Paradise

  Maratua, East Kalimantan, Indonesia Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Well the boat Jerry was waiting for us as promised and we set off from Derawan at 8am. The sea was a little bit choppy but not too bad and the weather was clear so it was fine. Our boatman took it really steady as well and after an hour we could see the island of Maratua ahead of us. As we pulled up towards the jetty, the water had turned this amazing turquoise blue and the sun came out. All good signs for a fabulous week. As we creeped nearer, we could just make out our friends Kiki & Per who had arrived a few days ahead of us. They were having breakfast and we were all waving madly. We got straight down to nattering and it took us an hour to realise we were gasping for a cup of tea.fabulous place for a reunion! The guesthouse is owned by Jun and his wife Annie. They have a very young baby and have put their life savings into building this place. It is more of an eco jungle type guesthouse so even after our epic journey here we could not get a hot shower. Cold water only from now on. There is no power between 8am and 6pm so no air conditioning or powered fans either. And no telephones, TV or internet. We were completely away from the 21st Century here. Wonderful. The bungalows are all built inland and of course we were in just about the furthest one away. A good comfy bed though and a nice open air bathroom which seem quite typical in Indonesia - well in the places we can afford anyway. There is a salt water lake just in front of our bungalow and the kingfisher could be seen on his favourite perch most mornings and afternoons. Very peaceful. The restaurant and veranda is a great place to be.The only place to be during the day anyway. The breeze from the sea comes in and attempts to cool you down a bit but its a poor attempt as it is so hot. Bryan and Per enjoyed lazing in the hammocks a few days when they got the chance. The guesthouse isn't very big either. There were just 8 of us staying here, a young Canadian couple; Kayla and Kevin and the first evening we were joined by the jolly loud Dutch couple; Eric & Bea. That first night Per got the rum out and we all bonded a bit more and had a lovely time. Before creeping off through the jungle to our hut for the night. We had all arranged to go on an island snorkelling trip together the very next day. But we have written about that in a separate entry. Suffice to say it was completely amazing. It was a nice group we were with here and we all seemed to get on well as they days went by. Bryan, Per, Bea and Eric were all keen divers and they all went off together one day and left the rest of us to walk the stunning beach, collect shells, read books and generally relax.It was incredibly quiet that day - now we know who the noisy ones are! The highlight of their day was spotting a shark.... The previous evening Bea had boldly stated her greatest wish was to see a shark. Well she got her wish but it wasn't quite what she expected. Most divers who get to see sharks, get to see gentle reef sharks, basking sharks, whale sharks etc. Not this one though it was quite edgy and looked mean. Jun had a book of fish and things you can see in the water around here and as Bryan as always caught it all on camera, they could easily identify their shark as a grey reef shark. Not quite a great white but they were right to be scared of it. The book said it was dangerous. The beach here is (to use a word I will use over for this place) stunning. No other word for it. Kiki, Per and us went for a walk along the beach and we saw the most amazing shells, huge clam shells, types you normally only ever see in tacky souvenir shops in Cornwall and never on a real beach. But this island has no souvenir shops, only 3 hotels including ours (and they are just water bungalows not giant ugly structures).Everything here is about the nature and being natural. As there is no entertainment except that which we provide ourselves (the fish book filled quite a few hours between us) and with spending almost the whole waking day with the same people, by evening we were all talked out and tired. Most days we were in bed and fast asleep by 9pm. The four of us took a walk to the nearest village one afternoon and found a little coffee shop by the beach - coffee shop sounds a bit grand - it was a hut selling coffee in sachets. They had set up a little seating area on the sand which was nice but it was only after we had been sitting there a while we noticed all the umbrellas were upside down satellite dishes. Reuse/repair/recycle sprang to mind. Which is good as nothing goes to waste here obviously! As we sat there drinking our 3-in-1 we watched giant sea eagles circling above. Another reminder of what a special place this is. On the walk back from the village Jody and Kiki saw monkies and a huge monitor lizzard. Not quite a komodo dragon but big enough. The restaurant is the perfect place for turtle watching too and pretty much the best entertainment there is here.Jun told us one lady had snorkelled the 1 km to the village and she had counted to 170 and then gave up. there were so many. And we never got tired of it. Every time someone saw a head pop out of the water we would shout "turtle" and we would all rush to look. Of course it meant we did this all day long. Because we could. Of course we had lots of opportunity to snorkel ourselves. There is just so much to see in the water here that that book came in really handy most days. One thing we didn't need the book for though was turtles. Not many people get the opportunity to snorkel with turtles in the wild so we made as much as we could of this fantastic spot. And what an experience. To be in the sea with the turtles. WOW!One day worth mentioning was Saturday 28th February. Or Kiki's Birthday! Bea and Eric got up early and had arranged biscuits to spell out Happy 65. As there is no oven in the kitchen we couldn't get her a cake baked so biscuits were the next best thing and there on paradise accompanied by Stevie Wonder, we sang Happy Birthday to her and had ourselves a little party. The day was spent in the usual way but in the evening - out came the other bottle of rum! We had also a stash of biscuits and marshmallows and made another cake structure and there we had it. Rum, biscuits and marsh mallows - all the ingredients you need for a great party! Oh and us of course! Naccubo Island is a small island sat in the horseshoe of the main island. It is also private as it houses one of the two other hotels. Fair to say it cost a lot more to stay there than at our guesthouse. But they had a dive school there and Bryan & Per set off another day to go diving again.She did take her snorkel though which proved to be a waste of time. The tide was out so far it just revealed sand banks and a lot of dead coral. Such a beautiful setting  but it didn't have the magic of our guesthouse. And no turtles either :-( What they did have though was a tiny hotel shop selling small souvenirs - not tacky i hasten to add. And here we managed to get our only little momento of Maratua other than our photos of course - and one or two shells from the beach. Our time here on Maratua was just blissful. But like all good things it had to end. Bea and Eric made the crossing to the mainland a day ahead of the rest of us and the remaining 6 of us got ready to leave the following day. It is fair to say we have been to some very beautiful places in the world but this one was just exceptional and really tops our list for it's natural beauty and sea life. Somewhere neither of us will forget for as long as we live [gallery columns="4" ids="6106,6108,6110,6112,6114,6117,6119,6120,6121,6122,6123,6124,6125,6126,6127,6128,6129,6130,6131,6132,6134,6138,6140,6141,6143,6146,6147,6151,6154,6156,6158,6159,6161,6165,6169,6171,6173,6175,6176,6177,6179,6181,6183,6185,6187,6188,6190,6192,6193,6195,6197,6200,6202,6205,6210,6213,6214,6218,6220,6224,6230,6236"]