Paotere Harbor & Fish Market

As I departed Chinatown, a rickshaw driver swung by. His name was Mido and he was an engaging chap. He encouraged me to go to Paotere Harbor. He even told me he didn’t care how much I paid him, just as long as he could feed himself. So, I hopped onto his rickety contraption, and he pedaled the 2km to Paotere.

Our first stop was the seafood market, which was everything a seafood market should be - bustling, loud, and smelly. Mido then took me to the port where there were a number of Bugis boats. I watched as sacks of cement (unfortunately transliterated to “semen” in Indonesian), and other goods got loaded onto one of the boats. While I was there, my mind wandered to the 1970s documentary Ring of Fire, in which two brothers hitched a ride on a Bugis pinisi to the eastern islands. Their narrative of that voyage was quite fascinating. Incidentally, it is widely believed that “boogeyman” was derived from “Bugis” because of their reputation as fierce pirates.

After Paotere, Mido pedaled me to Fort Rotterdam. There, we parted ways and I gave him enough cash for a few meals.

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