Travelling to Batam and the Riau Islands, A Stop at Pulau Belitung
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Belitung
was fun. At Manggar, the capital town of the East Belitung Timur Regency Frans,
our young contact, booked a car for us and took us to some interesting places.
Rather different for Indonesia was the site and set of a film which was the
reconstruction of a very old school. The film, ‘Rainbow Warriors’, is based on a
book by local author Andrea Hirata The film set was followed by an unusually
off-beat museum related to the film and celebrating Andrea Hirata’s achievements.
It has been created in an old building in his home village where most of the
young actors were recruited; it has a real literary aura combined with the
delicious smell of Belitung coffee.
On to Belitung’s Buddhist temple high up on a rocky promontory with many steps leading to the colourful buildings which look out over a backdrop of trees and ocean.
It’s crimson and gold blaze out onto the hillside and giant Chinese paper lanterns swinging gently in the breeze.
The grey/green plinth under the main shrine at the back is in fact part of the rocky hillside and the sign above points out this unity between nature and temple. Travelling on we found the local fishing canoes that we had seen when we first dropped anchor off the beach. Close up they are quite unusual, following a flamboyant traditional design. Basically they are dug out from one enormous log but are brightly painted and full of embellishments. This family of four came home with a good catch which would keep them in ikan (fish) for several days and they enjoyed their day out on the water.
This beach had a feel rather like the beach at Pakefield back in Suffolk but with many more boats.
Our day finished at a Kampung Festival with lots of prizes for fishing feats, dancing, talking and delicious food. The fish was cooked on long, thick bamboo strips propped on stones over smouldering coconut husks. The end result is mouth-watering moist and delicious fish which just lifts off the bone, we are going to try this somewhere.
A happy prize-winner - for her shellfish.
Happy day
At Manggar we achieved all we needed to do: we completely refuelled filling our main tank and all our jerry cans, and stocked up with good provisions from the traditional market, made some interesting visits and got some valuable rest and recuperation after our long journey from Makassar. Time to move on.
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