Odyssey To The Thousand Islands - Part II

I didn't get to write as much on my last post about the trip to the Thousand Island, which makes it look like the post started out bad and the ending worse. Actually things started to get better once me and Heru arrived at the docks. I tried to hold it in and rather stabilize my stomach but I ended up gagging anyhow.

Mr. Yahya, the milkman, had the generosity to bring us some if his fresh milk wrapped in small plastics. It wasn't much of a breakfast but it was something. Anyhow, I lost my appetite after seeing this those horrendous piles of hell-on-earths.

Horrendous pile of hell-on-earths

Seriously, if you're planning to go to the Thousand Islands via boat, docking from Muara Angke or Kali Adem especially via motorcycle, I strongly suggest you carry with you a thick breathing mask or even a gas mask, it'll save your sanity. Last time wasn't the first time I've been to Angke and Kali Adem port but it sure was the first time I went there using a motorcycle.

A hell of a ride.

So, moving on. We boarded our boat not long after we arrived at the Muara Angke docks. The docks itself was packed with people going to the Thousand Islands for vacation, and it was a regular Saturday. A little kind advice, don't wear any shoes that you love very much or is very hard to clean, the port is far from clean.

If in airline terms economy class is the budget flight, it's safe to call our boat the at-least-we're-not-sinking class. It's made of wood. Cramped. Crowded. Low ceiling. Hot of course, also humid.

Forgive the image quality.

Basically on this type of boat ride there aren't many ways to enjoy the ride. Either you bring some sort of carpet with you to sit and eventually sleep on, or you go outside and embrace the wind imagining you're some sort of pirate/admiral -which was exactly what I did.

Mr. Nurdin that is either posing or seeing something on the horizon.

So to kill time we played a game of cards that got boring too soon. Before no time, everyone fell asleep. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't find a place to lie down, so I decided to go on deck and enjoy the sea breeze which for some reason gave me back pain that hasn't cure until this very day.

More or less this be what our boat looks like

A little image on how the inside looks like.

To be honest I was pretty pessimistic. Rainy season just arrived in Jakarta and the sky is so cloudy the sun barely shows itself so we were much worried that it was going to rain. 

There was no rain throughout the 3-hour boat ride, and no rain the whole time we were there. Actually, it got sunnier and sunnier. I fell asleep after a while, the breeze and the boat rocking was just too nice.

So after approximately 3 hours we arrived at Harapan Island.

For those of you that aren't familiar, Harapan Island is one of the many transit islands of Thousand Islands, other transit island include Pramuka island and the like. If you take the budget route, as in taking the boat ships like we did, you'll probably end up in transit in one of those islands.

Harapan Island was pretty tight. First of all its name is Harapan, Harapan means hope, and after that hellhole we had to go through to the docks it sure did gave us hope all right. The waters weren't brownish black like the ones at the docks, it was blue and clear green. There were no corals there but don't hope too much, at least there were some crabs underwater.

It's not bad.

So you see the main reason we went to Harapan Island was to transit into a smaller boat, a fisherman's boat, that we chartered for the trip to take us island hopping. We had to wait a while for the boat to get ready so we grabbed some chow. Ate some instant noodles, others ate some meatballs, it's good to know that the price there wasn't too overpriced and is still within the reasonable threshold.

Here's a little map to show our destinations:

Yes I know, it's not very specific.

So after hope Island the route was to Bulat (Round) Island, Perak (Silver) Island, Panjang (Long) Island, and Dolphin Island. I can't show them on the map because Google map hasn't registered them yet and I don't remember which island's which.

This post's starting to get pretty long and my back's aching much, I'll tell you guys more about on the next post. Ciao!

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