Rickg
Contributor
Shanghai Manta,
There is another option also which saved my wife and I quite a bit of money when we went last year. Here is how we got there:
- flew KK to Tawau
- spent night in Tawau at Marco Polo Hotel
- took morning high speed express ferry (about 2.5 hours) from Tawau to Tarakan. Name of ferry is Indomaya Tiga. It is very comfortable with air conditioning, airline type seats and a movie. The ferry runs 6 days a week.
- spent night in Tarakan at Plaza Hotel. Not much of a hotel but the food was good and the beer was ice cold.
- took local high speed ferry (more like a large, covered speed boat with twin outboards) to Tanjung Batu (2.5 hours) and then from Tanjung Batu to Sangalaki in a chartered speedboat (45 minutes). (NOTE: Another option depending on the resort's shuttle boat schedule is to fly from Tarakan to Berau (about 30 minutes) and catch the resort's boat.)
The resort had an agent that met us going into and out of Tarakan. We didn't have any problems using this method although the pier where we arrived at Tarakan seemed to be pure pandemonium with people and vehicles everywhere.
Hope this helps.
Rickg
There is another option also which saved my wife and I quite a bit of money when we went last year. Here is how we got there:
- flew KK to Tawau
- spent night in Tawau at Marco Polo Hotel
- took morning high speed express ferry (about 2.5 hours) from Tawau to Tarakan. Name of ferry is Indomaya Tiga. It is very comfortable with air conditioning, airline type seats and a movie. The ferry runs 6 days a week.
- spent night in Tarakan at Plaza Hotel. Not much of a hotel but the food was good and the beer was ice cold.
- took local high speed ferry (more like a large, covered speed boat with twin outboards) to Tanjung Batu (2.5 hours) and then from Tanjung Batu to Sangalaki in a chartered speedboat (45 minutes). (NOTE: Another option depending on the resort's shuttle boat schedule is to fly from Tarakan to Berau (about 30 minutes) and catch the resort's boat.)
The resort had an agent that met us going into and out of Tarakan. We didn't have any problems using this method although the pier where we arrived at Tarakan seemed to be pure pandemonium with people and vehicles everywhere.
Hope this helps.
Rickg
