Stunning Crystal Clear Sulamadaha Beach, Ternate

Reaching Sulamadaha beach at noon, walking from the car park which was just next to the black sandy beach, I was rather disappointed as it's not as I imagine based on the picture I've got from internet. There were many food stalls next to the beach. My friends said that we should take a long walk to reach the place that I saw in the internet. I don't mind with it.

As we parked under the shelter trees, I forgot to bring along my jacket, hat and sandal. We walked through the path at the edge of the beach, it's hilly and quite challenging and I felt quite tiring as I hadn't had breakfast and it's already lunch time. Actually you could ride motor bike to go there along the path, unfortunately there was no "ojek", or motor cycle rental that could bring us there. I stopped a few times to take a break and taking pictures.

Finally we reached the motor cycle parking lot at the end of the path which towards to the beach, the scenery there was very beautiful, we could see the beach from above with boats and some huts hanging on the beach. I took my time to relax and taking picture again before going down through quite steep stone ladders. My colleague was kind and patient enough waiting for me :-) I asked my colleague to hold my hand as I was afraid falling down on the ladders.

Going down to the small bay, fractional shells and corals produce white sand, many local visitors swimming on the beach. A traditional boat was parked on the beach, my colleague offered me to go by boat to the middle of the sea. It's an interesting offer that I could not refused to enjoy the crystal clear beach. It cost IDR 50.000,- to rent the boat, our colleague from Ternate's office decided to row the boat, so the owner didn't need to go with us.

There were 4 of us, it's very sunny and hot, but it's windy. We went to the sea, although it's further from the beach, there was some shallow area, that we could see beautiful coral underneath our boat. It's very nice to see the beautiful coral reef with colorful fish swimming around it. If it's not very shiny and made my skin burnt, I would like to stay there longer. The scenery was like in heaven, combination of crystal clear sea with its beautiful coral reefs and mountains behind produced an incredible beauty. Unfortunately I didn't bring swimsuit, it would be more fun if we could swim on the crystal clear water.

I would like to take picture of the boat from the other side of beach which could show the crystal clear water, so I asked my colleague to row there. When we reached the hut hanging on the beach, I climbed the ladder while all of my colleagues stayed on the boat waiting for me to take some pictures from above. It's wonderful, it almost similar to the picture that I saw in the internet.

A group of teenagers had fun there, they jumped to the water one by one with different style. It seemed that the sea was shallow, I was afraid that they will hit the bottom. In fact the water was so clear, it's quite deep for them to jump but you saw as if it's only 0.5 meters deep. I asked permission to them to cross their hut to another hut to take better angle.

I returned to the boat and we returned the beach where we started sailing. One of our colleague who didn't dare to go with us because he could not swim was waiting for us there, keeping our bags :-) We ordered coconut and fried banana at one of the hut to fill our stomach before walking back through the path to our car.

Although we were starving, I really enjoyed it. The scenery was amazing, it's a very wonderful God's creation. You should visit the beach if you plan to visit Ternate. Don't forget to bring swimsuit so you could enjoy it more by snorkeling or just swimming on the calm and crystal clear sea.

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Amazing black stone at Batu Angus, Ternate

Last Sep 2016 I visited Ternate with my friend, we had difficulty to find rental car, lucky that our office colleague in Ternate were kind enough to pick us up from the airport. We selected Wings air the earliest flight from Manado to Ternate, although the plane was small, we didn't care. They only allowed us to bring 10kgs luggage, so we could not bring many things. Our Ternate colleagues offered us to have breakfast and check in to the hotel first, but to save time we refused it, we preferred to go around Ternate first.

Sultan Babullah airport at Ternate located at North Maluku was not big enough, only one entrance for departure and arrival flight, anyway the airport was quite modern, although air condition was not operated in all areas. As our plane was small, we had to climb down the ladder and walk to the airport building. The scenery was quite beautiful, we could see a mountain at the side of the airport. While waiting for the pickup car, I saw beautiful black stones created wall across the airport.

Batu Angus, when I told my friend that I would like to visit it, my friend said it's only stone. Anyway we still went there, there's an entrance fee to go to the place, we could drive the car to go through the stone park, there was a nice path ways leaded us to the parking area, next to the beach. Our car was quite big, so the driver needed to be careful as the stone formed sometimes protrudes into the street. In the car I was admiring the phenomenon black lava stone, the park was full of lava that had been turned into stone as if just newly burned. My friend also admired it, he said previously another friend brought him even not entering the gate, just at the edge of the street. No wonder he said it's just stone, he didn't see the real park :-)

Some shelters has been built for visitors to enjoy the marvelous scenery. Although the sun shone so hot, it's windy so we didn't feel very hot. While my friends chatted under the shelter, I went around to take pictures of the beautiful park. Some flowers were planted to decorate the park, the landscape was strangely beautiful with contradiction color of black lava stone and sparkling blue sea. While on the other side you could see Gamalama mountain where the lava came from its eruption in 1673. The unique form stone stretched from the foot of Mount Gamalama up to the beach. My Ternate's friends said that Ternate island is Gamalama which its top was covered by cloud at that time, so people live at the foot of Mount Gamalama. Go around the island was not too far, just around 60 kilometer distance.

There was no fence or stair between the rock area and cliff to the beach, so we had to be careful to take picture. I love the stunning scenery where we were presented the blackened rock, bluish sea and greenish Halmahera mountain. My Ternate friend was brave enough to go down to the cliff, I didn't dare to do it. I took my friend's picture on the black rock, the result was very nice. He said that it's a pity if I didn't take any picture there, he offered to hold my hand going down, so I followed him. After reaching the place he went up to take my picture with my iPhone. He's very kind, he didn't mind at all to go up and down the slope :-). I'm very satisfied with the result where the background scenery was amazing, some ships were sailed on the clear blue sea.

Finally we took group picture using selphy mode in front of the welcome monument at Batu Angus. The welcome space was surrounded by the black rocks with various formation, it's beautiful. If we had much time, I would like to stay longer there, enjoy the breeze while admiring the natural phenomenon of the black rock unique composition. It's worthy to visit, just 10 kilometer from Ternate city.

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Sweet Ambon - Ambon Manise

During my visit to Ambon, I got a chance to come by to their beautiful beaches. The first beach which I visited was Liang beach or Hunimua beach in Maluku island. The crystal clear water with a white sandy beach, a magnificent gradation of the blue color shows the deep of the sea with beautiful mountain as the background and white cloud on the sky created a very peaceful and beautiful scenery



There were some simple foodstalls on the beach if you need any food or drink, you could enjoy the beach by sitting on the soft white beach sand under the tree shelter. You also could bring food from home to eat together with friends. It's not too crowded at that time, some traditional small boat were also available for rent to bring you sailing through the sea. It's already noon time when I arrived there, so it's very hot and too shiny to ride the boat.


I didn't get bored at all to see all the spectacular scenery, taking some pictures to record the feeling and experience. Watching children jumping from the pier to race getting the ball on the sea, some of them were swimming on the beach, and a cute small boy was playing on the sandy beach while their parents having lunch on the mat under the tree shelter.


The time was ticking, my driver informed that we had to go back to the hotel soon, as we had to catch the flight. On the way to the hotel, we still had a chance to stop by at Natsepa beach. Its popular for rujak (various fresh fruits with peanut sauce mixed with palm sugar), so many seller foodstall along the pedestrian street on the beach. The beach was more crowded, there were many water sport such as jetski, banana boat, etc.


It's very cloudy when we arrived, the wave was harder than Liang beach. We sat in the hut drinking a young coconut ice while waiting for rujak. Suddenly it's raining very hard, all the benches became wet, the seller dropped the plastic shelter to cover us from raining. Rujak was served on the small plate with a toothpick for eating. It tasted very nice, fresh and yummy with many amount of peanuts.


If I had more time, I would stay longer on this beach to enjoy it. I'll go back someday to Ambon, the beaches were naturally beautiful and still virgin. There were some hotels on the beach, so you could stay there if you would like to play around the beach. For transportation, you'd better rent a car, because taxi was very rare and public transportation was not covered all destinations.

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