This 500-year-old harbor area was a vital link to markets of the outside world for the 15th century kingdom of Pajajaran. It was formerly the harbor town of Sunda Kelapa where the Portuguese traded with the Hindu Kingdom of Pajajaran in the early 16th century.
Since than this port has belonged to the Dutch and now Indonesia.
Time has stood still here!
Between all those high glass offices , traffic jam's and noise you will find the harbor , almost a quiet spot.
Large wooden ships enter here to release their cargo. These ships look much older then they are...
Decades ago they used to bring spices from the other islands to ship to Europe , mainly the Netherlands.
Nowadays these ships contain wood. Tropical wood to make expensive furniture, the majority of the wood being teak.
These goods are unloaded by men walking the small unstable gangway with a loads that normal guys like myself would say "No fucking way".
The longshoremen used to receive a piece of string arround their arm everytime they walked up and down and got paid based on the number of strings, ..these days they make about US$ 3 -11 per day depending for who they work and the sort of cargo.
No comments:
Post a Comment