This post is a continuation from this one.
We went for lunch at a stall at Serdang Beach in Manggar area. The restaurant had 2 names on it, "Sinar Laut" and "Ayung". Not sure which one is correct. We had a variety of seafood and kangkung and beansprout. Unfortunately, we were too hungry to take a picture :D The food was good, it wasn't phenomenal but good. We got to try a Belitung specialty dish called Gangan Ikan, fish with curry-like soup but with mild taste. It was okay.
That afternoon, we saw something pretty cool far in the sky. As we were entering the car, I overheard a lady exclaiming that the cloud looked funny. So of course, I had to look. I didn't expect to see a twister in the sky, with water swirling up where it touched down on the sea. I quickly announced it to our group and we hurriedly crossed the street to get a clearer view.
In the series of pictures below, you can see how it gradually subsides...
According to our driver, this happens quite often and sometimes you can see two or three at the same time. Sure enough, here's another one we saw from the car.
Formerly known as Biliton, Belitung is famous for their tin mines. The large number of miners there started the afternoon coffee culture in the island. Coffee shops or warung kopi are so popular that there is a town on the island dubbed the town of 1001 coffee shops. They even have a monument there with a coffee cup and pot on top. Of course we had to try it out!
We stopped at Warkop Millenium, one of the few that was open that afternoon. Maybe it was too close to the Eid holiday. The coffee shops there are kopitiam style, so we ordered half boiled eggs and grilled toast to complete the experience. Unfortulately, the coffee taste was rather disappointing. Oh well, at least we've tried it!
As we sat and sipped our coffee there it started pouring. We waited until the rain calmed down a bit and hopped back in the car to our next destination.
The Kwan Im Buddhist Temple is the oldest buddhist temple in Belitung, built by the Chinese workers who came to Belitung to work for the tin mines. It is a well maintained temple with a statue of the Kwan Im goddess at the top looking out towards the sea. The history of the site goes back further though, as taken from Wikitravel:
The known history begun at 1293 where the Mongolian horde, led by Kau Shing and Shih Pi depart from China to conquer Singasari Kingdom in Java. In that campaign, many of Mongolian soldiers injured, caught in the storm, and scattered. Some of them managed to reach home to China, some of them lost stranded in a place they named: Kau-lan, which is a site at Belitung. The site of Vihara Kwan Im today is the site they used to gather and pray for the mercy of Goddess Guanyin to grant them grace to go back home to their homeland. These soldiers never managed to see their homeland. Instead, they assimilated to start new life on that foreign island, and no temple was ever built on that site. Hundred years later when Colonization era begun, a huge tin deposit found in Belitung which make Belitung become a huge tin mine very soon. Vihara Kwan Im was built later in 1747 by the first Chinese workers who came to Belitung to work in the tin mines. Today, Vihara Kwan Im is one of most historic temples in Indonesia where many Buddhist believers around the world come there whether just for visit or to pray. Donāt miss the nearby Chinese cemetery.
The next stop was Pantai Burung Mandi or Bird Bath beach. There, we let the kids play with the sand and we took the opportunity to let our feet enjoy the fine sand there. There were fisherman's boats there and we half jokingly hoped that the island hopping boats are not like those. That would be scaaaaary for us city dwellers.
From the beach, we moved on to Kaolin Lake. It's not a natural-occuring lake, but rather is a by-product of tin mining. Visitors used to be able to go down closer to the water but not anymore for safety reasons. It was near sunset and we were able to see the nice yellow rays that fell on the sand. The kids on the other hand, were more fascinated with the mounds of sand by the parking lot. They thoroughly enjoyed climbing and navigating the little sand hills and valleys.
Finally after sunset we went to the hotel and let our driver go. We opted for dinner just across the street from the hotel at a restaurant called Warung Pasya. The food was decent. Again, we had seafood and stir fried kangkung but with grilled chicken for variety. Sorry. Only chicken picture. Hahaha...
Our rooms had beach view so here's a picture I took from the balcony that evening.
Please stay tuned for the next post!
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