Indonesia is an archipelago country with more than seventeen thousand islands spanning through almost two million kilometer. I spent my fare share of travelling throughout Europe, but it doesn't mean I don't explore my own beautiful country. Last year I went to Derawan island which located in East Borneo province. To reach Derawan you can either fly to Tarakan, which have more frequent flight, and use speedboat for 2 to 3 hours to reach Derawan or you can fly to Berau and continue with speedboat for about an hour. If you tend to have sea sick, choosing to fly to Berau is much saver choice.
Basically Derawan is the name of main island, if you choose to stay there, and during your stay you will do island hopping using a speedboat and do a lot of fun stuff. Most of the accommodation in Derawan are floating house, it's a great new experience just to feel the sea breeze in front of your room or if you decided to count the stars at night or simply sleeping with the sound of the waves beneath you.
First stop for my journey was Kakaban Island, it took me around an hour using speedboat from Derawan. In Kakaban you'll find a lake where thousand of wild jellyfish live. Wait, what so special about that? Jellyfish is famous with its sting as a defense mechanism, so even though it really pretty we cannot touch them, but here in Kakaban the jellyfish have live their life peacefully and not developed their defense mechanism a.k.a the sting. So here we can swim and touch them freely. Psst, try to swim to the center of the lake and you'll see jellyfish with different color. And you can find this kind of jellyfish only in two places in the world!
The next day I went to different island called Sanglaki, here I will not found jellyfish but I found sea turtle instead. Sea turtle, as explained in Disney movie Finding Nemo, can live for hundred years. Sea turtle like to spawn here in Sanglaki, usually female sea turtle spawn hundreds of eggs at night buried deep down in the sand to avoid predator and when its time to hatch, the baby sea turtle will find their way from the sand to the sea. But if the sea turtle born during the day, they will be more vulnerable to the predator that's why here in Sanglaki they have a temporary place to keep the baby sea turtle and let them free in the middle of the night. If you walk around the beach, please take note of the sea turtle trail, you surely don't want to destroy their nest or worse step on the eggs. During the day I went swimming near Sanglaki and fortunate enough to swim close to a giant sea turtle. It's such a magical moment!
I spent my last day in Derawan to chase Manta. Manta is one of the fish species which eat plankton and have flat shaped body. Up close they have blue mouth, or what I'm considered as mouth, and swim very fast. It took quite a lot of courage and determination to find Manta in a very big ocean but it all worth it. All in all, I really enjoy my trip to Derawan, I learn a lot about sea creatures and even swim with some of them. If you like to see beautiful coral, Derawan might not be the perfect place for you but if you want to experience something new with say jellyfish or sea turtle, come and visit Derawan!
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| It's a family trip!! |
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