After diving and snorkeling around the world, this is the best underwater world I've ever experienced and I'm afraid that I'll never experience better? People like Columbus, Marco Polo and Jacques-Yves Cousteau sought the Banda Islands. The original Spice Islands and the most coveted destination on earth, particularly by the Dutch and Portuguese who colonized the islands and exported the indigenous nutmeg, mace and cloves. On all these Banda Islands you can still find a lot of VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) remains like forts and colonial buildings that are really intact.
The common nutmeg is a native to the Banda Islands, is the actual seed of the tree and mace is the innner reddish skin of the nutmeg. On the biggest island Lonthor (Banda *Besar) you'll find plantation with big trees full of nutmeg. Walking through the Island Lonthor you'll see and smell the scent of nutmeg drying in the sun infront of almost every house you pass by. It's hard to believe that the small Banda Islands were the world's only source of nutmeg and mace and therefore the center of the world in the 17th century dominated by the Dutch. A funfact an probably not so smart is that the Dutch almost controlled whole Banda except for one Island called Run that was controlled by the British. At the end of the Second-Anglo-Dutch War the Dutch finally got Island Run in exchange for New Amsterdam (New York) in the USA. After this trade it didn't take long while the British were smart enough to transplant nutmeg trees to their own colonials elsewhere. And now you can find it in everyone's cupboard, it's tasty and healthy. While nutmeg has a small amount of toxin it is advised to use a minimum because it can take you into a very nasty trip that even leaves you behind with a more nastier feeling...
*Besar= Big
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