I'll Be There Dreckly: No Stings Paradise

Derawan Island, Indonesia (map)

In this blog: travelling through rural Indonesia, staying on a tropical desert island, swimming with jellyfish, manta rays and turtles, and a spot of diving.

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Beautiful Derawan island

Our guesthouse built on stilts in the water - idyllic

Wild plants, short palm trees and mangrove forest on the shore of the huge brown river with mountains in the background. Tin huts, lagoons and small inlets visible every so often briefly. Fishermen wearing Chinese hats in small wooden boats.

This was the view from the cramped speedboat we were on, heading from the island of Tarakan upriver on a long and disjointed journey en-route to the Derawan islands. The three 250hp engines chucked the boat along at a decent pace, whilst I watched with disbelief as some fellow passengers wore coats whilst I sweated profusely in the fairly humid near-30° heat. We reached the town of Tanjung Selor, and Rene (my Canadian travel buddie) and I headed to catch a share taxi to Berau, being told to wait despite everyone including the driver being ready to go. And for an hour or so for no particular reason we waited. Welcome to Indonesian time.

Finally we were on the road, heading through heavily logged hills which seem to have since been abandoned, now just covered in green scrub and burnt-out tree stumps. Very simple wooden houses raised off the ground lined the road which you could easily mistake for chicken shacks - even after India I was slightly shocked by this basic existence that these people lived. The road surface was sometimes good but often terrible - full of potholes and undulating as if the tarmac had been laid straight onto fresh mud, and the driver insisted on playing loud cheesy dance music all the way. We stopped at a remote cafe - a bare bones chicken shack which seemed to sell only dry old fish from a glass case and instant noodles. We stuck with the noodles thanks. Eventually we entered the city of Berau, looking in disbelief when our car passed a couple of men casually selling a few guns beside the road. What! Who knows what the story was there.

The driver dropped us in what seemed a very random spot and after a few minutes of confused charade-like exchanges, he made a phone call and almost miraculously a taxi then showed up. We were quoted £7 (140,000 rupiah) to hire it for the next 2.5hr journey to reach the port. It seemed too good to be true - we were sure we would be fleeced at the other end somehow, but unbelievably it was fine.

At the little coastal town of Tanjung Batu we reached the port hoping to take a boat to our final destination of Derawan island, but it was now dusk and turned out to be too late. We decided to head to find a guesthouse but having no luck after half an hour of walking, a couple of locals then took pity on us and kindly offered to drive us a mile or so out of town on their scooters, so we took them up on it. We were taken to the most basic of guesthouses - so basic there was no sink and just a bucket shower, and a nights stay cost £1.50 each including a tea and donut for breakfast! We asked the owner where we go to eat that night, and without even knowing our names just handed us his scooter keys and pointed along the road to a cafe. Such trust and kindness.

Derawan Island

Bright and breezy the following morning we arrived at our home for the next few days - the tiny island of Derawan - after an exciting half-hour speedboat ride. To our surprise this was an island dominated by locals rather than tourists so unlike say Thailand, where the residents grew weary of Jonny Foreigner decades ago and just want your cash, the folk of Derawan were always full of smiles and 'hello misters' as you walked past. In fact most tourists who visit are on holiday from other parts of Indonesia itself, and we only saw six or seven foreigners in four days. Tourism often corrupts locals, but Derawan seemed as wholesome as it ever was.

We soon found an idyllic spot to stay - in a line of brightly painted terraced huts built on stilts out to sea, where both the front and back doors open to a deck on the waters edge - one of the best locations I've ever stayed in for sure.

It was warm but grey and dull, and we went for a wander to explore. The island is small enough that you can lap it in under an hour but we took our time, passing through a smart resort, a modest Muslim graveyard, and past the islands power station which surprisingly comprised mostly of solar panels - very progressive for a small third-world island I thought. We explored the beaches which were clean and extremely quiet and palm trees swayed overhead, which of course qualified it instantly as a proper tropical island. On a wooden pier nearby, kids tried fishing with line and unbaited hook and I sat to watch the shoals of fish swimming below, as well as gazing at the other islands in the distance, before without realising it dozing off for twenty minutes. This leisurely pace of life was as infective as rabies it seemed.

Walking back across the island on the sandy dirt roads, we passed the colourful wooden homes of the residents which were all tidy and well kept, and young kids played freely outside. Despite the small size of the island people were buzzing around everywhere on scooters, and strangely age didn't seem to matter with boys and girls as young as eleven taking to the roads in twos or threes. It was like real life Bugsy Malone.

Snorkelling

The waters around the island were full of beautiful tropical fish and coral, so that afternoon we hired a mask and snorkel and went for a look. Tentatively walking out through the shallow water I saw a stingray for the first time - the Steve Irwin killer - darting around and then hiding under a rock. The nearest coral to shore had been destroyed by dynamite fishing (yes really!) but further out was much better. There was lots to see, and with Rene's expert help I spotted lots of trumpetfish, boxfish, triggerfish, a miniature lion fish, sea urchins, batfish, a giant clam plus loads more besides.

The highlight however was getting to swim with turtles - we spotted seven in total that afternoon, gliding gracefully underwater, and we were able to just keep up when followeing them. Getting out at a pier along the shore, we decided it was a perfect spot to jump off the two metre high deck, again, and again, and again. Rene mastered the backflip whilst I was satisfied with just learning to dive, which after a rather painful bellyflop I eventually somewhat did. Great fun.

Boat trip

This was truly a day to remember, action packed all the way.

Derawan is part of an archipelago, a group of islands, and after a lot of asking around we'd managed to group up with two Taiwanese girls, Miow and Sushu, to charter a speedboat for the day to see a couple of them. Along with our divemaster and all the diving gear, we squeezed into the little boat and roared off into what was initially nothingness, just a flat empty horizon. After an hour or so later we reached Kakaban island which looks a little like a magnifying glass from the air thanks to the saltwater lake in it's centre.

With our diving gear on we left the speedboat into the deep blue below. This was my first dive as a qualified scuba diver, having completing a PADI course a couple of weeks before so it was liberating to be able to move about of my own free will without instruction. A few hundred metres away from shore, the shallow water dropped down suddenly, and we followed the near vertical wall of coral downwards to as deep as 22m below sea level. There wasn't a great deal of fish and he light was a bit dull, but there was some huge fan corals and interesting features to see anyway.

Stingless jellyfish

After the dive we walked inland over a rocky volcanic ridge to the lake at it's centre - a very special lake, for this was one of only two places in the world where you find stingless jellyfish. With no natural predators around, these jellyfish evolved over hundreds if not thousands of years to loose their sting and are now completely inert.

Despite all you've been told about them being harmless, it's very difficult to make that first move and actually touch one of them. Just like doing a skydive or cuddling a tame tiger - you know it should be safe but your brain won't quite let you do it without having a wobble first. But once I did it was a very special and perculier experience.

Jellyfish have no eyes so you'd often just feel one bumping into your skin accidentally, strange at first but you get used to it. Once you touch them with your fingers you find they feel just like silicone; all rubbery and squidgy and you soon find yourself picking them up and moving them around like pawns on a chessboard. Rene went as far as kissing one, but reckons there was actually a tiny bit of sting in it - enough to get him on the thin skin of his lip! As tempting as it was to stay all day it was time to get back in the boat and head onto the second island - Sagalaki.

Despite the dark skies and rain, Sagalaki still looked beautiful - a small uninhabited coral cay that I managed to walk right around in twenty minutes. We snorkelled just offshore for a while where there was a great variety of fish and coral to see, and on the island itself we were shown a crate containing a dozen baby turtles which were born that morning, who wriggled around much faster than you'd expect of a creature so stereotypically slow.

The grand finale for this big day was one to equal the jellyfish though - swimming with manta rays. The seas just off Sangalaki are known for these huge, very strange looking flatfish, which have the shape of a stealth bomber but the majesty and grace of a bird as they move along underwater, and they can grow to huge wingspans, apparently up to seven meres. We were fortunate enough to be able to spot one from the boat and jump in to swim alongside it - this one was about two metres wide and easily outswum me. After bobbing around for a minute or two I was suddenly faced with three of them coming towards me - despite their size they're completely harmless, but I didn't know that at that moment! Upon spotting the approaching pack I tensed and really wasn't sure what to do so hurriedly shuffling sideways, only for them to change direction and take off. Phew.

Almost horizontal

It was 6.30am and I rubbed my eyes, wondering what was going on as cheesy ballad music loudly blasted through the guesthouse. I tired to ignore it but it was impossible so stepped onto the balcony to see a lone builder next door merrily painting away. I felt a bit rude telling the locals what to do, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one rudely awoken and after a bit of sign language via his next door neighbour all was back to normal in Camp Derawan. The ignorance!

We decided to have a day of nothing to make the most of being on this desert island, which as ever turned into two days. Listening to music in the shade, drinking tea, watching purple crabs climb the decking and boats passing by and looking at divers heading out to sea, and reading my book - this was all Derawan demanded of me and for that I was grateful. We hung around some of the time with a proper Australian lady in her forties who stayed next door - Marie - who was a air stewardess for Quantas. She wasn't the brightest nor seemed to listen to anything we ever said, but it didn't really matter as she was good fun, kind and friendly. She was also very helpful when I stepped on a sea urchin in shallow water - a spiky creature that lies on the sea floor that is covered in sharp venomous spikes, which was a painful moment. With a bucket of hot water and a pair of tweezers all was soon back to normal though.

I spent late afternoon both days reading on the beach to the south of the island, leaning against a huge piece of driftwood. Barely a soul passed by in two or three hours, except a couple of large local groups of women and girls who wanted their photo taken with me - just as I found in India, foreigners are truly a novelty in this part of Indonesia. The sea was so calm to be almost mirror like, and only the odd fishing boat put-putting it's way across the horizon broke the view and total peace. It was heaven, a level of relaxation only being on an island can bring.

Fishy business

Finally in this extra-long, slightly smug (sorry), but hopefully not too tedious blog, I thought I'd mention the food. With little forms of employment on the island but fishing it was no surprise that seafood was plentiful. We ate seafood every lunch and tea time for £1-2 a meal - at different times crab, battered calamari, cuttlefish in sauce, baked whole fish, fried shrimps, garlic coated squid - all served with rice and side dishes and all fantastic, though dissecting the crab required the skill, dexterity and patience of a surgeon, which I'm most certainly not.

The Derawan archipelago was a proper pain to get to so I'm not surprised it's off the tourist trail, but that makes it as fantastic as it is and I hope it stays that way for anyone who make the effort to get there.

Indonesia - so far, so good.