Last weekend, I took my first big trip outside of Jogja to visit the archipelago of Karimunjawa. Situated 50 miles north of the northern coast of Central Java (6-8 hours drive north of Jogia), the islands are not easy to get to and require either a 6-hour ferry (boasting both economy and “VIP” sections) or 2-hour “fast boat” from either Semarang or Jepara, each making just two trips a week either way. Here’s the ferry:
There’s not much English on the islands and the tourism industry, while existent, isn’t very developed, so booking a package through a guide, agency, or hotel is the easiest way to plan a trip. Most visitors we saw were Indonesian tourists; we met only 3-4 other groups of Westerners the entire weekend. We started out with a local tour guide but decided mid-trip to change hotels and stay at the Wisma Apung, a “floating hotel” off the coast of the main island which maintains a shark aquarium and lets you swim with the sharks (!). The Indonesian-speaking staff was friendly and extremely helpful in coordinating our rooms, a one-day private boat tour, snorkeling, food, and ferry transport back to Jepara for about 340,000 Rp ($38) total.
Their conditions are basic though — when I first checked out our bathroom, there was a crab sitting in the squat toilet. I asked what to do and the guy shrugged, grabbed a bucket, and poured water on the crab till he went back down the pipe. Later in daylight, I realized that our bathroom was just a foot above sea level, and you could see the ocean water through the clapboard floor and watch little white fish gather around to eat, well, what you put down there. Bucket baths too, no showers, though that’s normal for Indonesia.
Logistics aside, once you finally get to the islands, it is 360 degrees of paradise, each island more beautiful than the next. Typically you hire a boat to take you around for the day, and since most of the archipelago’s population of about 5,000 live on the main island, the rest of the islands are either protected national parks or isolated areas for fishing, eating, deep-sea snorkeling and napping. The water was really salty and calm so you could float without moving a muscle. I even watched underwater while our boat crew fished and caught some inky squid, which they later cooked to complement our shoreside lunch. (Yes, I tasted it, but god istillhateseafoodsomuch!)
Just please do better than I did and wear at least SPF 30, preferably higher. The equatorial sun is a different star than the one above the States, and I got the worst sunburn of my life after taking a nice nap on the shore. Definitely would have appreciated the “VIP” section on the ferry ride back but it was sold out. Anyway, here are some pictures to give you an idea of what natural beauty on steroids looks like, though you can check out more on my Flickr too. Indah sekali!
mcljava 