Tourists enjoy a sunset on the shore of Tidung Island in August, one of the most popular Thousand Islands destinations. (JG Photo/Ethan Harfenist)
The Thousand Islands is known as a must-see destination for people visiting Jakarta.
Just a boat ride away from the bustling capital, the 100-plus islands of Pulau Seribu stretched across 45 kilometers in the Java Sea are an alluring prospect, and so I set out.
One of the biggest of the islands, Pulau Tidung, is famous for its beautiful nature and authentic environment with almost no foreign tourists visiting but around 4,000 locals making a living out of fishing or running homestays. This was the slice of paradise that I had set my eyes on.
Brand new speedboats with air conditioning travel there from Marina Ancol. But I stubbornly decided to save some money and travel the way many Indonesians do.
My local friends told me that the cheap fishing boats were nothing luxurious, but are still OK if you’re not too picky. “Well, I have climbed mountains in Thailand and slept in the desert in Egypt, I can handle a local boat to the island,” I thought ambitiously as I purchased the Rp 30,000 ($3) ticket.
As soon as I got out of the taxi at 6 a.m. on a recent Saturday, I could feel my courage shrink. An unbearable smell of rotten fish filled my lungs and got on my clothes and hair at Muara Angke harbor, famous in Jakarta for its fish market.
I was led to the right boat by a limping man through puddles of mud and a cluster of fish sellers. Holding my nose, I made it to the small wooden craft by hopping from one lined-up boat to another.
A man walking behind me slipped and his bag dropped into the sea but nobody seemed to care.
Hundreds of people were sitting on the deck and in the cabin. Children were crying, adults looked exhausted and life jackets were nowhere to be seen.
The blazing heat and stuffy air inside made me dizzy, so I took my seat in the open air.
As the boat left the stinking harbor, I thought of ways to survive this three-hour ride, squeezed on the narrow deck between big women and heavy-smoking men — but the worst was yet to come.
After peacefully gliding on the waters for an hour, the ride started to get rough. The boat creaked and rocked so hard I thought it might fall apart.
As I was hoping to wake up from this nightmare, everyone around me started vomiting into the sea and onto the deck. I was glad I avoided an early breakfast, otherwise my scrambled eggs and bacon may have ended up in the Java Sea, just like the meals of those next to me.
I pressed my bags tightly to my chest and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the smell and the spinning horizon as the boat swung violently. The wind strengthened and the waves were soon coming over the edge, hitting my toes.
“This should be safe, because the captain allowed us to sit on the deck. There is no way the water could come any higher,” I reassured myself.
Then, without warning, a wave towered over the boat, soaking us passengers and our belongings.
People were floating by me on the deck, trying to grab hold of something and not fall into the sea.
“Masuk! Masuk!,” the captain screamed, and people rushed inside the already-packed cabin in panic. I tried to avoid stepping on people as I made my way inside. My heart palpitations increased with every wave that came toward us.
For the rest of the journey, I did my best not to think about the non-existent life jackets, the terrified people around me and the fact that this boat did not even have a life ring.
By the time I finally set my shaking feet on the steady ground of Tidung Island, I was ready to cry with relief. But that did not last long, as it was not until I got to my shabby homestay room that I realized my mobile phones were dripping wet and could not function properly.
With no dry clothes to wear, no phones and my clothes smelling of dead fish, I walked around the island grinning like an idiot, just happy to be alive.
I meant to take the same fishing boat back the next day, but needless to say, I was more than happy to pay Rp 167,000 extra for the speedboat.
Anna Egutkina is a journalist from Finland currently based in Jakarta.
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