No casino before breakfast as the casino is closed when the ship is docked. So we had breakfast then went ashore.
Indonesia is a very large country – over 250 million people. But it is a third world county. Bitung is definitely a third world city. The sidewalks are crumbling (some manhole covers are missing and an unwary pedestrian could easily fall in) and the buildings – even the banks – are decrepit.
We wandered, vaguely in search of a statue that I had heard of. We didn’t find it. We did find the venue for a pitbull event and the “miniature Eiffel Tower”.
We found a little shopping mall where we (or, more accurately, Marlene) spent almost an hour shopping. We also found a church where a group of children, in costume, begged for photos with us.
Everywhere we went we seemed to be a sensation. Families approached us on the street and asked for photos. Young children – most of whom could speak at least rudimentary English – approached us to engage in conversations. I expected that these encounters would deteriorate into solicitations for money, but while the children certainly would have accepted if I had offered, they never asked. We found a church and did get a simple solicitation from a young man who approached us to get our signature in a guest book, but he did not persist when we refused to give him money.
We visited on a Sunday and, I learned later, on a holiday that was the equivalent of our Thanksgiving Day. Bitung is a predominantly Christian city, unlike the rest of Indonesia which is predominantly Muslim. The shops that were open were all Muslim-owned. In the afternoon there was a huge parade with thousands of mostly young children, all dressed in red (like the church group we had encountered earlier).
The Indonesian currency – the rupiah – is interesting. I always thought the Japanese yen was tiny (150 yen per dollar) but the rupiah is 100 times tinier – 15,000 rupiah per dollar. When we returned to the cruise terminal I bought a large bottle of beer for 60,000 rupiah – about $4. The beer was pretty good. Worth every rupiah.
It was obvious that we were something of a sensation to Bitung residents but I didn’t learn until I had reboarded the ship that the Luminosa was the first cruise ship that had docked there in 15 years. And many of the residents of Bitung had never met an American. We were objects of wonder and fascination. If you want to feel special, visit Bitung.
When the ship left there were hundreds of Bitung residents on the shore, waving lit cell phones. Very touching. It is far from a beautiful city, but the way the people there treated us was beautiful.
I attempted to blog, using the T-Mobile service, but was unable to do so.
After dinner we visited the casino where I lost $30 (down $230), then attended the “80’s Pop to the Max” show by the Luminosa entertainers. Very good.
We crossed the equator just before midnight. A number of people – including me – were crowded around the buffet TV, watching for the latitude to go to 00:00:00 but we were disappointed – it went from 00:00:01 N to 00:00:05 S. But we did cross and are now in the southern hemisphere.
