Mandolyn has arrived in Indonesia!  

After 4 days at sea, we arrived feeling snackish.  Ever since leaving Mexico we’ve been trying to recapture the glory of affordable and delicious cuisine.  Indonesia held promise, but before we could begin our search we’d need permission from the biosecurity department to go ashore.

Around 11am on the day we arrived we picked up a team of health officers in our dinghy and brought them aboard Mandolyn for an inspection.  I need to mention that it’s hot here.  Very hot.  The officers sat in the shaded part of our cockpit, but there was no room in the shade for me.  I sat in the remaining spot, with the blazing equatorial sun smashing down upon me.  I was not comfortable.

 “Have there been any deaths aboard?”, inquired an officer.  Aah, the cool embrace of death sounded enticing.

A health official then produced a thermometer to check our temperatures.  She aimed it at my forehead, pressed the button, then let out a shriek!  She showed the display to the others who burst into laughter.  “You are very hot!”.  

I’ve always been nervous about failing a health inspection.  What happens now?  Will I be confined to quarantine?  Or autopsied on the spot!?  Either way I felt my access to exotic snacks slipping away.  Thankfully, there were no follow up questions.  Indonesia does not discriminate based on heat.  Very hot people are perfectly welcome.

It took 2 days to complete our official clearance in to the country, but we were allowed to go ashore the first evening.  We took the dinghy to a small beach plaza in the town of Kupang.  There were a lot of food vendors, but we found it challenging as there was a general lack of signage and a big language barrier.  

We eventually managed to buy some soup from two ladies who doubled over with laughter at our inability to communicate (locals laughing at us in a very friendly way has been a recurring theme).  The price of the soup was shocking. 5000 Rupiah for a single bowl!?  This is around 44 cents Canadian.

So we’ve been eating out a lot.  Without local expertise we often order things without knowing what to expect.  I was surprised to find beans and rice in my sweet icy drink one day (Es Doger, delicious).   When I bought a bag of tiny dried fish that was popular among locals at the market, I was surprised to find that it contained nothing but tiny dried fish.  Gross.

In our first week or so we accomplished our mission to try each of the five national dishes of Indonesia.  Rendang beef is our favorite so far.  Our new mission is to sample every other dish in Indonesia. Game on.

Some photos….