Maratua – The Maldives of Indonesia | Travel Documentary

Located at the east coast of Borneo is an almost unknown paradise island. It's full of pristine beaches, lagoons, and coral reefs, which are home to so many different animals. Today we take you with us to this beautiful island and we show you how to get there and how you can explore this little paradise yourself. In order to get to Marutua Island, you first need to fly to Borao, which is one of the regencies located on the Indonesian side of Borneo. And from there, you'll take the speedboat to Marutua. And just like that, we arrived at the homestay. The location of this homestay is absolutely perfect. It has this cute small beach and a huge jetty that allows an easy entrance to the house reef. But the best thing about this location is the abundance of wild sea turtles that hang out next to the jetty and at the corals. Lionfish and squid are also regular visitors. Everything looked very promising from above the surface, so I quickly got all my gear and started snorkeling. The longer I stayed in the water, the more turtles appeared. I also saw many different colorful fish species, like this cute regal angelfish. After that very successful snorkeling session, it was time to relax and enjoy the sunset. Needless to say, we were already very impressed by this island, and we couldn't wait to experience more. Since we wanted to see more of Marutua, we decided to rent one of the scooters. It's the perfect vehicle to get around and explore the island. We quickly arrived at Halotabung, our first destination. It's a cave with a saltwater rock pool hidden in the forest. It's equally popular with locals and tourists. People use it for rock jumping, snorkeling, diving, or just to enjoy and relax after a busy day of work. Since Marutua is an atoll, it is shaped like a long irregular ring, which makes it look similar to the islands of the Maldives. The outer side has a rich open ocean environment with coral reefs, and very long, incredibly beautiful white sand beaches. Conveniently, there is also a lot of forest and many palm trees that provide plenty of shade from the strong sun. The inner side of the island looks different. It's basically a giant lagoon protected from the open ocean. Therefore, the water here is very shallow and calm, and instead of coral reefs, there are sandbanks. While I was walking on the sandbanks, I almost felt like an Animal Crossing character, because I found so many sand dollars. There are also a few patches of mangrove forest, which almost look like oases in a desert made of sand and water. I have to say, we were quite overwhelmed by the beauty of Marutua's landscape, and little that we knew, the next day would become even more amazing. Very early the next morning, we took the speedboat to a floating fishing platform. Here, out in the open ocean, it is possible to swim with the world's biggest shark species, the whale shark. These gentle giants can reach a length of almost 20 meters, and they mainly feed on plankton. And as you can see, the water here is full of these tiny microorganisms, on which the whale sharks happily feast on. Right after this absolutely crazy experience, we made our way to the Sangalaki Island Turtle Reserve. Sangalaki Island is a premier nesting site for green sea turtles and hawksbill turtles. It's one of the few places where you can see baby sea turtles hatching. The people here try to protect the nests from monitor lizards, eagles, and other predatory animals. Their goal is to give the baby sea turtles a good start in life, and prevent them from being eaten immediately after hatching, which gives them an overall higher chance of survival and reaching adulthood. But the boat trip wasn't over yet, so we quickly headed to the next spot, the jellyfish lake of Kakaban Island. Kakaban is also an atoll, similar to Maratua. The word Kakaban means hug, as the island hugs the lake from the surrounding seawater. Only 20 of these jellyfish lakes exist worldwide, and they formed at the end of the last ice age. The jellyfish got trapped in the lakes, and due to the lack of natural predators, lost their ability to sting. Therefore, it is safe to swim with them. Besides the jellyfish lake, Kakaban Island also has a small lagoon. It's tiny compared to the lake, but incredibly beautiful. Since it was already getting late, we drove back to Maratua, where we spent the evening relaxing and unwinding on the beach. In the end, we stayed 10 days in total in Maratua. We spent around €30 for the speedboat from Barau to Maratua, €60 for 10 days in Jade Homestay, €80 for food, the scooter and laundry, and around €130 for multiple boat tours and snorkeling trips. So in total, we only spent €300 in literal paradise. Please let us know in the comments if you would also visit this beautiful island, and if you think this is a reasonable price. For us, the whole trip was an incredible experience, that we will probably remember and cherish forever. And we would be very thankful if you could like or subscribe to support us.