person for miles and miles and the fact that the end of Ramadan is sometimes a time for the extremists to rediscover their passions, I decided it wise to seek refuge at the super expensive internet facilities of the 5 * star hotel across the road from my guest house instead.
The men on the trucks and police and the rest of the crowd scream out 'Hey Mister' (every white person here, man, woman or child is Mister to the Indonesians) to me as I walk past and the mood is jovial enough. I have never yet felt in danger (apart from the flying :) whilst in Indonesia, people here are extremely friendly and generally want to interact, practise their English and make contact with the 'White Person'. However it does become more noticeable that the deeper one goes into the more remote places the more kids, women and men stare!
Tomorrow I am off to Paradise... the Kei islands have mobile reception but no internet, I shall be taking notes :) in order to keep you abreast, the Banda Islands are reputed to have internet access (probably tortoise powered) but no mobile phone access.
Im excited and I have 9 gigabytes of mobile space for the next set of photos!
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