entertaining: Girl is abducted by bad guy who turns into a monster (he can keep changing shape as it suits), she sends out a signal and schoolboy boyfriend with powers comes to her aid and battles the bad guy in all his various forms with big noises and exclamations flashed across the screen: Kapow! Bang! Eek! Wallop! Ouch! And then they all have a sing-along when the monster is dead.
The only fat kids in Indonesia are starring in these programs and they must be the same handful I've seen around the (usually one and only) shopping plaza in cities such as Ambon, Balikpapan and Makassar where they have their own McDonalds and KFC equivalent.
The ferryboat to and from the island is DANGEROUS! On the return journey I waited on the beach in the rain, early in the morning while they loaded the narrow boat with so much stuff; bananas, coconuts, cassava etc., that the water was up to the gunwales before the passengers numbering  about 30 aboard to take their chances on the big rolling waves. Many of us had to sit on the roof making the boat top-heavy and even more unstable. The skill of the helmsman saved us with his two big outboard motors that he used in turn to start, stop and weave us about the heavy swell. Sometimes we were surfing down the back of a wave with both propellers clear of the water. And as usual in Indonesia, not a lifejacket anywhere!
The weather is still wet and stormy , flights just once a week out of Banda on a 50/50 gamble and just ONE ship every two weeks already running a day or two late because of the bad weather that nearly shipwrecked us on the voyage down. I'd be marooned for a further two weeks if I hadn't cached a ride on a cargo ship 'Atlantis' currently unloading at the dock and sailing for Seram tonight. From there I'll try to get back to Ambon and fly to Makassar and go overland to Toraja and  the Togean Islands in North Sulawesi. Feeling much improved and just a bit of a cough. Making good headway with the language too!

Ambon again! And it's like heaven after what I've been through recently. It all began well as we departed Banda after dark though I was amazed that we made it out of the harbour with all those ragged sailors more interested in the TV which had prominent place in the wheelhouse. The young captain made sure I never left his side and stared at me to the point that I wondered if he'd ever seen a white man in his life - everything I did, every move I made was like a fantastic occasion to him and his crew. I thought I'd go crazy!
I was dropped in the east of Seram - out of the frying pan into the fire - the road to Amahai and a ferry to Ambon was washed out in numerous places. Thus began a journey on minibuses, cars and mostly motorbikes between the broken bridges and the rivers which I had to wade across and all this in heavy rain. Dropped in Amahi at dusk near a hotel in the jungle at the edge of town and I doubt they ever had a guest before me! Dirty, dark and smelly it was too (and the same for the staff) and it  reminded me of something out of a horror movie with it's red painted rooms and high ceilings. There was no way of drying out my gear.
After all the payments for the different transports between the washed out roads and broken  bridges I discovered I only had enough cash to pay the hotel and tomorrows boat fare with NO rupiahs left even for a meal if I could find one on that wet and dismal night.  AND the ferry terminal still 10klms away meant I had to get up at 4am and walk the distance in two hours to be in time. No problem, I thought, and at 4am the rain was like a waterfall and there was nothing for it but to step out. I walked a mile in ankle deep water with my little flashlight trying to find the road. I was soaked through but that was nothing new as everything was still drenched from the day before. Now my boots were full of water and I stumbling on blindly, trying to keep my speed up. Out of the dark came a voice and there was a trikeshaw and the most desperate looking driver I'd ever seen (most of them look like the lowest form of humanity in Indonesia and they have brains to match) and he must have been very desperate to think he'd find anyone looking for a ride in such deserted place at that time of night. He was barefoot and had wads of plastic shoved into his belt and his hatband - one big sheet would have covered him but I guess he only had these scraps which were just about useless and I doubt he had the sense to spread them out anyway!  Until then I had nothing but bad experiences with trikehshaw drivers - if you want a cheap ride and be taken well away from where you want to go then they're OK!  He staggered along beside me, muttering,  pushing his bike and clacking his bell - it's not a bell in the real sense but two bits of flat, rusty metal that bang together making a 'clack, clack.' sound. I gave in, I thought he could ride as fast as I could walk (wrong) and I would be sheltered in the plastic canopy in front of the handlebars, wrong again and deafened by the rain. I told him I had no rupiah but I'd pay him five Australian dollars. Soon we were going along a road that had a few lights and then, in spite of my protests he turned right and after a few blocks we were down by the shore - I could hear the sea but not see it in the pitch black. He asked for his money and then began my long explanation (again in my pigeon Indonesian) about me wanting to go to the terminal to catch the ferry. He  suddenly ran off splashing thru the mud and then I hear him rapping on someone's door and there was a conversation coming and going on the wind with whoever he had woken up. He came clattering back, he jumped on, I jumped in and once more we were flying along at walking pace and onto the main road again that

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