Indonesia Travel Guide

What you’ll witness is truly hidden paradise that is still untouched by tourism and yet it’s the main reason that makes it really attractive. Located in eastern Java, Kangean Islands need more efforts to be reached but what you’ll get is totally worth it. I did the journey almost a year ago with limited clues and preferences which I gained from some people who went there before. Though I couldn’t find too many pictures of how it looked like but it made me to get more interested to explore the islands. After one month preparation, I finally started the journey in the end of 2009.

I took a long road from Surabaya to Sumenep, one of the regions in Madura for about 5 hours by bus and cost me about $5 for one way. On the way to Sumenep, you’ll pass the famous Suramadu Bridge, the longest bridge in Indonesia with sophisticated design. After arrived in Sumenep, you need to go to the Kalianget Harbor takes only 15 minutes from the bus station and costs for $2. There are two ships that can take you to Kangean which are the express boat and ferry. Each has particular schedule that usually leaves for Kangean 2-3 times in a week. The express boat called as Express Bahari only takes 3,5 hours and costs at least $14 but sometimes due to the bad condition of the ocean such as big wave, it won’t departure. There are two ferries, Sumekar 1 and Sumekar 2 which cost you about $7 and take longer time to reach Kangean about 8-10 hours. But the good thing about these ships is that it still departures though maybe the wave is quite big, that’s why you can count on them.

The Kangean Harbor called as Batugulug is located in the west part of the island and you need to go to the east part to start the island hoping journey. You can use local transportation that cost about $3 for one person but if you are in a big group you can get cheaper price. It takes about 2 hours before you arrive in small harbor in east Kangean, the Pajenassem Harbor. It’s really quiet and only small boat that can berth there. You can rent a boat to take you to several islands and snorkeling spots that costs you about $120 for two days including the gasoline. The boat is able to bring up to 20 people so you go with lots of friends, you can just share the cost. The hardest part of this journey is to find place to stay because there are no hotels or home stay in most of the islands, so you need to contact local people to prepare a house to be rented before you start the journey. You don’t have to worry about how much money you should spend for renting a house since you can pay for about $15 for one night and the house has enough space for 15 people.

Written by Amin Ch.