maluku islands Archives • Candinavia

After our stay in the Kei Islands, we spent 1 night in Ambon before leaving again to our next destinations, the Spice Islands aka Banda Islands. I do love that each group of islands we visit has their own nickname.

Although the Banda Islands are more touristy than the Kei Islands, it is NOTHING like Bali. You will meet very genuine tourists here. I also felt like we discovered more of the Maluku culture while visiting the Banda Islands compared to Kei Kecil.

*Not a bad view to wake up to every morning*

The Banda Islands are also known as the Spice Islands and were very important to colonizing Europeans in the 17th century since this where many popular spices originated. Nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, and white pepper (to name a few!) originate from the Banda Islands. I love spices and I read great things online about the Banda Islands, so why not visit them for myself?

Before I delve into a lot of details, I want to make it very clear why you should visit the Banda Islands: you will experience the best snorkelling in your life. I had no idea that snorkelling could be this good. If you have snorkelled in Thailand or Croatia, forget about it! That’s just shit. Imagine swimming out only 1-metre to an infinite drop off surrounded by (not exaggerating) thousands of fish. You can see a green turtle on every snorkel and can also dive with hammerhead sharks. What the heck are you waiting for? Book a plane and visit the Banda Islands before it is too late!

Feel free to click on the anchor links above to skip to your favourite part! Make sure you read our itinerary since it involves island hopping and climbing a volcano!

Hatta Island — *Seriously, we were surrounded by 1000s of fish at every turn in the water*

Continue reading “Our 1-Week Exploration of the Banda Islands” →

Whenever Daniel and I mentioned that we had planned to go to the Maluku Islands during our trip, we were met with a lot of “and where is that?”

The Maluku Islands is a large region in Indonesia, which is made up of a bunch of different island systems. Think south and cheaper than Raja Ampat, but with good beaches, snorkelling, diving, trekking, and locals! At first, our plan was to just hit up the Banda Islands, but I ended up reading a blog (1 of the millions that I read before the trip) that mentioned the Forgotten Islands aka the Kei Islands aka the Kai Islands. In this blog post, I saw white sandy beaches and what I imagined as paradise. So, we decided to add the Kei Islands onto our trip. But what is this place and how can we get there?

Ngurbloat Beach — Ngurtbloat Beach which is famous for its blue waters and white beaches

Feel free to click on the anchor links above to skip to your favourite part! Make sure you read what we did since it involves 5 days of DIVING!

Continue reading “Why You Should Not Forget About Visiting the Forgotten Kei Islands” →

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