Hi to all,
Here are the infos on Wakatobi I've promised a while ago...
1 - How to get there
This is not the most interesting part, I think, because when travelling through Indonesia, one should know how to use the PELNI (Pelayaraan Nasional Indonesia). I've used it to go to Bau-Bau.
Once you disembark in Bau Bau, and this is the main point of my whole post, You'll have to deal with Pak Notaris (= Mister Notary). I can't remember his actual name, maybe Pak Ade or something similar. I'll try to post his address and real name later.
2 - Who is that Pak Notaris ?
Well, he is the man you will be conducted to if you ask ANY question about Wakatobi, or even if you just metion you wanna go there, while you're in Bau Bau. Why ? He is a really smart guy, very kind, he speaks a perfect english, and he'll explain you two things:
A) "My hotel on Wakatobi (Yes, I just HAPPEN to own one on the island !! How lucky you are !) is the ONLY one available, because it's a very small island, you'll see, it's great, but... now it's full out there on the island !
You'll have to wait a few days on Bau Bau, the time for some customers to leave the island, just stay in my maid's room, we'll make a good price for you."
We just thought it was nice of him, so we thanked him and waited a few days in his own house (the maid went to sleep in one of the family's daughters' room).
B) The second thing he'll explain is a that there is a group of English people that are also staying on the island, it's an association called "Wallacea" (I believe you can find their site via Google). The surroundings of Wakatobi are protected as a marine park, so the point of this Wallacea things to help protect the marine life and learn from what's underwater (study the species, etc)
After a few days, we left for Wakatobi, in a tiny boat, the trip was horrible (but almost all boats trips are, in Indonesia, so that's all right
), but we finally got there.
What we discovered...
A) His hotel was as full as it was when we arrived in Bau Bau, no one of the guests had left, one of the staff's rooms was already occupied by tourists, and when we got there, the staff that was staying in the 2nd room had been told to go sleep outside and leave the room for us, for the tourists... So the staff slept outside, with no place to out their stuff, to change clothes...
We had no refund on the price of the room, we just paid what the people in the "normal" bungalows paid. Great. But at least we were there. Feeling bad for the staff...
The food was far too expensive, the staying in its whole was going to cost us a fortune... but again, it was the only place you could eat ! At least that's what we thought...
B) Big surprise is... Hi resort was NOT the only one.... :upset: I don't remember how we discovered that, maybe just by finding a bungalow where none was supposed to be. The resort we found was Heertje's (again, my spelling is probably wrong, I'll try to post the correct name later...). She is a Dutch woman on her fourties, and one of the most interesting and easy going person I ever met. She knew about what Pak Notaris told to everyone, but couldn't do anything about that since he was a "Notaris", he was Indonesian, and she was Dutch (not the best reputation in Indonesia...!).
We moved to her place the very day we got to know her.
It was a nice place, the bungalows were basic (well, in comparison with the one we had at Notaris' , they were better) and the food was... mmm... ricey .
I dove with her, she only has three full equipments, and she 's not a DM or anything, just CMAS two stars. We paid far less than at the other resort.
In front of the island is a "Bajo" Village. Bajo people build their house on the water, with pilings. They go from one house to another with tiny boats and they eat mostly fish, since they almost never set a foot on dry land. They're really poor, as you can imagine, and Heertje is doing her best to help. Which means
- she bought cement for them to have a proper school building (in dry land)
- she is learning their language to communicate better
- she offers free diving to every tourist who accepts to go to the Bajo village every morning and make an hour of English teaching. I did that, of course, and I thought it was a great idea. I was good at it, so she even proposed to me that I come back and stay for a small fee, plus diving for free, in exchange of going to the Bajo village every morning to teach english. My mom is a teacher, so I have good material !
Pak Notaris is doing none of those things as far as I know, but Heertje says no one dares to criticize, since the zone is a Marine Park and he's a Notaris - he's got power in here, and if you know a bit about Indonesia, you'll understand why.
3) The island
...is BEAUTIFUL. Heaven place. Huge white beaches, nice tiny village (50 people living there at the most) on the other side of the island, beautiful turquoise water, etc.
The diving I did was really cool, but there was an invasion of "Portuguese Man-Of-War (a deadly jellyfish, deep blue, very beautiful but you'd better not get any closer... One of our friends there grazed one, and we all thought she was going to die, she spent 1 day with high fever and fibrillation... but nothing to worry about, it usually happens once every 5 years, and it only lasts for a few days... Was very impressive though !!).
I only dove 5 times (money matters...) but it was great. The viz was not so good, but what's VERY impressive is the coral architecture... wow.)
The snorkelling is very good, the only negative point being that you have to swim for approximately 10 minutes (only possible when the tide is high) to get to the wall, but then again, it's worth it in my opinion.
The sunsets are great, the walk around the island is great, the sunbathing and lying doing nothing in the sun is great ...
4 - Wallacea Operation
This is all a great laugh. In fact, the Wallacea Operation is helping the Marine Park to protect their ressources and marine biodiversity. They needed volunteers to help work on the problem. Thing is, they did a very good advertizing job in the UK, and all the students from the most reputated private universities of UK who needed to do a research on the Marine Life Protection went there. So you'll probably find it a bit weird. It actually looks like a summer camp !! All girls are in bikinis, there is beach volley competition every half-hour, and they're VERY poor divers. In fact, it's a bit hard not to yell at them since they really don't know how to dive, in fact they even step on the corals...... For a Marine Life Protection Operation, it's a bit shameful !! But there are nice people in the middle of the crowd, they do have dive gear but won't lend nor rent them, go figure.
5 - My advice
Go there. Just tell Pak Notaris you'll stay at his place, and once on the island, find Heertje. Say hello to her from me. The island is big enough to stay away from the Wallacea teens and the Pak Notaris staff, so you'll have a great time walking around, snorkelling and diving.
Here are the infos on Wakatobi I've promised a while ago...
1 - How to get there
This is not the most interesting part, I think, because when travelling through Indonesia, one should know how to use the PELNI (Pelayaraan Nasional Indonesia). I've used it to go to Bau-Bau.
Once you disembark in Bau Bau, and this is the main point of my whole post, You'll have to deal with Pak Notaris (= Mister Notary). I can't remember his actual name, maybe Pak Ade or something similar. I'll try to post his address and real name later.
2 - Who is that Pak Notaris ?
Well, he is the man you will be conducted to if you ask ANY question about Wakatobi, or even if you just metion you wanna go there, while you're in Bau Bau. Why ? He is a really smart guy, very kind, he speaks a perfect english, and he'll explain you two things:
A) "My hotel on Wakatobi (Yes, I just HAPPEN to own one on the island !! How lucky you are !) is the ONLY one available, because it's a very small island, you'll see, it's great, but... now it's full out there on the island !
You'll have to wait a few days on Bau Bau, the time for some customers to leave the island, just stay in my maid's room, we'll make a good price for you."
We just thought it was nice of him, so we thanked him and waited a few days in his own house (the maid went to sleep in one of the family's daughters' room).
B) The second thing he'll explain is a that there is a group of English people that are also staying on the island, it's an association called "Wallacea" (I believe you can find their site via Google). The surroundings of Wakatobi are protected as a marine park, so the point of this Wallacea things to help protect the marine life and learn from what's underwater (study the species, etc)
After a few days, we left for Wakatobi, in a tiny boat, the trip was horrible (but almost all boats trips are, in Indonesia, so that's all right
), but we finally got there.What we discovered...
A) His hotel was as full as it was when we arrived in Bau Bau, no one of the guests had left, one of the staff's rooms was already occupied by tourists, and when we got there, the staff that was staying in the 2nd room had been told to go sleep outside and leave the room for us, for the tourists... So the staff slept outside, with no place to out their stuff, to change clothes...
We had no refund on the price of the room, we just paid what the people in the "normal" bungalows paid. Great. But at least we were there. Feeling bad for the staff...
The food was far too expensive, the staying in its whole was going to cost us a fortune... but again, it was the only place you could eat ! At least that's what we thought...
B) Big surprise is... Hi resort was NOT the only one.... :upset: I don't remember how we discovered that, maybe just by finding a bungalow where none was supposed to be. The resort we found was Heertje's (again, my spelling is probably wrong, I'll try to post the correct name later...). She is a Dutch woman on her fourties, and one of the most interesting and easy going person I ever met. She knew about what Pak Notaris told to everyone, but couldn't do anything about that since he was a "Notaris", he was Indonesian, and she was Dutch (not the best reputation in Indonesia...!).
We moved to her place the very day we got to know her.
It was a nice place, the bungalows were basic (well, in comparison with the one we had at Notaris' , they were better) and the food was... mmm... ricey
.I dove with her, she only has three full equipments, and she 's not a DM or anything, just CMAS two stars. We paid far less than at the other resort.
In front of the island is a "Bajo" Village. Bajo people build their house on the water, with pilings. They go from one house to another with tiny boats and they eat mostly fish, since they almost never set a foot on dry land. They're really poor, as you can imagine, and Heertje is doing her best to help. Which means
- she bought cement for them to have a proper school building (in dry land)
- she is learning their language to communicate better
- she offers free diving to every tourist who accepts to go to the Bajo village every morning and make an hour of English teaching. I did that, of course, and I thought it was a great idea. I was good at it, so she even proposed to me that I come back and stay for a small fee, plus diving for free, in exchange of going to the Bajo village every morning to teach english. My mom is a teacher, so I have good material !
Pak Notaris is doing none of those things as far as I know, but Heertje says no one dares to criticize, since the zone is a Marine Park and he's a Notaris - he's got power in here, and if you know a bit about Indonesia, you'll understand why.
3) The island
...is BEAUTIFUL. Heaven place. Huge white beaches, nice tiny village (50 people living there at the most) on the other side of the island, beautiful turquoise water, etc.
The diving I did was really cool, but there was an invasion of "Portuguese Man-Of-War (a deadly jellyfish, deep blue, very beautiful but you'd better not get any closer... One of our friends there grazed one, and we all thought she was going to die, she spent 1 day with high fever and fibrillation... but nothing to worry about, it usually happens once every 5 years, and it only lasts for a few days... Was very impressive though !!).
I only dove 5 times (money matters...) but it was great. The viz was not so good, but what's VERY impressive is the coral architecture... wow.)
The snorkelling is very good, the only negative point being that you have to swim for approximately 10 minutes (only possible when the tide is high) to get to the wall, but then again, it's worth it in my opinion.
The sunsets are great, the walk around the island is great, the sunbathing and lying doing nothing in the sun is great ...
4 - Wallacea Operation
This is all a great laugh. In fact, the Wallacea Operation is helping the Marine Park to protect their ressources and marine biodiversity. They needed volunteers to help work on the problem. Thing is, they did a very good advertizing job in the UK, and all the students from the most reputated private universities of UK who needed to do a research on the Marine Life Protection went there. So you'll probably find it a bit weird. It actually looks like a summer camp !! All girls are in bikinis, there is beach volley competition every half-hour, and they're VERY poor divers. In fact, it's a bit hard not to yell at them since they really don't know how to dive, in fact they even step on the corals...... For a Marine Life Protection Operation, it's a bit shameful !! But there are nice people in the middle of the crowd, they do have dive gear but won't lend nor rent them, go figure.
5 - My advice
Go there. Just tell Pak Notaris you'll stay at his place, and once on the island, find Heertje. Say hello to her from me. The island is big enough to stay away from the Wallacea teens and the Pak Notaris staff, so you'll have a great time walking around, snorkelling and diving.
