“Too many dogs here” says Crispin as he returns us to Sunset Beach after a dive “and at my place too”. But they’ll be gone in December when the people from Manado will come through and clear them out for Christmas. They will eat anything in Manado.” When Jenni said, “aren’t they too skinny too eat?” he said
“Hmmph, they will eat anything in Manado. They eat bats.”

Which is exactly why we were warned not to go to the meat market in Manado.

We went for a walk after lunch to the village .. we are surprised oh it’s only about 80 metres through this narrow neck and we are on the beach on the other side of the island. We walk along the beach, it is past low tide. The cook said it takes an hour. Irina says 15 min.

We didn’t invite them but four dogs followed us.

When we get to the village we had to walk through some very unattractive grubby water. Maybe there is a better entry? The bit facing the sea is rough and weathered.
After that it turned into a nice little village. The bit we saw probably houses a few hundred people. Soon we have a crowd of friendly kids. Two boys grabbed their roosters and made them fight.

Walking back Steve was like..oh oh, I’ve got a child. She’s attached and she’s not letting go. I don’t know where she belongs… Fortunately soon we passed a man sitting who said she was his. And then his older son got to try out his english. Black, he said pointing to my trousers. I pointed to the child nearests shirt “dan ini?” Red, Green he said. I pointed to Yellow, he wasn’t sure but was not convinced by my yellow. In Gorontalo someone showed us something growing. He couldn’t think of the name …said it’s for curry, we just call it yellow. Eventually he remembered it’s other name – kunyit/ turmeric .

We stopped at a little shop and bought a bar of soap that promises to be “a mood enhancer.” We are pretty happy already but as we walked back through the ankle deep sludge between the houses where we entered, I know that soap really is going to be mood enhancing in either 15 minutes or an hour