Reaching the Indian Ocean

On Saturday we arranged to be picked up at 5 in the morning to drive down to the southern coast, to the Indian Ocean. From our book and by word of mouth, we've learned that the southern coast has big waves that make swimming dangerous. But one of my students suggested a beach, Pantai Nglambor, which has some islands blocking the waves so it's calm enough that people can snorkel. We had arranged for the driver to take us there.

We asked our taxi driver to stop after about 45 minutes so we could take a pic of the sunrise, still in the urban sprawl.

Along the way

After a little while, we started suspecting that our driver didn't know where the beach in question was. We needed to stop to ask for directions.

A pink bicycle I took a pic of while we were stopped

We got to the ocean, but not to Nglambor. This was Pantai Taman. The waves made it clear that there would be no snorkeling but it was a beautiful beach. The waves were big, but they broke in a way that didn't hit us hard while we were in the ocean.

There was a little canal area or salt marsh area. I think it may fill with salt water at high tide, since I saw fish in it that looked like reef fish.

Then we went to a second beach that was a short drive east from Pantai Taman. We didn't catch this beach's name.

We swam for awhile. The waves were pretty big and they didn't break so softly here.

After swimming, we went for a walk.

W found a coconut

And threw it around for awhile

S also found a coconut

She worked to pry it from the beach with a bamboo stick she had found

Now she had a coconut too. We noticed it was a particularly wrinkly coconut she had found.

Coconut up ahead on the beach

Watching the way the coconut blocked the froth from the wave. Seeing this helped me better visualize how some seafarers have determined the distant presence of an island by looking for its disruption of the ocean's swells.

W, up off the ground, throwing a coconut, with a stick in foreground

N and S off in the distance. I like the receding wave here.

W throwing a stick

S demonstrating the way she could pour water onto her coconut using the bamboo stick

On the beach, a perahu/boat christened the Harum Manis (Sweet Fragrance).

W was already far up ahead at some rock formations

I was still back looking at boats, including this one, higher up on the shore, which seemed like a boat made of a hollowed-out log, if I was looking at things right.

Stick abandoned

N and S moving in on the rocks

Someone left their crabbing supplies on the rocks

It was a good walk

Our driver told us there were two more beaches and two more sights to see. So we got in the car and started in that direction. But along the way, we saw a little beach at the bottom of a hill. We stopped to figure out if there was some way to get down to it.

I had a false start, as I headed down the side of a building along a picturesque stone wall that led to a toilet.

But then a man at the building showed us the trail down to the beach

It was in a cove, so the full strength of the waves seemed blocked. It was a good swimming beach, and the water was clear. I snorkeled around for awhile but didn't find any coral and didn't see any fish.

I liked this rock, worn away where the water meets the stone. It's hard to imagine how long the waves have been doing the same thing to this rock. And this is hardly any erosion at all (on this particular rock) compared to the landscapes in Southern Utah.

We had supervision

Hold on let me look again at that rock

As we left the beach we drove through rice paddies, and we stopped for a few minutes.

Our driver told us there was a "goa"--or actually three "goa"--that we should see. We didn't know what a "goa" was, but we said okay.

It turned out a goa/gua was a cave. And we arrived just before it closed. And they kept it open while we went through it.

A sign forbidding smoking in the gua

A frog standing as a stern sentinel

In the end, N said she was glad we didn't find Pantai Nglambor, since that will give us another chance to go down to the coast. N also said a few times that when she was in school she would look at the map, and she remembers thinking that the Indian Ocean was the least likely of places she would go.