It was during a long weekend period of Chinese new year holiday when my fellow photographer-wanna-be friends and I went to one of two main islands of Bangka-Belitung province of Indonesia (among Indonesian better known as Babel Province), an island that is popular with its granite boulder white stones beach at its beaches. And those beaches were our target…
We arrived at H.A.S. Hanandjoeddin Airport at Tanjung Pandan on Thursday morning and went straight to Hotel Lor-In, around 45 minutes from the airport where we would stay during this trip. After checking-in to the hotel and took a brief break, we hit our first target: Tanjung Tinggi beach. This beach is practically next to the hotel’s area, only 10 minutes driving from the hotel. The first thing we did when we arrived to the beach was….. lunch 😀 The fresh seafood served there was irresistible…
The weather was not too good, and the sky was dark gray all around. So we tried to negotiate with that condition, taking pictures without too much involving the sky. I myself was not too successful, though. So we decided to hit our next target while hoping the weather to get better…
Next stop was Tanjung Kelayang beach. And God the gracious answered our prayers, sending the clouds away for a while. Wasting no time, everybody spread around and find them their own favorite spots to take pictures. The string of granite stones alongside the shore has really attracted us…
On the second day, the original plan was to go to Lengkuas island where the lighthouse was. But the boatman told us that it was not safe to sail to the island as the weather went bad again and the waves went high. Our tour guide suggested us to go to Burung (bird) island instead, it was not as far as Lengkuas island and it was considered safer to sail there. Divided in to two batches, we went aboard the boat from Bukit Berahu beach, heading to the island…
It was not too bad, though. Pretty similar with the first day, the weather gradually went better in the afternoon. The beach was great and – as usual – the granite stones were everywhere. We managed to trek around this small island, found a huge – this one is really big – stone and climbed up to the top as from there we could see the sea and Lengkuas island ahead of us. String of granite stones here and there, we can see all of them at the sea shore from this peak. It took no time for me to regret not to bring ND filters with me, not to bring a wider lens, not to bring… ah, forget it…
We went back to the main island in the afternoon, the boat anchored back at Tanjung Binga. After a brief rest at Tanjung Binga, we immediately went to Tanjung Pandan port. Learning about the fishermen’s life there, taking some pictures about the life and activities around the port. It was too bad we did not have the chance to take pictures of some activities at the fish market, it was already over by time we got there. It was quite interesting place to visit. But we got to be hurry for Tanjung Pendam beach for some sunset pictures, and then back to Bukit Berahu for dinner…
The third and final day, the activities were mostly packing at the hotel, sharing pictures and discuss them among us, and….. finding some souvenirs 😀 We managed to get back to Tanjung Kelayang for some souvenirs, and also bought lots of ‘krupuk udang – krupuk ikan – krupuk cumi’ from the city of Tanjung Pandan. And suddenly we found ourselves with several cartons more to bring home… 😀
*Photos taken during my trip to Belitung can be found at:
http://www.ismawanismail.com/gallery/index.php?/category/belitung
