Wednesday evening I was able to go to a Navy Band concert right in the heart of Ambon. It was organized as a ComServ – which are activities put together by out good chaplain and his staff - so all our transportation and security were taken care of. There were about 40 of us that went. Once we arrived at the pier we boarded buses to go into the mall in town. I was anxious to see the town as we drove so I headed straight for the front seat. The bus had no “nose” or engine in front so when you are sitting in front you can see everything as the whole front of the bus is a huge windshield. I sat right next to the driver. I was surprised how much bigger and more metropolitan Ambon is compared to Ternate. We drove on narrow, winding streets as we headed into the city center. Our bus driver was an aggressive driver who used his horn a lot. I seem to get these kinds of drivers here. The streets were littered with trishaws, young boys and men cycling passengers off to their destinations. I was sure our windshield would soon be splattered with trishaw drivers as our bus driver was not timid about moving forward. It was like honk the horn and step on the gas. We seemed to drive a long time – well over an hour and we were still not at our destination. As I was next to our driver I could tell that he was a bit nervous and kept using his phone. Finally we pulled to the side of the road and we thought we had arrived, but instead our driver jumped out and left us. He had gotten lost and had gone to ask directions. It did not matter to me about being lost as we had gotten to see a whole lot of the city. The drive was really quite fun. Our driver did return and we started off again. He turned down this road that was a one way street and traffic in all lanes was coming straight for us. The traffic here consists of motorcycles and taxi vans pretty much like Ternate. They were coming at us fast and by this time it was dark and all we got to see were headlights. This did not bother the bus driver one bit. He would not let something as small as a one way street deter him from his goal of getting us to the concert. Since I had a front row seat to the ongoing traffic and elderly pedestrians that we were so close to squishing on the side of the road, it was quite a scene. The horn on the bus and our imposing size pulled us through until we got to the end of the road. There is one thing about going the wrong direction on a one way street – there is no going back – you've just got to find the end as soon as possible and get off when you can. Uturns are out of the question for a huge bus on very skinny roads. There were all sorts of people out for evening strolls and they were walking on the side of the road with a small ditch separating them from where the houses were. I was sure the mirrors on the bus that stuck out super far were going to hit them and knock them into the ditch. I held my breath a couple times. After we turned from the on-way street we could see the spot-lights in the sky which marked the band concert. 
It was so much fun. In the end I was dancing with all the Indonesian women who were the dignitaries. It was hysterical. I was super sweaty, but had had a great time. This was quite an event, venders were selling glow in the dark toys for the kids and food was sold in carts along the side. There were probably about 1500-2000 people at this concert. At the end the police made a barricade so we could get through the crowd to our bus. I felt like a movie star with my newly acquired sash on as we walked through this break as the throng of people crowded around us to get back to our buses.
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