Karimunjawa
For anyone who looked for me Friday-Sunday and couldn't get a hold of me (what? None of you cared? Ok...), I was vacationing to a group of islands in the middle of nowhere, Karimunjawa. And I come back with pics!!
We left my house at 8 a.m. and 30 minutes later I realized that I forgot to bring my wallet! So I was money-less and ID-less for 3 whole days! Never mind, I had my cell phones with me to call people in emergency situation... or so I thought.
That's the harbor in Jepara, a small city in Central Java and... it's pretty much dead. There's almost no one there >.>
And this is me wondering where the heck was everyone. Were they eaten by sea monsters? Did Ctulhu got to them? Was it aliens? I needs to know!
Please ignore the bunch of shirt around my midsection and photoshop the pic until I look like a Victoria Secret's angel.
After 2 hours of boat ride (it's not that exciting, so, no pic). We arrived at Karimunjawa!
Tips #1: If you're interested to go here, forget surfboard. There's no wave here. The water is so calm due to the reefs around the islands.
This was the forest in front of our hotel. Seriously. The next house was like a couple hundred meters away. We're in the middle of effing nowhere! The hotel itself wasn't that good (0 star) and in the island the electricity is only on for 12 hours so it kinda sucked.
Tips #2: Forget cell phones. You're completely disconnected from the rest of the world.
This was a dock behind our hotel. So I guess this made up for the suckiness of the hotel!
Since we arrived at around 4 p.m., we had time to catch the sunset. This was taken from near the hotel. Then we climbed down a bit and passed some mangrove trees to get to the dock.
And here's the view from the dock! It's a bit cloudy, though, so no real pic of sunset :(
Pic of the dock. That's my uncle taking pics there. This place is seriously quiet! If everyone shuts up, there's not a single noise. I didn't realize how scary silence is!
View from the dock.
Sunset... kind of.
See those houses? I think fishermen live there.
The next day we started exploring the islands!
This was the kind of boat we took to get to the islands. Not a yacht, but it worked.
I can't remember the name of the island, but here is where we can swim with sharks.
Yes, shark. They're not catfish, no matter how they totally looks like one. They're whitetip reef shark, to precise. They've been 'tamed', in that they won't bite you even though you jump into the pool with them because they've learnt to only eat what their keepers feed them. Real wild sharks will eat you, though.
View around the island.
The famous floating houses. There's an entire village there.
Then we go snorkeling. The island looks pretty, no? But you know what's prettier?
The reef! Okay, I can't swim so I didn't jump into the sea with or without life jacket, which, btw squished my boobs so hard they felt like corsets >.< I heard it's prettier under water and the guide took pics for us but I'm too lazy to copy them from my dad's laptop, so let's just believe what people say about it, ne XDD
Victims of sunken ship XDD I kid, I kid. They're snorkeling tourists.
The fishes around the reefs. I heard there are supposed to be barracudas but I didn't see any.
Then we're of to have lunch!
Yes, we had lunch in a small pretty island in the middle of nowhere. In fact there's only 1 inhabitant there and he returned to the biggest island during weekends. I guess the lack of social contact drove him mad. Sadly, fishes aren't very talkactive.
Reefs around the island.
The boat couldn't get too close to the island because of the shallow water so we had to walk there. The water was cool, but the air was oh so hot >.<
View of the other side of the island. I wander around because it took a while to prepare lunch.
This reminded me of a white chocolate cake, idk why. No one had wandered there before me and everytime I took a step, I kept thinking I was ruining a very pretty dessert cake (I was hungry, okay!).
You know, I'm amazed by the white sand. Generally sand in Indonesia is brown. Bali has white sand but it's far too crowded so I couldn't enjoy the beaches.
Anyway when you're looking at endless expanse of water like this, you couldn't help but wonder what's lurking beneath the surface. Was there any unidentified species? Rare species? Sea monsters? Kraken? The possibility is endless, so bring your guns!
Btw while trying to burn myself, I saw interesting animals!
Crab!
Octopus! Can you see it? Don't mind the round white things-they're stones-but on its right was the octopus's head and tentacles! Nice try to hide, octopus, but I saw you move. You are not a stone! Cut the act!
I found a sea cucumber, too! But it's not as interesting so I didn't take pic of it. Sorry, sea cucumber fans.
Lunch!
More reefs because they're pretty! There's a place nearby where you can dive but you have to take a lesson first.
Seriously. So many shades of blue! I wanna draw it but I have no idea how to get that many shades of blue 0____0
We made a brief stop at this island to drink. We're supposed to see sunset from there but the old people in my group were tired so we head back to the hotel. We had our private dock anyway.
Btw during the second day, we couldn't find restroom ANYWHERE. So Tips #3: if you go the the smaller islands, be prepared to exercise bladder and bowel control because their idea of rest room is an area covered with cloth with a hole in the ground in it.
Sunset on the second day. Still cloudy so no good pic... But someone in our group saw a stingray near the mangrove trees! No pic cuz it's too dark then.
That night we went to souvenir shops. Guess how many shops were there.
8
Yes, there were only 8 souvenir shops. I counted with my fingers and I still had two fingers left woefully unused. So, shoppers of the world, Tips #4: if you wanna shop, go to Bali or somewhere else. Not much to buy here.
The next day we woke up super early to catch the sunrise at Nirwana beach.
My mom took this pic because for some reason she thought the rocks were more interesting than the beach... Ok, then...
What we could see of the sunrise. Sorry for the distant pic. My mom couldn't operate the zooming funcitons -___- Anyway, once again, it was cloudy and even rained a bit, so we didn't see much.
Then we went to this mangrove forest or something. It's.. uh, full of mangrove trees. If you're into preserving them to prevent tsunami and stuff, you may enjoy it. If you're like me and just couldn't wait to be online again, you probably won't be very interested.
Mangrove trees... Or something. It's a plant. Don't ask.
I guess they're trying to plant mangrove trees to prevent tsunami and rise of seawater. You could see the sea in the distance but between the gazebo and the sea, it's just sand and a little water.
Then we visited a sample of traditional Bugis house. Bugis is a tribe of sailors. They've been everywhere! Btw they kept their cattle under the house. It's also built high above the ground to avoid wild animals.
Meanwhile, this was traditional Javanese house. Because fuck the cattle and wild animals!
Not literally of course.
The door. Look at all that carvings!
Inside the house. I think it's abandoned, although there's a bed there, too.
Then we went to buy cashews. Cashews here are small but sweet.
To remove the shell, the cashews have to be heated first.
After that, we went home.
This was me, on the ship to Semarang, missing internet so badly I couldn't speak (or maybe it was seasickness. I couldn't tell)
Sunset of the ship. It's cloudy once again.
And we arrived at Java!!! Cell phone signal, I missed you!!
Last tips: If you're interested to go there, don't go around January because the wave is very strong. Usually the tourism is closed duirng the month. Worst case scenario is you're stranded in an island isolated from the rest of the world, where there's no electricity or phone signal. It's happened before.
And now I shall go back to trying to finish my NaNo novel!
We left my house at 8 a.m. and 30 minutes later I realized that I forgot to bring my wallet! So I was money-less and ID-less for 3 whole days! Never mind, I had my cell phones with me to call people in emergency situation... or so I thought.
That's the harbor in Jepara, a small city in Central Java and... it's pretty much dead. There's almost no one there >.>
And this is me wondering where the heck was everyone. Were they eaten by sea monsters? Did Ctulhu got to them? Was it aliens? I needs to know!
Please ignore the bunch of shirt around my midsection and photoshop the pic until I look like a Victoria Secret's angel.
After 2 hours of boat ride (it's not that exciting, so, no pic). We arrived at Karimunjawa!
Tips #1: If you're interested to go here, forget surfboard. There's no wave here. The water is so calm due to the reefs around the islands.
This was the forest in front of our hotel. Seriously. The next house was like a couple hundred meters away. We're in the middle of effing nowhere! The hotel itself wasn't that good (0 star) and in the island the electricity is only on for 12 hours so it kinda sucked.
Tips #2: Forget cell phones. You're completely disconnected from the rest of the world.
This was a dock behind our hotel. So I guess this made up for the suckiness of the hotel!
Since we arrived at around 4 p.m., we had time to catch the sunset. This was taken from near the hotel. Then we climbed down a bit and passed some mangrove trees to get to the dock.
And here's the view from the dock! It's a bit cloudy, though, so no real pic of sunset :(
Pic of the dock. That's my uncle taking pics there. This place is seriously quiet! If everyone shuts up, there's not a single noise. I didn't realize how scary silence is!
View from the dock.
Sunset... kind of.
See those houses? I think fishermen live there.
The next day we started exploring the islands!
This was the kind of boat we took to get to the islands. Not a yacht, but it worked.
I can't remember the name of the island, but here is where we can swim with sharks.
Yes, shark. They're not catfish, no matter how they totally looks like one. They're whitetip reef shark, to precise. They've been 'tamed', in that they won't bite you even though you jump into the pool with them because they've learnt to only eat what their keepers feed them. Real wild sharks will eat you, though.
View around the island.
The famous floating houses. There's an entire village there.
Then we go snorkeling. The island looks pretty, no? But you know what's prettier?
The reef! Okay, I can't swim so I didn't jump into the sea with or without life jacket, which, btw squished my boobs so hard they felt like corsets >.< I heard it's prettier under water and the guide took pics for us but I'm too lazy to copy them from my dad's laptop, so let's just believe what people say about it, ne XDD
Victims of sunken ship XDD I kid, I kid. They're snorkeling tourists.
The fishes around the reefs. I heard there are supposed to be barracudas but I didn't see any.
Then we're of to have lunch!
Yes, we had lunch in a small pretty island in the middle of nowhere. In fact there's only 1 inhabitant there and he returned to the biggest island during weekends. I guess the lack of social contact drove him mad. Sadly, fishes aren't very talkactive.
Reefs around the island.
The boat couldn't get too close to the island because of the shallow water so we had to walk there. The water was cool, but the air was oh so hot >.<
View of the other side of the island. I wander around because it took a while to prepare lunch.
This reminded me of a white chocolate cake, idk why. No one had wandered there before me and everytime I took a step, I kept thinking I was ruining a very pretty dessert cake (I was hungry, okay!).
You know, I'm amazed by the white sand. Generally sand in Indonesia is brown. Bali has white sand but it's far too crowded so I couldn't enjoy the beaches.
Anyway when you're looking at endless expanse of water like this, you couldn't help but wonder what's lurking beneath the surface. Was there any unidentified species? Rare species? Sea monsters? Kraken? The possibility is endless, so bring your guns!
Btw while trying to burn myself, I saw interesting animals!
Crab!
Octopus! Can you see it? Don't mind the round white things-they're stones-but on its right was the octopus's head and tentacles! Nice try to hide, octopus, but I saw you move. You are not a stone! Cut the act!
I found a sea cucumber, too! But it's not as interesting so I didn't take pic of it. Sorry, sea cucumber fans.
Lunch!
More reefs because they're pretty! There's a place nearby where you can dive but you have to take a lesson first.
Seriously. So many shades of blue! I wanna draw it but I have no idea how to get that many shades of blue 0____0
We made a brief stop at this island to drink. We're supposed to see sunset from there but the old people in my group were tired so we head back to the hotel. We had our private dock anyway.
Btw during the second day, we couldn't find restroom ANYWHERE. So Tips #3: if you go the the smaller islands, be prepared to exercise bladder and bowel control because their idea of rest room is an area covered with cloth with a hole in the ground in it.
Sunset on the second day. Still cloudy so no good pic... But someone in our group saw a stingray near the mangrove trees! No pic cuz it's too dark then.
That night we went to souvenir shops. Guess how many shops were there.
8
Yes, there were only 8 souvenir shops. I counted with my fingers and I still had two fingers left woefully unused. So, shoppers of the world, Tips #4: if you wanna shop, go to Bali or somewhere else. Not much to buy here.
The next day we woke up super early to catch the sunrise at Nirwana beach.
My mom took this pic because for some reason she thought the rocks were more interesting than the beach... Ok, then...
What we could see of the sunrise. Sorry for the distant pic. My mom couldn't operate the zooming funcitons -___- Anyway, once again, it was cloudy and even rained a bit, so we didn't see much.
Then we went to this mangrove forest or something. It's.. uh, full of mangrove trees. If you're into preserving them to prevent tsunami and stuff, you may enjoy it. If you're like me and just couldn't wait to be online again, you probably won't be very interested.
Mangrove trees... Or something. It's a plant. Don't ask.
I guess they're trying to plant mangrove trees to prevent tsunami and rise of seawater. You could see the sea in the distance but between the gazebo and the sea, it's just sand and a little water.
Then we visited a sample of traditional Bugis house. Bugis is a tribe of sailors. They've been everywhere! Btw they kept their cattle under the house. It's also built high above the ground to avoid wild animals.
Meanwhile, this was traditional Javanese house. Because fuck the cattle and wild animals!
Not literally of course.
The door. Look at all that carvings!
Inside the house. I think it's abandoned, although there's a bed there, too.
Then we went to buy cashews. Cashews here are small but sweet.
To remove the shell, the cashews have to be heated first.
After that, we went home.
This was me, on the ship to Semarang, missing internet so badly I couldn't speak (or maybe it was seasickness. I couldn't tell)
Sunset of the ship. It's cloudy once again.
And we arrived at Java!!! Cell phone signal, I missed you!!
Last tips: If you're interested to go there, don't go around January because the wave is very strong. Usually the tourism is closed duirng the month. Worst case scenario is you're stranded in an island isolated from the rest of the world, where there's no electricity or phone signal. It's happened before.
And now I shall go back to trying to finish my NaNo novel!