A (Thousand) Islands In the Sun

Sometimes the scheduling gods smile down on you. When they do, you should get out of Dodge. Because of Ramadan and Idul Fitri and my day off landing on Wednesday (because my boss was nice and decided to move it from Thursday), I got five days off in a row. That was clearly a message for me to go to a tropical island in the sun.

A few hours by boat from Jakarta are the Pulau Seribu – Thousand Islands. I had heard that these islands are popular with Jakartans due to proximity, price, and well, tropical paradise look. I woke up at 5 a.m. and headed up to Muara Angke port with friends. This was probably the worst smelling place I have ever been in my life. The port was dirty and nasty. Spend as little time there as possible. We found our packed wooden boat and managed to grab some floor space and cuddled up with our neighbors (some of whom got seasick). But for Rp 33,000 ($3.86), this was the cheapest, most local way to travel (you pay for tickets on board). Be forewarned, it will smell like gasoline for a good part of the trip. The boat stopped a few times along the way and a sailor dove under to check the motor, but we made it. And, we saw dolphins swimming by our boat along the way. The journey may not have been romantic, but I’d do it again.

After three hours, we left the gray, polluted haze of Jakarta and then we found…

…paradise!

We rented a house that split among us all cost $7 a night each. It wasn’t luxurious at all, but when you are young, and don’t want to spend money, it’s the perfect way to go. It was fortunate that a member of the group is a good bahasa speaker because he was able to arrange this over the phone the night before (yes, another last minute trip). After dropping our bags, we went and found delicious grilled fish for $1.75.