white beaches

The way there

From Bali we made our way to the Kei islands. It wasn’t an easy trip flying to Makassar, then Ambon and finally to Langgur. There are different ways of getting there, and one includes a boat but everyone we spoke to seemed to have come by plane. The trip became all the more challenging when I fell ill in Ambon with 39 degree fever. After checking in our luggage the sickness became worse, and we decided that we could not fly to the Kei islands before seeing a doctor. There are two hospitals on the Kei islands but they do not have the facilities to check your blood for tropical diseases.

When we tried to get the luggage back, the lady at the counter told us “don’t worry we have a doctor here at the airport”. I thought yes! Let’s go see her and figure out what I have but it was quite a bit more complicated in reality. I came there and it wasn’t a doctor we were going to see, but the quarantine officer. She saw me and blocked me from flying all together until I had my blood checked for dengue and malaria. Great, now we were at the airport but had to drive back to Ambon, get my blood checked and come back to the airport.