Manado: Shopping Area and Starting-Point for Tours

(Last update: 21.02.2007)

To Internet café and Shopping Center of Manado

Since there was no conventional telephone network on Bunaken, we had to go by boat to Manado at least once per week to receive or send our e-mails in an Internet café.

Our standard route until 2004 went from the harbour to the main street Jl. Sam Ratulangi in the centre. Within approx. 15 minutes we reached the department store "MATA HARI", to be recognized easily by its size. Obliquely opposite the post office was located. Since the new shopping centre "MEGA MALL"was opened, the Mata Hari has lost its preferential meaning, however.

The modern Internet café is located in the 4th floor of the "MM". You reach there on the boulevard within only few minutes. Either on foot or with the Mikrolet along the sea in the direction of "MALALAYANG". People there were very nice. They even helped me, to connect my laptop. For one hour I paid 10,000 Rp last. The connection was very slow at times like everywhere in Manado. However, it already worked a little more quickly than in 2005. It could happen around the lunchtime that the connections got extremely slow. Some foreign websites could even not be reached any more at all. You should also always expect that the Internet connection may malfunction completely on some days.

Hotels and Restaurants in Manado

Following the Jl. Sam Ratulang from the "Mata Hari" to the south you get to the "VICTORY INN " . it is a reasonably priced little hotel, just recently with a little Internet café. It serves many newcomers as a good address to receive useful information and is an alternative to the no longer quite so cheap "CELEBES" directly at the harbour. It is often claimed there to the incoming guest that the cheap rooms are already occupied. If we had to spend a night in Manado this year we regularly spent it in the "MINAHASA HOTEL"(picture on the left). The rooms are situated as single buildings on a slop to the right and left of a stair and cost around 250,000 Rp.

We often dined at a reasonable price in the Chinese restaurant "GREEN GARDEN" just besides the Victory Inn. The menu was miscellaneous and the service very friendly.

Occasionally we went to the "DOLPHIN" over the way. It was a restaurant with café and therefore particularly appropiate if we had an appetite for breakfast with pastries. There is now a very good alternative in "MEGA MALL ", though. It is a modern café directly at the entry area. One can watch the production behind glass and can hardly resist the smell of the delicious pastries arising in this process. And if somebody has an appetite for a good Cappucino then, he will find a café at the ground floor too.

Many times we paid a visit to the small restaurant "MM" nearby the harbour on our way back. Stenly, the son of the owner operates a small computer shop (open at 11 a.m.) at the same place. The extremely kind and helpful man was always pleased about our visit and used to join us drinking a bootle of "Bir Bintag". His nasi groreng and Bami goreng can can be very much recommended . If you however desire for something quite special once, then you should order "Sate " (marinated meat on skewers , delicious cooked on the grill, with peanut sauce).... on recommendation of Papa Klaus.

Pictures of Manado

With the following photos I would like to convey you an impression of my experiences of the last years on Bunaken:


After 45 minutes from Bunaken the boat reaches the mouth of a river at the harbour of Manado ...	...and ties up at the wall. Don't forget to ask the captain now, what time the boat returns to Bunaken in the afternoon.	If you don't have to do anything in the harbour area absolutely, you will escape the smell and home in on the city of Manado as fast as possible.


	On the Jl. Sam Ratulang the blue "Mikrolets" are the predominant means of public transport. As a pedestrian one has a hard time: A pavement always becomes repaired or rebuilt someplace. Caution is always advisable: Firstly, the many places in which the pavement has broken in are not protected. If one does not permanently keep the eyes open, one can fall in a deep hole and hurt himself seriously . Within the last few years the situation has improved a little, however.


	One also must be permanent on the watch to not rumble with the head against the roofs of the stalls standing on the pavement. On the right lies the restaurant " GREEN GARDEN " and the hotel "VICTORY INN " besides each other.		"GREEN GARDEN". Here one finds many tourists (e.g. us) because this Chinese restaurant offers a palatable and cheap meal.		There are several bus terminals in Manado: One can start with big busses in the different directions from there. There are not firm departure times. As a rule, you start if the vehicle is full. One can find out in the hotel Victory Inn which bus terminal comes for the planned tour in question.


On the boulevard near the sea you can reach the new shopping centre with the 4-storied MEGA MALL by walking or in a few minutes with one of the many microlets.	The modern air-conditioned supermarket with Internet café in the topmost story	We particularly appreciated the hospitality of Stenly in the restaurant "MM" near the harbour. The humorous and open-minded Chinese did not only provide us with palatable nasi Goreng, but also with valuable tips and advice at all imaginable problems.

With a horse-drawn carriage back to the harbour

Look at the harbour out of hotel CELEBES

Sometimes the last couple of hundred metres we went back to the harbour with a horse-drawn carriage, if we were to exhausted to hump our heavy purchases.

Look at the harbour out of the restaurant of the hotel CELEBES in the direction of the islands of Bunaken and Manado Tua. The big ferries start from here to the Sangihe and Talaud islands.

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