Belitung Island

Day 1: We arrived, spent time on our beach, watched the sunset and ate dinner. The evening was spent playing card games on our porch. This reminded me of Remyx days as our primary game was mafia. Angie also taught us a great game called lunchbox.

sunset

Day 2: We drove a long distance to a beach on the other side of the island. It was totally gorgeous and we spent the morning sun bathing, swimming, and eating sea food. In the afternoon we drove home, ate dinner, and Angie, Eron, and myself went down to the water to watch the stars.

Beach!

Where we tanned

Day 3: This was our day of Island hopping. We walked to the pier and hopped on a boat to travel to the first island where we got to see sea turtles. I ended up buying Angie a sea turtle to release into the wild as a birthday present. Angie named her sea turtle George and we took him on the boat with us out to the open sea to let him go. Then we went snorkeling. I had a bit of difficulty at first because water kept coming in my mouth. Dustin tested out my gear said it was fine and then watched me go under and pointed out I was going ALL the way under. Silly Tiara. Not thinking. Then I practiced and got it down pretty nicely. I saw some cool blue fish, some beautiful coral, and awesome brown fish. I swam all around and eventually made it to the Island a short distance away. There we ate lunch right before it started down pouring. It is for sure the rainy season now. We waited out the rain in the boat, and all ended up soaked. Eventually, though it was still raining, we went to another island and did some more swimming and eventually snorkeling after we realized there were all sorts of starfish around.  I ended up performing a star-fish wedding ceremony for a few of the larger star fish, and their love children attended. Eventually it was time to go home and relax a bit. I ended up heading down to star gaze on my own for awhile and was eventually joined by Dustin, and about 10 minutes later by Chris. I was glad some other people understood that we were out in the middle of nature. We had decided to all squish into one bungalow to save money, so the night ended with us trying to figure out where everyone was going to sleep/how to share 3 blankets among 6 people.

Angie, George and I! One happy family :)

letting George go in the sea!

Starfish wedding ceremony! Somplak and Sombong

Star Fish!

The whole crew!

Day 4: We were told that this day was a public holiday on the Island as the village was preparing for a traditional event. The event, Buong Jong, consisted of calling the spirits into human bodies, the human bodies dancing, and then casting the spirits out. Then they took a mini-boat out into the open ocean and released it as an offering, so that they would have good luck with fishing and sailing for the next year. We got to see the whole ceremony and to take a boat out to the open water to see the mini-boat being released. It was a pretty cool thing to experience. Afterward we were taken to the beach that made Belitung famous (it was in some movie) to swim, and then we drove to a more private beach to swim some more. We had lunch and headed back to our own beach and pool to continue swimming and I got to feel and touch lots of jellyfish that didn’t sting. It was pretty cool. I spent my evening indulging in my book until everyone but me and Angie went to dinner. We simply weren’t hungry so I forced down an apple and we decided to go for a late night swim just the two of us. We hopping in the water and drank Bintang (which translates into “star” in Bahasa) underneath the stars. “Ahhh! There’s a jellyfish in my ass!” I screamed at one point, so eventually we got out of the water and sat on the rock to chat about life and boys and typical girl stuff. Finally we showered and waited for the others to return, and were asked to go and look at the stars again, which I agreed to do, knowing it would be the last time I would see them for months.

Buong Jong: ensures safe sailing for the year

offering the boat to the sea as a sacrifice

Guys...I'm wearing a bikini. And I'm not hiding my body :)

Day 5: Basically we woke up, I read my book and packed, and went to the airport to go home. Though it is my 3^rd time reading it I am consuming the book page by page and quote by quote.