Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine March 2015 | Page 124

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Travel | Saumlaki

The beach at Sangliat Dol is
perhaps the most beautiful
(and cleanest) village
beach on Yamdena.

As far as most of us are
concerned our grandmothers
were pretty cool people.
However, not many of us
have a national monument
to remember her by.

“My grandmother was a real national hero,”
says Alaraman-Batlyare Pius proudly.
Pak Pius has just collected me from
Saumlaki’s Mathilda Batlayeri Airport, and
we’re now parked at the entrance next to the
monument to his grandmother, Mathilda.
The monument has not yet officially
been inaugurated and it is still covered,
awaiting the arrival of President Joko
Widodo. A swirling black cloak shrouds
the oversized bronze figure of the female
warrior. But the Arafura Sea trade winds
have started to remove the cover already and
I can see that the heroine is holding a rifle
defiantly aloft with one hand. The other arm
holds a young child. The shadowy shroud
adds mystery to the silhouette as it looms
against the afternoon storm clouds that
are gathering over Yamdena Island.
Yamdena is the biggest among the 60 or
so Tanimbar Islands, lying about halfway
between New Guinea and Australia. North of
Yamdena is the island of Larat, and north of
that still the ancient tribal homelands of the
Fordata Islanders, the most traditional of

Tanimbar’s inhabitants. I had wanted to
get to Fordata since I first heard tales of
mysterious traditions like their ancient
shark-calling cult. The trip is a difficult
one though, taking a day and a night
by boat and only accessible in dry weather.
A single narrow strip of tarmac runs up the
west coast from the administrative capital
of Saumlaki all the way to the north coast.
The drive takes about six hours and is an
adventure that is made doubly dramatic
by several sections of dirt track that can
often involve desperately determined
off-road driving. A new bridge, already
under construction, will make the drive
easier, but for the moment it further
complicates things with a churned-up dirt
track of greasy grey clay. The trip is probably
not recommended without a 4x4.
Apart from the harrowing sections where
we had to push the car and block branches
under uselessly spinning wheels, the drive
was a beautiful one. We passed curving
white-sand coves, vast landscapes of
coconut palms and hillsides covered in
tangled jungle. Little hamlets of stilted