Boat excursions from Pulau Tomia: Pulau Sawa and Kolla Soha

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Bryan Keith

I was planning on only writing one blog about Pulau Tomia, but really that island was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever visited.  As I said in another post, my main goal of coming to Southeast Sulawesi was to find good snorkeling.  The nine days on Pulau Tomia made the entire two-month trip to Sulawesi worthwhile (I’m writing this while we still have three weeks left in Sulawesi!).

On our second-to-last full day on the island, we rode our bicycles back to the Waitii Jetty for the third time.  The condition of the boats at Waitii Jetty doesn’t inspire confidence:

20180531_150136 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Pulau Tomia — a snorkeler’s paradise in the Banda Sea

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Bryan Keith

There’s a lot of hype about Wakatobi.  I suppose it started when Jacques Cousteau said that Wakatobi is “probably the finest diving site in the world”.  However, with hype comes high expectations.  My high expectations were slightly tempered by knowing that most of the hard coral at snorkeling depths in Wakatobi is dead.  However, it didn’t seem like that to me because I had done enough research to know where to snorkel.  As far as I know, we snorkeled at only the best spots on Pulau Tomia and chartered a boat one day to take us out to a “world-class reef”.

Pulau Tomia is the “to” in Wakatobi.  The other eponymous islands are Wangiwangi, Kaledupa, and Binongko.  Our first island in Wakatobi was Tomia, on a direct boat from Baubau, a 15-hour trip that some people would call an “adventure”.  I was very happy to have Dramamine.

The boat from Baubau to Pulau Tomia, a 15-hour journey by bryandkeith on flickr

Our boat came into Waitii, not Waha, where most of the accommodation is.
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A week of fun excursions from Baubau, Pulau Buton

Posted on July 28, 2018 by Bryan Keith

We settled into a comfortable hotel in Baubau and made a few day trips.  Our first excursion was to Pulau (Island) Makassar, a short (15 minute) boat ride from Baubau.  We walked through a residential area and made our way to the beach, Pantai Lakorapu.

20180520_102255 by bryandkeith on flickr
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From southwest Turkey to Southeast Sulawesi; did we find Nirvana?

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Bryan Keith

Antalya-İstanbul-Jakarta-Makassar ended up being a 26-hour airplane journey (home to hotel).  Ferda and I spent less than 48 hours in Makassar and boarded the Pelni ship KM. Sinabung for what ended up being a 19-hour journey (hotel to hotel) from Makassar to Baubau.  We were still tired and disoriented from the long days of travel, jet lag, tropical climate, new country, new food, new language, but we correctly assumed that Baubau would be a better place than Makassar to rest a few days and get our bearings.

20180514_195511 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Trebenna Antik Kent

Posted on July 8, 2018 by Bryan Keith

It was when I was looking through these photographs of Trebenna Antik Kent that I found the lost blog, the last one I published, the one about our long day on Geyiksivrisi, a trip we started from Trebenna Antik Kent.  I didn’t have any photos of the ruined city from that trip, but I found these ones (below) from the first time I visited Trebenna Antik Kent when I rode up from Antalya by bicycle.  I also once walked up from Kezban’s Guesthouse, but that was a foggy, rainy day, and I didn’t take any photos.

Trebenna Antik Kent is another old Roman city near Antalya.  The setting is nice — at the foot of Geyiksivrisi, above the climbing crags of Geyikbayırı.  The site gets few visitors because there’s not so much to see.

The closest climbing crag to Trebenna Antik Kent is named after the old city.  It’s quite a popular climbing area, in part because it’s almost always in the shade.  Many more people have climbed at Trebenna than have visited the old city.  I suppose the old city is now just a place for goats and turtles to hang out.

DSCN1333 by bryandkeith on flickr
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