Untamed Maluku: An odyssey in Indonesia's 'forgotten' provinces

AMBON, Indonesia -- The rugged, aquamarine-fringed Maluku Islands, once known as the Moluccas or the Spice Islands, are among the least visited of Indonesia's roughly 17,500 islands. Scattered like fragments of a broken land bridge between Sulawesi Island to the west, West Papua province to the east and Australia to the south, the Maluku Islands are a patchwork of cultures and landscapes that resists easy definition.