Beau-litung Island! 🏝️

How long has it been since we last buried our toes in the sand? Too long I say. This trip was long overdue.

We’ve just got back from our family holiday in Belitung, pronounced Belitong, with the letter ‘o’ by the local. It’s an hour flight from Jakarta to Tanjung Pandan, the capital city of East Belitung, where H.A.S. Hananjoeddin International Airport is situated. The name of the airport name doesn’t really roll off the tongue. LOL. Anyway, we miss that beautiful island already! We wished we could have stayed

longer, especially once we found out that our stay at Sheraton Belitung Resort was going to be awesome (We stayed there for 4 nights, 5 days). Everything, including our return tickets, was paid up, and we needed to go back home afterwards in order to prepare our kitchen renovation. Oh well, hopefully we can stay longer next time then!

We arrived at the airport at around 7:30 AM. The airplane was landing a bit late, but not by much, maybe fifteen minutes or so. We flew with Sriwijaya Air, since there were only 3 different flights that operated on that day, as we chose to fly on Sunday. I then heard that Citilink only operates on Thursday and Friday. We always prefer to fly with Garuda Indonesia, however they only have small airplanes that operate to that island. Hence, we chose to fly with Sriwijaya Air! The airline has more positive experience and a better reputation in our eyes.

Sriwijaya Air

I turned off my phone’s airplane mode as soon as I entered the airport building, then checked my Whatsapp messages. As expected, our rental car and its driver was ready to pick us up outside. He had been waiting for more than half an hour. He said he was wearing a yellow hat. So instantly we began scanning for yellow hats. We collected our one and only baggage, the process was quite fast since everything technically happened in one very well air conditioned room.

After taking some touristy pictures with Izzy and baby Abby as my models in front of a small Belitong BUMN booth, we walked out and Daddy and Izzy began the hunt for the yellow hat. We finally met him after I rang him, since we couldn’t really see the yellow hat. Ha! We found out later that it wasn’t really a yellow hat: his hat has 3 different colours in every side, and the hat colour base was actually black. So, no yellow hat.

We then walked to the parking lot, got into the car, leaving the airport and driving around an hour to East Belitung, visiting the sites of Laskar Pelangi movie (2008), adapted from the novel of the same name by Andrea Hirata. The sky looked so bright and blue on the day we arrived, the weather was hotter than Jakarta or Bali. As we arrived at our first destination, we applied some sun blocks before leaving our rental car, although in that case for Mommy & Izzy, it was a bit late, since a day before we left for holiday, we already exposed of sunshine when we played tennis. That made Izzy’s fair skin got slightly tanned, and Mommy’s skin got darker even before our holiday starts.

SD Muhammadiyah Gantong (the replica of Laskar Pelangi Elementary School)

After visiting the replica of Laskar Pelangi elementary school, we then moved again to another site of that movie, Museum Kata by Andrea Hirata. During our trip to the museum, we stopped by a mini-market called Asoka Market Belitong to buy some snacks and drinks. We reached our second destination in no time, our driver then suggested us to wait at a small cafe, called Warung Kupi Kuli, next to the museum, enjoying some local snacks and beverages; Belitong black coffee, es jeruk kunci which is a type of local orange, Belitong pempek which was made of cassava and local fish, and some other snacks that were more common, could be found elsewhere in every corner of other places in Indonesia, such us pisang goreng (banana fritter). We were killing time around half an hour, waiting for them to open the museum for us. Yep, we were the first visitor(s) of the day. We paid 50k as the enterance for one family, and were given a pocket book by the author of Laskar Pelangi, Andrea Hirata.

Warung Kupi Kuli

Museum Kata by Andrea Hirata

The museum is not big, yet so colourful. It was kind of like a small library, basically an old house that was modified to become a museum. It has some pretty good photo spots. Our driver said the museum used to have so much more to show, however some corners were empty and abandoned after covid. Leaving the Museum, we stopped by DKI Jakarta’s former Governer, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok)’s village, Kampoeng Ahok that was previously changed to be his lawyer sister’s name instead, Kampoeng Fifi which is located in Gantung (read: Gantong), East Belitung region. Our driver also pointed us Ahok’s parents’ current house. It’s a nice white house as shown on the photos below.

Time to rest, eat, shower and get changed. We drove to our resort to check-in. Luckily, they have a short-cut to that area, therefore we didn’t have to take the further route back. It took around an hour to get to the resort where we stayed.

Sheraton Belitung Resort

We were mesmerized by the hotel peacefulness and its beautiful scene. The staff were welcoming and friendly. We actually booked the King Room with Ocean View and Balcony on the second floor which is the highest floor of the resort, however when we got to our room, there was a big tree and a big lagoon with more trees that actually block the ocean from our balcony, but that didn’t bother us. Nevertheless, we still love our room view. We prefer to stay closer to the front desk or lobby, it’s an easy access for us to get the buggy car. We can actually walk to the restaurant that is located by the beach and the pool, but we have a baby stroller that is not easy to push when we walk through the sandy path.

After checking-in smoothly. We then ordered the in-room dining for our lunch, we took a shower, and got ready to explore more of the island. We asked our driver to pick us up again around 3 PM. Then we headed to the other site of Laskar Pelangi movie, Pantai Tanjung Tinggi. It was packed with local people!

Tanjung Tinggi Beach

Our driver said the locals often visit the public beach on the weekend, therefore it was a bit hard for us to take photos without having no people as the background. Oh well, at least we have experienced that big stone beach.

We decided to enjoy the resort facilities on the next day of our stay before having another adventure of the island hopping. We were so glad that the resort was still quiet, we needed the sweet escape and peacefullness from a hectic Jakarta. We were lucky that we flew a week before their busy week.

Island Hopping: Lengkuas Island & Kelayang Island

The weather seemed promising on our 3rd day morning, the sun was so bright. I was a bit nervous for the kids. I mean as a parent, you know what I mean. Looking at the rolling waves, it was windy, and the tide was high. My mind was attacked by many possibilities that might happen, and all the plans I have to spontaniously take if anything goes wrong. I kept checking to the back, watching the captain and the crew of our boat’s facial expressions, they seemed relax. Inhale, exhale, woosah! I was trying to calm myself.

We were all wearing life jackets for safety reason, what I mean by all is just our family, we brought our own safety vests for Izzy & Abby. Daddy was smiling at me, trying to tell me that everything is gonna be okay, yet I could see in his eyes, that he was also a bit nervous. Our driver was also there, following us on the island hopping trip as our tour guide. He said if the tide is dangerously high, we might be just visiting the closest island, don’t want to risk it. I agreed. Deep down I was so torn, because Lengkuas Island is the signature of Belitung, which is the furthest island of the trip, the island with the white lighthouse tower, a heritage from the Dutch colonial era. If you think about it, it’s not really that far though, only 30 minutes to the island. Comparing to the furtherst island that Mommy and Daddy have been on a wooden boat in Thousand Islands. It was way further. We ended up visiting Lengkuas island first, hence the weather was still bright, until the dark cloud suddenly appeared, blocking the blue sky. It was raining on our way back from Lengkuas island. The boat and us got splashed with the sea water and rain. I used my pashmina to cover Abby and my face. Izzy was sitting with Daddy on the other side of the boat. They didn’t got splashed as much. We were so tensed at the time! One of the nerve wrecking experiences in our life. That was Abby’s first experience on a boat, she had been so chill, it was Izzy’s second time on a boat, hence the wooden boat. Izzy said that she was scared when the boat was rocking too much. She was so content when we got to our last stop, Kalayang island. We paid for 25k for a baby turtle that Izzy could release back to the ocean. We had our lunch at a seafood restaurant by the beach at Tanjung Kalayang, before heading back to our resort. The lunch was included in our island hopping package.