This Island Paradise Is Only $40 a Night
Maratua heaven. (Photo: Thinkstock)
Google images of the Indonesian island Maratua and you’ll find a living, breathing embodiment of paradise. The beaches are white sand, the jungles lush and home to relatively benign wildlife, and the aquamarine and emerald waters shimmer, blanketing a diver’s dream-come-true below.
The journey to this island paradise, seated off the coast of Borneo, is not for the faint of heart. It requires two domestic flights from Jakarta through bare bones Borneo airports, a two-and-a-half-hour windy ride by car, and a two-and-a-half-hour trip by a very small (as in seats-five-people-max) boat. When I completed the journey this summer from Indonesia’s capital city to what feels like an island positioned at the end of the earth, I clocked 12 hours of travel time and nearly 1,000 miles in total.
The rustic property. (Photo: Maratua Guesthouse/Facebook)
But the journey is worth it for the beauty — and for the superaffordable Maratua Guesthouse, which unlike the other hotel on the island (the Maratua Paradise Resort, which will set you back a cool $1,000 a night) only costs $40 a night. I made the Guesthouse my home for an entire week during my trip to Maratua this summer.
Maratua Guesthouse is the brainchild of Jun and Ana, two Indonesian transplants (from Lombok and Java, respectively) who are a couple and have a son named Hatan (Indonesian for “jungle”), who was born at the guesthouse less than a year ago. The environment is rugged but incredibly charming. Most of the cabanas are without air conditioning but have strong fans and mosquito netting. The bathrooms are indoor/outdoor, giving one the amazing feel of an outdoor shower with all of the privacy of a private bathroom.
It’s a family operation, with a handful of relatives and adopted family helping run the show (which includes a tour of the island on motorbike or chartering a boat for a day of snorkeling). Jun is typically on duty as a chef, whipping up omelets and banana pancakes in the morning and a mouthwatering coconut curry or fresh fish and chips at night. There were as many ice-cold Bin Tangs as could be brought in by boat that week — during my stay there was a particularly thirsty crowd that ran through the supply exceptionally quickly.
The Guesthouse beach. (Photo: Maratua Guesthouse/Facebook)
Days are typically spent snorkeling just in front of the guesthouse, which looks out onto some of the richest coral and wildlife that the island has to offer. A daily swim is sure to be chock-full of underwater sightings: Sea turtles by the dozen, fish of every size and shape, and stingrays and eels were among the creatures I spotted regularly. The coral is breathtaking in its beauty, and the stretch in front of Jun and Ana’s place includes mature, hard corals as well as soft and immature ones (growing back after being wiped out by particularly bad storms or careless fishermen).
The area around Maratua is famous for divers out to spot manta rays. It’s a (relatively short) ride in another one of the small boats out to the underwater area best known for attracting the mantas, aptly called “Manta Point.” During my stay, I went out with a small group to try and catch mantas early in the morning during their daily feeding but was unlucky in spotting any. (A group that went out the following day came face to face with a half-dozen mantas at the same location.) On the same day of snorkeling adventures, we were fruitful in our next stop, where we swam with the sting-free jellyfish on the island of Kakaban. In a lagoon in the center of the island, tourists can come and swim freely with thousands of these jellyfish, typically the size of your palm or smaller.
The vibe at Jun and Ana’s guesthouse is laid back and intimate. They recommend that visitors come for a minimum of three nights given the length of the journey to get there, which helps contribute to a uniquely familial feel among the guests. Now is definitely the time to go. The Indonesian government is in the process of building a small airport on the island, and it will likely be completed sometime next year. While this will make for more regular deliveries of Bin Tang and other resources that the island actually relies on, it’s sure to potentially change the “untouched paradise” feel very quickly.
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