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Pulau Ternate and Tidore Travel Guide
Having been a mighty kingdom of spices, Ternate and Tidore now lie serenely, reminding us of a turbulent past full of colorful characters-from sultans and conquerors to pirates. These islands off the West Coast of Maluku were then the world's only producer of the globally important cloves, through which the islands' Islamic sultans became some of Indonesia's wealthiest and most influential leaders. Much of the islands' wealth, however, was wasted in bitter wars against each other. What remains are a couple of quiet but dramatic cone-shaped islands that may no longer have so many sights and riches to show, but still have plenty of historical buzz to tell.
Ternate and Tidore's bitter rivalry was phenomenal. In 1511, as the Portuguese became the first to settle in Ternate, Tidore's sultan quickly summoned the Spaniards. Nonetheless, despite the sultan's hospitality, the two competing European countries offended the Muslim population by bringing in pigs, monopolizing the islands' clove trade, and sucking the islands' resources before leaving the islands to rot in poverty. A sultan, Hairun (Kairun) was executed by the Portuguese and his head was displayed on a pike. This led to a rebellion in Ternate that drove off the Portuguese from their castle, which the sultan later used as his new palace. It is in this palace that the sultan entertained the infamous English pirate Francis Drake, who fooled the sultan into believing that he would buy cloves when, in fact, his ship was already full of stolen Latin American gold.
Despite their bitter past, Ternate and Tidore today have become sort of allies. Whenever Ternate's Gamalama volcano is in a frantic tantrum, the people run to Tidore for help. Tidore's conical peak, Kiematabu, is a mountaineering Mecca for its caldera, Sabale, which shows magma in action.
Ternate's Sultan Babullah Airport connects to Makassar and Manado. A few kilometers from the airport is Greater Ternate City, which has a long avenue of local arts and crafts and is near Fort Oranye, a big Dutch-colonial fort built in 1607 as the home of the Dutch East Indies Company before it moved to Jakarta in 1619. The current Sultan's Palace, built in 1796, also dabbles as a museum. The city's other colonial landmarks, including churches, have been gutted down during a 1999 political unrest, but now, many fine mosques are under construction.
Pulau Ternate and Tidore Landmarks:
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