The Beautiful Jailolo

Do you know Jailolo? What is it? Kind of food?  Name of a brand? A dance? What?

Jailolo is one of districts in West Halmahera, East Indonesia. Since 4 years ago, this district holds a festival once a year, called Jailolo Bay Festival (Festival Teluk Jailolo). Theme of this year (2012) is The Amazing of Golden Spice Islands.

This attracted Jemblink –a friend- and his friends to visit Jailolo. Before he asked me to join them, I had never heard about Jailolo. Till the day I departed from Jakarta, my knowledge about this district didn’t increase, at all. The only thing I knew was our flight destination is to Ternate and we will continue the trip to Jailolo by speed boat. Jemblink gave me some brochures and websites addresses that have information about Jailolo tho, but why bother trying to find out when he already handled everything :p

From the airplane ticket I knew we will depart at 00.30 and arrive at Ternate at 7.10. Almost 7 hours trip OMG, even trip to Hong Kong doesn’t take this long!! I forgot about time difference, and I also forgot that this wasn’t a direct flight, we were gonna transit to Makassar first. First problem from my ignorance, maybe if I read the reading materials first, I wouldn’t be so hesitate asking permission from my parents to go there :p

Long story short, after transited to Makassar (btw Sultan Hasanuddin Airport is awesome, I think it is the best airport in Indonesia. Hope Soetta Airport after renovation would be as good as or better than this airport *crossed fingers*), we arrived in Sultan Babullah Airport. Beautiful scenery of Mount Gamalama welcomed us to Ternate. Beside the mount itself :p, there were already people from the festival committee who welcoming us and preparing  a vehicle to take us to the pier. It took 10-15 minutes from the airport before we arrived, then as our plan, we went to Jailolo by speed boat.



Jailolo is beautiful, but you know what, my country has many beautiful places, some of them are more beautiful than Jailolo. So what makes it special? For me it’s the festival. Several events held in it such as Ritual Bersih Laut – Sigofi Ngolo, Fun Diving, Festival Bakar Ikan, Golden Spice Adventure, Parade Gerobak Sapi, Cultural Party  - Horom Sasadu and of course, Cabaret of The Sea. We sailed and danced on the boat with traditional Halmahera music (I don’t know what it’s called) to Babua Island in Sigofi Ngolo. We skipped diving since none of us has a license to dive :p. We hungrily participated in Festival Bakar Ikan, but none of them offered us the fish, oops! Our bad, we were too shy to ask. This Festival Bakar Ikan holds a record as the longest grilling fishes in Indonesia by MURI (MUseum Rekor Indonesia). It length was about six km, wow!

Ritual Bersih Laut - Sigofi Ngolo

I skip story about the Golden Spice because I didn’t really enjoy that. But to you whom like history, this would be interesting. You know our country had been colonized by Holland for 350 years for the spices, rite?

 

We went to two cultural parties. The first one was a small party held by Sanggar Seni Ngalara. We tried their traditional culinary such as nasi tou, nasi kukusan, wajik, sagu, popeda and saguer. All tasted delicious, except popeda, I wasn't brave enough to try that one. We also watched their traditional dancing with us dancing altogether in the end. I had so much fun. And I met the living legend, Christine Hakim and took a picture with her!! Yeayy…

Second party was the big one, Horom Sasadu in Gamtala Village. I thought It’s gonna be all dancing like the other one but I was wrong. Yes some of them dancing, but this party was more like a dinner with music and alcohol. They have a famous alcoholic drink called Cap Tikus (CT). My friends tried it and they said it’s so strong, even stronger than vodka. It was so funny witnessing how they behaved after CT. But dude, I don’t recommend you to drink that. However, between the two parties, I personally  like the small one more.

Eventhough Jailolo is special to me from the festival, we had an one day festival-free. We rent a car and went around Jailolo. We thought we were gonna miss Parade Gerobak Sapi while we went sight seeing, but thank God, when we had breakfast, this parade pass through in front of our restaurant. Of course we didn’t waste this chance and took some pictures with the cows. Then we continued the day by visiting Bobo Bay, Bobo Beach and Payo Pier. Bobo is a volcanism beach. You won’t find white sand there, the sand is black and hot. The water is also hot, combined with its hot weathered, there goes our super exotic tan skins (yea rite, you wish). Payo Pier has super beautiful scenery. We took a lot of pictures here, I show you some of them.



Payo Pier


One thing I'm dissapointed, Jailolo has many beautiful sites to visit, but there is no sign to guide us to the sites. For example, we had to ask to the locals several time for Bobo beach. We were missdirected to Bobo Bay first and got all dirty from muds before we finally found Bobo Beach -___-“

Night when we arrived to Jailolo, we rent some motorcycles to go catching sunset (that we failed) then to go to Jailolo’s famous restaurant Dapur Halbar. Instead of eating the traditional culinary, we ate Manado food there, krik krik..But all tasted good, so we didn’t mind we ate no Halbar food that nite. There was a funny story about this restaurant. Our original plan, we were gonna eat lunch there. We asked a policeman the direction to it, he said it is far, about 500 meter. We tried to go there on foot and after a while we gave up and chose to eat in the nearest food stall we found. We ate Coto Makassar that day. When we rent motorcycles, it took us 4 km and several stops for asking direction to the locals before we arrived to Dapur Halbar. Mr. Policeman, 500 meter my ass!! Ooops :p

For closing the festival, there goes Cabaret of The Sea. A magnificent art performance from Jailolo’s local people. *cmiiw* None of them are pros, and they practiced a year long for this cabaret. This show proves me that talent only takes the small portion of your success.  The biggest one comes from good intention and hard work. Jailolo people have proven it.

Cabaret of The Sea

Night before we departed to Ternate, we all tourists, divers, photographers and festival committees got an invitation from the Mayor to have dinner in his house. Another dancing party with free flow of good food and beer bintang. The music was good, traditional musics from several area in Indonesia, such as Poco-poco and Sajojo. I didn’t dance this time, but I saw people who were dancing and they all look really enjoyed the moment.

Thank you Jemblink for joining me to your Jailolo trip team. I had so much fun during the trip. Meeting new friends (Nikka & Ryan) and not so new friends :p (Tata & Rubon) and had this awesome adventure together. I wish someday I would have a chance to visit Jailolo again, including the beautiful Loloda and Morotai regions.