I was awoken by a girl’s cry in the morning. She said, “I miss you a lot daddy”. I had the shivers crawling down my spine. As I opened my eyes, I wondered whether my suspicions of this hotel being haunted were true. Fortunately, I soon realized I was dead wrong. The girl’s cry came from Michael Jackson’s daughter. She was on television sharing her story of her late father during the memorial ceremony. I got dressed soon after.
Jon, our tour guide, was at the lobby around 8.15am. After breakfast we were well on our way to the jeti. Along it were signs saying ‘Beware of Buaya’. I mean what is wrong with the picture here? My boat was like 10 inches above the water surface and they are asking me to be weary of the local buaya. Good thing the boat was fast.
We were speeding through the main river. After 10 minutes, we came to the open sea, which the main river soon joined up to. As we head on, we saw large exposed piping with strange stripes on them. They looked like giant snakes surfacing for air. Must have been one of those tourist attractions. After taking in the sea breeze and watching the eagles sore above us, we disembarked from our little boat. Our feet lay upon the soft exposed seabed of Bakur Island.
The waters were clear and cool. The seabed softened our feet. Little crabs scared its surface with little highways leading to their dug hole. As we were walking towards the quest house, I felt like a seaman who had just found land. The sun and sea breeze was absolutely mesmerizing. I was reborn.
We were well on our way into deep forest after washing the sand off our feet. We were unsure of the terrain around here, and our guide was of no help. He had only been on this island once before. The resident guide there told us that there are in total 18 treks to choose from. The easiest being the ‘Paku’ track. This track was considered to have both challenging and easy terrain. We were later advised to try out the ‘Paku’ track first.
The ‘Paku’ track started off with a nice leisurely walk by the coastline of the island. Supported by wooden bridges along it, we were well above the muddy marshlands. The paya bakau trees were growing out from them. From there we saw many sea shell crabs. There were thousands and thousands of them crawling around, making little highways for themselves. Most had one large claw; some were on the right side and some on the left. Orange and metalic blue shades adorn their soft shelling. They were like gems surfacing form the muddy like soil.
Along the way we also saw monkeys ravaging from the land. Eating nuts and berries that were washed up from the deep forest of the island into the open sea. They are little rascals and I have doubts of them being nice. I wondered what else was installed for us…