What are the Dutch West Indies like?
 

Since we have a fellow Fodorite who lives in this exotic place, I hope she can share with us what life for her is like there.

Are you referring to Indonesia?

Um, babe, I think that might've been the east indies; the DWI are in the Caribbean.

The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba are parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. So the Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of 3 different parts (the Netherlands in Europe, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba) that are semi-independent and only share national defence, foreign policy and passports. The Netherlands Antilles are Curacao, Bonaire, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten (which share the island with (French) St. Martin)
All islands are different: Curacao is relatively industrial, Bonaire is quiet and great for diving, Aruba is a well-developed beach resort, St. Maarten is a cruise ship heaven, Saba is small and hilly.

Thanks for the info Sjoerd! You guys are awesome :) My geography and history knowledge has exponentially increased since I joined this board. *Now if I could be independently wealthy so I can visit all of these places*

Anonymous
"Um.Babe" no, I said what I meant. Dutch WEST Indies. Statia lives there and I wanted to learn more.

Hi Calamari!
Sjoerd has given us such a fine geography lesson but in describing the islands she omitted St. Eustatius, which is where our Statia gets her registration name, I believe. Hopefully we will hear from her soon.

I am a *he*. And I included St. Eustatius in my earlier post, please read again.

Hi Calamari. Actually, Sjoerd pretty much hit the nail on the head regarding the Dutch West Indies. Anything more specific you want to know about our islands? I'll be glad to answer if I can. Each one has a pretty definitive tourism website that you can check out, as well.

I will add to Sjoerd's post that St. Eustatius (affectionately known as "Statia") was the first nation to salute US Independence, and is the most historical of the islands in our region, not to mention one of the smallest (Saba is a bit smaller) at 9 square miles.

You can also find a lot of info about the West Indies on the Caribbean forum.

Sjoerd, my apologies for the gender confusion.

However, while you did mention St. Eustatius as one of the islands, if you will reread your own post you will see that you offered no brief description of it, as you did for most of the other islands. (I always scored quite high on those reading comprehension tests. :-) )

Just for the record, I knew what you meant by "omitted," Marilyn. That's why a threw in a few tid-bits about our little rock.

Quite honestly, not many people know much about it, and we prefer to keep it that way. :)

Well, I, for one, am getting kind of interested in it, Statia! :-)