Friday, April 6, 2012

Indonesia- Batam- Labun Island


Labun Island!

My whole family went on a short getaway to Batam, Indonesia.


We went to this small island call Labun Island and stayed at the Kelong- which were basically houses on stilts. This type of houses were still being used by some of the locals here as they depend on fishing for a living.

This island I think, is owed by a Singaporean and had it converted for resort use. But, unlike others, this Kelong has NO air-conditioning, NO wifi, USES matressess , water is from the WELL, properly filterated and channeled into our bathroom and has NO electricity except at night. So it's like back to the past years when our grandparents lived in.

Nonetheless, it's quite an experience. I mean, we should all try different experience, even if it's for a short period.


We only have one dinning area and it's not very polish. The bridge connecting our rooms to it is merely a no-railing plank.

But don't worry since the water isn't depth, at low tide it's merely up to your waist plus I'm quite short. When it's high tide, it's still quite shallow , you can easily stand up.

So during meal time, we would across the bridge and head for the dinning area.

With only two days at hand, we went straight for island trekking once we reached and had our lunch. Plus the island is quite small so it doens't take much time for us to explore the whole land.


It wasn't a difficult trek just that you have to be really cautious if you don't want to fall into the spikey roots sticking out from the ground. And if you make pass all that, you will be rewarded with a beautiful sight-or so.


We went fishing during the first day afternoon. Fishing rods and baits were available.. free of course then we went on the Banana Boat.

It took us really far and I could see real Kelongs at other islands which was quite a beautiful sight. The jet boat which was driving us broke down halfway. Thank god, we had another boat followed us and eventually pulled up to shore.


 The night view was awesome. Very picturesque, too bad I'm still a novice at photography or else I may have taken some really good photos.



The next day, we went snorkeling in the morning! It's quite a strange feeling when you have corals and fishes swimming below you and you can just reach out and touch them. But because this is my first time snorkeling, I was bad at it and had to drink a couple gulps of seawater. Nasty! At barely half and hour I was out of the water because I am just so bad at it that I totally gave up.  When I was swimming, the seas was quite cloudy but the water was really clear during the afternoon.

Mini Crabs

Too bad we didn't had any proffessional trainers as this is just a mini sized resort.

Our meals have also been seafood and I actually have crabs for both days! Lucky~ But the crabs were quite small so it's hard to eat.

Finally, it's time for us to head back to Singapore. It was around noon so it's at low tide and we have the climb down that creepy stair way or else during high tide, you could just jumb down where it is only a few centimeters away.  So only those Nature lovers would love such getaways and those of you urban dwellers, not so much.



8 comments:

Janet Williams said...

We've just got back from Labun last weekend. It looks like the same place that you've been to. It's changed a lot. My son's written some posts about his experiences:

http://benwilliamsworld.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/indonesia-day-2-how-to-snorkel-and-fish/

Ariel said...

Hello, I have seen the blog post and looked through the photos. I guess we really did went to the same place. They don't used to have the barriers on the long walkway. Hmm, but has it gone through a major change? I know the toliet is still soo dark and gloomy.

Anonymous said...

The toilet was absolutely fine. The barriers were new just in case people people are getting too drunk...... It was the most relaxing and fantastic holiday for us. We'll definitively visit again. My son has written 4 posts so far about his Labun island trip.

Ariel said...

Feel like going back again after reading the blog posts. Seems like they added in more activities. I wonder what's like if we could go snorkeling around the island.(Outside the protected around) Thanks for sharing anyway!

Anonymous said...

Ben has written his first ebook on his Labun Kelong Adventure. You may like to have a read.

http://benwilliamsworld.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/my-first-ebook-my-kelong-adventure/

Please let him know what you think.

Unknown said...

Hi just wondering if you could share some contact infor for the resort and arrangement from Singapore. thanks

Unknown said...

kindly keep in tuch with me over email if you would, pls. thanks

Traveller maniak said...

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