Manado

Once a thriving colonial trade town issuing streams of aromatic spices through the channels of the Dutch East India Company, Manado on the far-flung northern tip of Indonesian Sulawesi now figures as one of the country’s more charming provincial capitals. While the city centre has a typically Southeast Asian urban affair—laden with holes-in-the-wall touting piping dishes of Manadonese fish rice and criss-crossed by bustling streets of mikrolet buses—it does do well to conceal a smattering of Chinese Qing temples, the odd colonial townhouse as well as traditional wooden Minahasa houses concentrated more on the countryside. But, as any Manado tour guide will tell you, this one’s major pulls lurk on its peripheries; bubbling up from the Sulawesian hills in Bukit Kasih to the south, lurking in the misty lowland rainforests of the Tangkoko Nature Reserve, or waiting on the various hiking trails that wind their way along the ridges of the colossal Mahawu Volcano. The biggest draw of them all is by far the underwater life at Bunaken National Marine Park and its crystal-clear waters that makes Manado is a veritable mecca for scuba divers.