Island of Maratua and of Derawan

Maratua and Derawan are the two out of three most famous islands in the Derawan archipelago. Together with Kakaban Island, the three are the tourist destination.

Actually I went to these two accidentally. I didn’t have any working agenda there at that time. I went there to accompany my coworkers who dove in Maratua and took an air compressor in Derawan. Of course I didn’t waste my time just for watching others went diving, I went diving also :)

Maratua
This is the furthest island of the Derawan archipelago. It takes around five hours speedboat ride from Tanjung Redeb to the northeast.

The island is a home for a few international diving resorts. A few villages are also found here. Various fish is the selling point of the diving trips here.


Around the jetty in Payung-Payung Village, it is a feeding ground for sea turtles. One can snorkel around with the turtles as long as not bothering them. And for backpackers like myself, Payung-Payung Village has homestays managed by the community. So no worries, you can swim around with sea turtles on a limited budget.
Derawan
This is the icon of the archipelago. It is famous as the sea turtle haven. One can see sea turtles swimming around near piers in the island every afternoon.

The island has various homestays, from non AC rooms to constant-supply-of-AC rooms although the normal electricity is limited, are available.

Snorkeling and diving with turtles are the selling point in here. Normally, tourists go to Tanjung Batu by rented car or taxi from Tanjung Redeb. In Tanjung Batu, speedboats are available. However, the boats are taxi, not ferry! So it’s better trying to share with others.

Biduk-Biduk Subdistrict

This Subdistrict is located in the southern coast of Berau. It takes around four hours speedboat ride from Tanjung Redeb.

There are some interesting places to visit here i.e. the beautiful Sulaiman Bay (Indonesian: Teluk Sulaiman), the magnificent karst hill of Si Gending, and the crystal clear lagoon of Labuan Cermin. But this time, only Labuan Cermin will be described here.

Labuan Cermin
Labuan means ‘harbor’ or ‘haven’; while cermin means mirror. So this place is a mirror haven. It called ‘mirror’ due to the very clear water where one can see his or her reflection on it.

Geologically, this place is a lagoon with two inlets from ground water and the sea. The inlet from the sea is bigger than the ground water. The water in the lagoon consists of two layers; the bottom layer which is the sea water and the upper layer which is the fresh water.

What makes it special, one can see marine fish and seaweeds from the surface without any goggle. This is why it’s called ‘mirror’. And since the upper layer of the water mass is fresh water, the fish remain at the bottom. Very unique!

Normally, an estuary, which has two inlets from fresh water and sea water, would have mixed water depends on the tides. If the tide is high, the water is dominantly salty; while if the tide is low, the water is dominantly fresh. Since the inlet of fresh water is quite low in here, and the place is a lagoon so, the composition of the layers remains steady all the time!

In addition, the place is secluded and calm. It’s a perfect place to rejuvenate by swimming along the lagoon. One will feel younger after swimming here :)

Beauty Treatment

One of the most important facilities that I should have is salon! Yes, as a girl I need to remain treated. And Indonesia is the place for reasonable-price beauty treatment. I had suffered enough in Germany where beauty treatment is unbelievably expensive. So no excuse, I have to allocate my money for beauty treatment while I am in Indonesia.

However, the quality of treatment is, of course, different in each area. For example in Jakarta, one can find various beauty treatments in various services and prices. A hairdo like blow dry is very normal to have in Jakarta.

In Bali, spa and massage treatments are the most offered. Hair styling is rarely to find; and one has to be careful in selecting the place for having hairdo. Not every place can serve nice hairdo as offered.

My nightmare came when I was in Makassar. I went to a decent salon to have a creambath. Normally, it would end up in getting a blow dry to make the hair looks nicer. But the service was so bad and the hairdresser even tugged my hair!!! In the end I decided to finish my session before I had more suffer on my hair!!!

So… based on all of my experiences… I was so curious when I came to Berau: what kind of Salons that it has? As I expected it before, the salons here are house-based. They are houses or part of the houses which transformed into salon. They are not buildings which made to become salons.

Of all the salons in Tanjung Redeb, there is one salon that very famous. Well at least its banners are everywhere around the city. The salon is called ‘Olla Manado Salon’. Its marketing strategy apparently very effective, people will refer to them whenever I asked about good salon in Berau. However, nobody that I know has tried it!

I haven’t tried the salon, but by looking at the appearance, I don’t feel interested to try. It looks slum to me :( Fortunately, my coworker showed me another salon called ‘Inne Salon’. Surprisingly, this salon is not a house-based. It is a custom made building; so it’s perfect! It looks perfect from the outside.

Inside, it’s as perfect as it looks outside. It’s clean. All the servers are ladies, no transvestite! It seems that they all living in the back part of the building.

I tried having creambath and foot massage. The massage is good, it covers many body parts and took some times; and the price is reasonable. However, I still uncertain about the hairdo. When I asked to get a blow dry after the creambath, I was served by a lady who used to work there! She doesn’t work there anymore, she just visited the salon at that time! Although she gave me a nice blow dry, but I didn’t know the quality of other servers then. What a gamble… But I’ll keep coming back to have my beauty treatments in Inne Salon.

Hospital

There is one and only hospital in Berau; a public hospital owned by the District Government. In Indonesia it is called RSUD (Rumah Sakit Umum Daerah).

Although I got insurance from my work, however the RSUD was not a partner for the insurance company. The closest partners are in Samarinda and Balikpapan. So if I got sick, I had to fly to be hospitalized! What a journey…

Waste Management

One of the curiosity that I have, when I first came to my place in Berau, was the garbage dumpster. There was no garbage dumpster at the house!

I couldn’t understand at all. How come a house doesn’t have a dumpster? Where all the garbage goes? Are they burnt? Or do I have to throw it somewhere just like in Germany? But where????

And here comes another surprise… I have been told that I have to put all the garbage in a plastic bag. And then the plastic bag has to be hanged on the fence at night. A garbage cleaner will come during night time to collect it, so there will be no more garbage in the morning!

Weird!