On the boat back to the port of Ampana on mainland Sulawesi we met Jennifer and Sebastian, a young couple from the city of Dresden, Germany. They had an early morning flight the following day so I suggested they stay at Nebula Cottages, where Elenka and I spent the night before leaving for the Togian Islands. The Dresdeners told us they had tried unsuccessfully to book Nebula online. We should have clued in right away.

After docking, we all tuk-tukked off to Nebula. But when we arrived there were no rooms left at the inn. We went to another, larger place, same thing. After trying a half dozen other hotels, and a couple of dingy rooming houses, we found that our roomlessness had been caused by a government festival of some sort. I suggested we go back to Nebula and ask if we could sleep on some gazebo-like platforms that were on their property. The gazebos were in a spot where  cows and goats roamed freely. Back we went. 

At Nebula some guy approached Sebastian with yet another half-baked room idea. Jennifer wasn’t amused so he struck off on his own. Meanwhile, Jennifer went to the manager of Nebula and told him that she’d attempted to book online; she wanted know why no one had gotten back to her. The manager asked what her name was, looked in his registry, and damned if the cabina wasn’t reserved for Sebastian and Jennifer all along. Moments later Sebastian returned with a smile. He’d found just the place he wanted. When he heard what Jennifer had to say, we all kind of looked around dumbly for a few moments. Then Sebastian kindly said that Elenka and I could have Nebula and he and Jennifer would go to the new place. We laughed, shook hands, maybe hugged, and then lived happily ever after.               

The Indonesian Zero Conundrum:

10,000 Indonesian rupiahs = $1 CDN. Most ATM withdrawals have limits equal to $100 - $125. How the hell can one get by in this way, Elenka and I yelled at one another simultaneously. Our money transfer from our bank in Canada to Bahia Tomini, wouldn’t go through. We decided to go to a human at the bank and make a plea for monetary sanity. When we got there the friendly bank manager told us that we could actually make ten ATM withdrawals for an amount equal to $1,000 per day. This was good. For both us and Bahia Tomini. We could now pay our bill, and my private fear of having to work at the banana plantation was put to rest. But the highest denomination at the ATMs was 50,000 rupiah and we needed 10 million of the bloody things. We’d need a box or duffle to carry our bank notes. No problem.

After we got our bags of cash, my tuk-tuk driver needed to do a U-turn to get back to Nebula Cottages. To the left came the sound of a horn, followed by screeching tires and the acrid smell of burning rubber. A motorcycle smacked into the side of my tuk-tuk just behind where my driver sat. It’s hard to say how far we bounced down the street, but we remained upright. And aside from a few dings and some cracks in the tuk-tuk’s fiberglass panelling, everyone was okay.

Back on the road, not far from Nebula, there’s a traffic light. Ampaners drive through this traffic light as though it’s make believe. This time though, my driver stopped on a red. After five or six vehicles sped past us I simply raised my hand as if to say, what the Hell are we waiting for, and away we went. I don’t know if the driver was nervous or he thought I was. We didn’t speak the same lingo. I felt sorry for the driver so I got him to come back the following morning to take us to the airport, even gave him a tip.