On our third day in Belitung, DH and I wanted to try Warung Kopi Kong Djie. One of the most famous coffee shops in the area. So famous that they now have many branches on the island. For the experience, we decided to go the original location in the city. We are fortunate to have travel buddies who went along with our request :)
The shop was a typical kopitiam...small, smoky, and not so clean. We got ourselves an outdoor table as far away from the smokers as possible. The coffee was better than the one at Millenium Coffee, but DH and I agreed that it was not as good as the ones we had in Manado.
We went to see a traditional Belitung house but were not able to go inside. Apparently they are only open on Mondays and Tuesdays if the information we obtained were correct. The teakwood house was built on stilts like most houses in Sumatra and Borneo. No one uses this type of house anymore because teak wood is very expensive.
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| Marble handles |
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| Curious kids |
In the museum they showed Chinese items found in many sunken ships in their waters. Ceramics, furniture, tableware, etc. Some even have corals growing on them. They also displayed dioramas of different tin mining systems and shelves of various rocks.
In the museum they had banners that told stories about some of the sunken ships in the area. One told a story about a foreign businessman who found a sunken ship and excavated the contents without the Indonesian government knowing. The goods just magically turned up for auction in Europe. I have my own opinion on that, but lets not talk about it here :D On a brighter side, we have better cabinets now so here's hoping for a better future.
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| Chinese Ceramic from 18th-19th century. Excavated from Gelasa Strait in 1999. |
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| Chinese ceramics from Sung Dynasty, 960-1279 AD. Found in Pulau Buaya (Corcodile Island) waters. |
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| Chinese ceramics from Yuan Dynasty, 13th-14th century. |
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| Chinese ceramics from Tang Dynasty, 7th-8th century. Excavated from Batu Itam waters. |
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| Reading about Tang Dynasty Cargo. The only banner with English text. |
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| Map of Belitung Island. |
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| Decorations used for prayer |
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| Very old money |
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| Old money |
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When we were done at the museum it had started pouring. We hopped into the car and drove to a souvenir shop. Souvenir-wise it doesn't have much to offer but we bought some fish and squid crackers to take home. We then drove some more to Dedaunan Restaurant for lunch. Alas, the restaurant was closed when we got there. It was to close to Eid holiday. In the end, we went to a warung at the beach called Benaria. It turned out that the food was good even though it wasn't as good as the one we had the day before. And it was great consolation that they had this beach swing and we were able to take these awesome pictures...
After lunch, we went to Tanjung Tinggi beach to stay there until sunset. The beach has two connected areas. One is surrounded by large stones and the other area is outside the stone formation. First, we checked out the one in the formation...
And then we went to the open area...
To me, at first sight it was a small beach and not too special. But we stayed there anyway and it kind of grew on me. The sand was super fine, it didn't feel like sand at all. The water was not too cold, and the horizon invisible. It was almost like the water and the sky was merged together.
Here, we snorkled a bit. Kiki also went snorkling with DH to see fish and corals.
Just before sunset, it started raining. We scrambled to the car and went back to the hotel.
For dinner that evening, we went to Dapoer Belitung Restaurant. It's the nicest looking one so far with live band. However, the prices are about the same as Jakarta prices if not more. Depends on where in Jakarta, I guess. Tasted good though, and for DH who had been craving beer for a while it was a good spot. The only place we had gone to that served alcohol. Haha!
This was the end of our third day in Belitung. Stay tuned for the final post for this series!
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