1 June 2007 - Pulau Penuba (3)

Main town - Penuba - and "The Mess" Guesthouse

Penuba is the main village of Pulau Selayar. There seems to be two parts to the town. The city center - a concrete footpath with wooden shophouses owned by chinese people on one side and the mosque on the other. Then there is the rest of the town that is more kampung-like and mainly inhabited by malays.

As everywhere else in Asia the Chinese seem to dominate the economic life also in this small island. The bigger shops and restaurants are Chinese owned. The local school teacher was complaining to me that the Chinese monopolise the prawn trade and that they buy prawns cheaply from the Malay fishermen and sell it for a high price in Singapore.

As I didn' t know where I would be sleeping a was relieved when I saw that they had a small wooden guesthouse called "The Mess" right beside the mosque.

The Mess guesthouse. 15,000 Rs (less than 1.50 EUR at time of writing) gets you a room with balcony access in this colonial wooden beauty. Ensuite toilet with bucket shower (i.e. a mandi...).

A Canadian guy - also on a short trip from Singapore - was also staying there that weekend. The owner told me that the previous foreign guest had been there 2 years ago back in 2005. Not a really touristy place...



The row of Chinese shophouses seen from the balcony of the Mess.
Just around the corner, on the left, every evening at around 6PM the satay stall serves the best satay I have ever had. The second evening me and the Canadian guy who was staying there bought a chicken and asked the satay woman to cook it for us. Fantastic ayam bakar!



The cats love the balcony of the Mess...and so do I.

1 June 2007 - Pulau Penuba (4)

The Jetty

A few pictures of the jetty in Pulau Penuba.

The two guys below asked me if I wanted to go back to Bintan in this boat with them. I would have been fine normally but that weekend I was on my second attempt to quit smoking and I knew I would not have lasted 1 hour without smoking in their company...and they told me the trip back to Bintan was 24 hours.

Pulau Penuba (2)

Around the island

I managed to find two main roads in the island of Penuba (Pulau Selayar) . One goes along the south coast from Penuba to Tanjong Dua. The other is more intersting and it goes through the middle of the island from Penuba to a kampung on the shore of the beach on the north overlooking Pulau Lingga.
The road goes up and down the hilly interior of the island. There are a few weird places with strange earth formations and puddles that looked sulphuric but did not smell like it.

Steep!

This is really weird...

The beach in the north

This is a really beautiful beach in the north of Pulau Selayar facing Pulau Lingga and straight out of National Geographic...
As there is no road from the kampung to Tanjung Dua I walked over via the beach, courtesy of the low tide.

No shops in the kampung. Asked a guy to help me get a coconut from the tree as I was totally dehydrated. He gave me two: one to drink, one to eat. Look at the husk-spoon! Fucking clever.

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Pulau Penuba (1)

From Singkep to Penuba (Pulau Selayar)

Exhausted from those killer hills between Sungaibuluh and Jago in Pulau Singkep, I decided to call it a day and took a pompom to Penuba (Pulau Selayar).
Sadly the ride across the strait is only about 15 minutes. Laying down with tired muscles on the bottom of the pompom watching Penuba approaching against the backdrop of Gunung Daik bathed in late afternoon ligth was pure bliss and is now one of those memories I know I will never forget.

Pualu Selayar is a very relaxing small island sandwiched between Pulau Singkep and Pulau Lingga. There are no cars - and no paved roads - in the island. There also few ojeks. Everybody seems happy to just walk or take a boat to wherever they have to go, but most people seem to be happy to just sit and chat with friends and do nothing. Great Place!

I managed to find three main kampungs in the island: Penuba, Tanjung Dua and one more small kampung whose name I don' t remember.

The Jetty

A few pictures of the jetty in Pulau Penuba.

The two guys below asked me if I wanted to go back to Bintan in this boat with them. I would have been fine normally but that weekend I was on my second attempt to quit smoking and I knew I would not have lasted 1 hour without smoking in their company...and they told me the trip back to Bintan was 24 hours.

Pulau Singkep - Air Panas

Air Panas (Hot water spring)

While in Dabo Singkep somebody recommended me to go to Air Panas...the local hot water spring. The spring is in the middle of Pulau Singkep. I got lost a few times before managing to find the beginning of the mud road (must ask for the power station!). From the beginning of the side road it must be over 15Kms of dirts roads over wooden bridges and across forests and rubber tree plantations. Met a couple of the usual kids (13 years old?) carrying rifles on the way...always freaks me out a little bit...
The spring itself is not that nice. Just a 3 big concrete pools of very (burning) hot water, but the road to get there is a nice detour, with extra excitement if you are not really sure where you are going.

The best bridge in Pualu Singkep. Cross it at top spead to lighten the bike load!

Zooming down this fantastic dirt track...

Pulau Singkep

Jago to Dabo

After about 4 hours of boat from Tanjung Pinang in Bintan I finally arrived in Pulau Singkep.
The boat stops in Jago and as there seems to be really nothing there I decided to go straight to Dabo to try and find a place to stay.
After a few Kms of very steep up and down hills there are about 20Km of coastal road to go to the main town of Dabo. The coastal road sits on a 5/10 meter cliff and is very scenic and with very little traffic. This is probably the most enjoyable road I ever did in the Riau islands.

After a breakfast of Kopi-o, some sort of mee rebus and the obligatory chit chat with a coffeshop customer who didn' t let me pay for my breakfast and recommended a few sights, I headed off for Pantai Batu Berduan. The beach of Batu Berduan (rock tree) is nice and clean. There was none there when I visited.
The ride from Dabo passes by a few very nice kampungs. People are chatty, smiley, and very nice. What a great island!






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