Traveling the Kei islands, discover the unkown

The way there

From Bali we made our way to the Kei islands. It wasn’t an easy trip flying to Makassar, then Ambon and finally to Langgur. There are different ways of getting there, and one includes a boat but everyone we spoke to seemed to have come by plane. The trip became all the more challenging when I fell ill in Ambon with 39 degree fever. After checking in our luggage the sickness became worse, and we decided that we could not fly to the Kei islands before seeing a doctor. There are two hospitals on the Kei islands but they do not have the facilities to check your blood for tropical diseases.

When we tried to get the luggage back, the lady at the counter told us “don’t worry we have a doctor here at the airport”. I thought yes! Let’s go see her and figure out what I have but it was quite a bit more complicated in reality. I came there and it wasn’t a doctor we were going to see, but the quarantine officer. She saw me and blocked me from flying all together until I had my blood checked for dengue and malaria. Great, now we were at the airport but had to drive back to Ambon, get my blood checked and come back to the airport.

So back we went, missed our flight, left our luggage at the airport and they promised they would book us onto the next flight. We came to the laboratory and luckily there was no queue and they took the blood sample quickly. Unfortunately, it takes 2h to complete the tests and after waiting in the ice-cold waiting room, I was told I had nothing and could go on with my travel. It seemed like the owner got pleasure to tell me I had nothing and I had exaggerated the whole thing like a weak westerling. Anyways, we went to the airport and they had kept their promise, and booked us to the next flight, the quarantine lady cleared me to fly and I had to sign a document declaring that anything that would happen to me would not be the fault of the airline.

Depending on the time of your flight you will get to see different sceneries and to be honest I think they might all be worth it. We had a sunset flight there but a sunrise flight back and the colors of the sky that turn from yellow to orange to purple to blue are just breathtaking. The propeller plane adds a special feeling of flying away from the civilised world towards an isolated new world. The Kei islands offer something different, something that one needs to experience first hand and that is just so different to all the places like Bali where everything is overrun by tourist.

Kei islands accommodation

Instead of arriving early in the afternoon we landed just before nightfall. Luckily because apparently planes can’t take off and land in Langgur in the dark. We got were welcomed by a lady from the tourist office, and we had to write our names in some kind of naughty book. And while waiting for our luggage she came and asked for a selfie for her “boss”, very interesting. She helped us arrange a taxi and off we went to Coaster cottages.

We heard a lot about Coaster cottages and it was all we could find on internet. But this is as basic as it gets without having to stay in a tent. We stayed at coaster cottages, and honestly I don’t know if there are any better places to stay at, but this was as low as we got on the trip so far. We stayed in Penny’s house, a big cottage with 2 huge beds with mosquito nets (luckily because they are everywhere), and a wooden floor.

So far so good we thought, until we saw the bathroom. Luckily this bungalow had a shower head and a sink but the toilet didn’t flush. When we didn’t have water we had to walk to the ocean to get water to flush the toilet. Of course there wasn’t any warm water, but we expected that so it was alright. We later moved to a different room and they even took away our sink and shower head, which gave us the “back to basics” experience all together.

Since tourism hasn’t arrived to the island (yet) there isn’t much choice online. I found that there is much more choice on the island, and locals will gladly help you find accommodation. If you would consider diving on the island you could contact the Kei pirate dive centre and they will arrange accommodation for you. It is good to keep in mind that everything you find on the island will be up to a local standard and probably much worse than what you are used to.

Paradise island?

When you come to the Kei islands (and you aren’t sick) you will not spend much time indoors. You will spend it in the Cristal clear waters, on a day trip to some nearby islands or explore the caves. It is idyllic to see the white beach stretch for kilometers and when the sky is clear you will get amazing star skies at night. It offers scenes that I had never seen before and it’ll take a while before I will find anything like it. People are really surprised when they see white people and it becomes clear that tourism has not arrived to the Kei islands.

It is possible to do many day trips to the different islands and this is something I highly recommend, believe it or not but being on a white beach does get boring at some point. The trip to snake island has been the best we took. At low tide a stretch of beach comes out of the ocean and you can take (a short) walk on it. To be honest you can take quite some cool pictures there. On the way back you can ask the captain to stop at different islands making it a really nice experience all together. Make sure you figure out when the tide is at its lowest, as you will get to see most of snake island at that point.

Snorkeling is another activity that is definitely worth giving a shot while on the island. However, make sure you talk to some locals that can point you in the right direction (or island) to do it. We went to a few places that were completely destroyed because of the dynamite fishing that was done here. And don’t forget the effect of global warming of coral bleaching that is definitely happening here. It is depressing to see all the life disappearing from the ocean because we are warming the earth bit by bit. I think that we can all contribute to slowing down the warming of our oceans by eating less meat, driving a smaller car and stop littering our plastic all around.

If Coral bleaching wasn’t enough, plastic is definitely making the experience on the Indonesian islands less enjoyable. This is not the fault of the locals, the uninhabited islands have huge amounts of plastic lying on the beaches. The monsoon brings in a lot of plastic that is floating around in the ocean and pollute the islands around. Lets try to reduce this unnecessary good and recycle what we do use of it. This is much easier said than done but every little bit helps. And as my girlfriend used to say:” individual action does have an impact”.

As you can see in this picture, this uninhabited island does provide entertainment for those visiting.

Coral bleaching is definitely an issue in Indonesia, but the Kei islands do have some amazingly healthy corals. Read all about my diving experience in my other blog post about diving on the Kei islands