Holiday Ayo - Belitung is also known as Billiton. Besides the mesmerizing pristine beaches, it is also famous for tin and peppers. Belitong, as most locals pronounce it, is a relatively small island with tourist attractions being sparsely scattered on the map, about a 1-2 hours drive from the city center.

As cited from IndonesiaTourism, Belitung is best to make advance booking for suitable accommodation and trusted transportation with a fixed price since public transport is not the best way to get around.

In Belitung, you must try to have breakfast at the city center named Warung Mak Jana.

Warung Mak Jana serves the special delicacies of Soto Lontong and Gado Gado Lontong Belitong. This small restaurant is packed with visitors on a Saturday morning.

Then, you must visit a unique place called Kaolin Lake. It will remind you of the cotton castle of Pamukkale in Turkey. With white stones and turquoise water, it is a nice setting for a landscape picture.

On to the next journey, you must head towards the Laskar Pelangi’s Museum Kata. An artsy museum with memorabilia created by Andrea Hirata, around the success of his best-selling novels and box office movies, portraying the stories of his younger self and adventures. The museum has vivid colors and murals, with mosaic tile floors, a reading space, and a coffee shop at the back. We then went to check out the Laskar Pelangi or Rainbow Troops’ school nearby the museum and take some pictures.

Then drove to visit the monument of the 1001 coffee shop, in the city of Manggar East Belitung. Most of these coffee shops provide a semi-outdoor lounge, with long chairs and tables inviting visitors to chill and sip some warm drinks. We ordered the most special black coffee available and singkong goreng or fried cassava as snacks. It was marvelous, perfect for the light rain mood we had that day.

About an hour drive from Manggar, you can go to find lunch and excited to try the fresh local seafood, and harvest life from the adjacent sea. It is a simple dish of grilled fish and squids but tastes scrumptiously mouth-watering. Mixed with an excellent scenic waterfront, the dining experience in this humble beach hut was inevitably special.

Carry on with your itinerary, you can rent a boat to Lengkuas island. The boatman asked IDR 500.000 for a boat with a capacity of 10 people. But that day, we had the boat all to ourselves.

Lengkuas Island is the home of a lighthouse more than 100 years old of age. It has such a pretty soft white sand beach with clear turquoise water. Light grey granite rocks thrust scattered in a variety of sizes and shapes, made the island even more special. A few photography clubs arrived at the same time and obviously stated the place was indeed a photogenic hunting spot.

Here, you can climb the 18-story high, 65 meters tall, and 313 stair steps lighthouse. Once you got to the top and stepped out to the viewing deck, the panorama was plain breathtaking. But, you could not stay up for long because people were lining up to take their turn to enjoy the magnificent wonders of the island from above this historical structure. After getting back to the ground level, you can visit the museum built near the lighthouse. Some food stalls are also available here, selling instant foods and beverages.

On our way back from Lengkuas Island, you can stop by Pulau Batu Belayar or translate it as Sailing Stone Island, this small spot is lovely and secluded. It is where couples usually go for pre-wedding shoots. It has large granite stone in the formation of a boat and sail, which will definitely give a majestic background for memorable holiday pictures.

Belitung has a nice temperature to enjoy the tranquil beach and a dose of good vitamin sea in front of our cottage. The sand is smooth, clean, and well maintained. The water is not too deep, so children can experience some dipping in the salty water.

The seabed has small coral reefs about 10 meters off sand, so we stay clear of that particular area. The wind and current were become rapidly strong and even flew away one of our inflatables to the open sea.

If you want to buy some souvenirs, there are many shops for some shopping. Peppers, some tin souvenirs, and locally designed t-shirts can be your choices before leaving Belitung Island.