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Christmas in Derawan Islands Part 1 - The Derawan Island


A couple of years ago I was chatting with one of my expat friends and learnt about this lake in Borneo where you can swim with stingless jellyfish.  There was a little pang in my heart... I am Indonesian and I did not know much about my own country. That was the beginning of my on and off effort to know more about my homeland.

I actually wanted to book this trip for the past Eid-l Fitr holiday but had not been able to due to DH's off-days uncertainty. I did not want to delay it anymore so I booked it for the Christmas Holiday. I chose a tour company called Kakaban Trip. I did not have any referrals so I took my chances with them based on their website, pictures, and Facebook Page posts.

The itinerary said that we would leave on Christmas Day in the morning. It did not cross my mind at all that it had meant a 5 AM flight and we would have had to leave home at 2:30 AM. And so that's what we did.... We met up with some of the tour guides at the airport terminal and got our boarding passes.

Sleepy at the airport
And we arrived in Tarakan! Here we were introduced to the local tour guide who would be with us for the rest of the trip.
Juwata Airport, Tarakan
 Then we had lunch...
Lunch at Ikan Bakar Cianjur cabang Surabaya
 After lunch we practically crossed the street by bus to get to the port.

Waiting for our boat
All aboard!


Note to self: for the next trip I need to buy child-size life vest.


I had been too excited about booking this trip and had forgotten to check if it was a good season to go. Not until my cousin mentioned the high tidal waves in December did it strike me. 

Our boat ride started okay, but by the time we entered the Celebes Sea area it got wavy. I am not used to boat rides at all, so as soon as the larger waves hit my heart sank to the bottom. I found out later on that those were regular waves for December. Nevertheless, all the stress was forgotten as soon as we arrived and greeted by a breathtaking view even on a rather cloudy day.

At Derawan Dive Resort

At Derawan Dive Resort

At Derawan Dive Resort






 After checking in to our room we had lunch in a restaurant in the village. We were served grilled fish, stir fried squid, and some stir fried veggies. The fish was fresh and all the food was yummy. We were not too impressed with the resort itself though. It was not private enough, the wood was creaky, toilet and towels were not clean. Luckily we were only staying there for 1 night. I could live with that.

After lunch we still had a bit of time for snorkelling. So we tried to go. It was Miss Kiki's and my first time snorkelling and she was still too scared so only DH ended up snorkelling around. He reported that he saw a good sized lion fish and a bunch of sea urchins. Our tour guide was also in the water to guide us around and he took DH to see a sea turtle that happened to be there.

The Village

Disclaimer: the pictures in the blog are not all mine. I took my Nikon D50 with me but it was not always convenient to use. Some pictures were from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and some pictures were taken by our guide with his waterproof camera.





Lion fish

After sunset we had dinner at the resort... it was okay but not as good as lunch.

Dinner time

Dinner buffet
Crescent moon
To be continued...



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