The Story – part 2 (The Lighthouse and The Lost Lake)
In the previous post, I described how I discovered and Labengki, how I got there and have seen the Bajau village on the neighboring island.
Well, so you are for a week on a remote paradise island that nobody ever heard of. Without any mobile signal and electricity only for a short time in the evening. What are you going to do besides reading Garland`s The Beach spread on a hammock and watching how the color of water changes with passing hours of daytime? Off course, explore everything around.
The Lighthouse
As I was still recovering from an ear infection, I could not explore the underwater world with my snorkeling gear for the first few days and I focused on land exploration. Me and Carlos took the first opportunity to join the trip when Irwan, the on-site manager, was going to the village in Labengki Kecil to meet his friend. This gave us approximately 2 hours to explore the Bajau village and the abandoned lighthouse.
Besides the village, Labengki Kecil turned out to be a made out of a small piece of jungle surrounded by a few white sandy bays. On the end of one of the bays stood a lonely tall white lighthouse resembling an impressionist painting that promised superb views. Fortunately, Carlos, being roughly 10 years older, turned out to be the same curious child as me in my 30.
After walking around a small swamp and climbing a forested slope, we came to the entrance of the lighthouse. Obviously, you were not supposed to go inside. The entrance was walled in with concrete, but somebody fortunately broke a man-sized hole in the upper part of it.
We did not think too long before crawling inside. We found a circular room that was empty save for some garbage on the floor and a very peculiar looking set of metal stairs leading to the next floor. Not exactly secured to the ceiling, the stairs still felt solid enough to go up one after the other. Overall there were 5 sets of stairs always leading to a new floor with windows out to a different direction every time.
Therefore, each window had a different picture perfect view of turquoise, green and white from increasing height. Unfortunately, the last set of metal stairs did not lead to an open platform on top of the lighthouse, as this time somebody really walled the ceiling to prevent anybody climbing to the very top.
Nevertheless, we spent quite some time taking a picture from every possible direction and speculated that a wonderful guesthouse could be made out of the lighthouse after some refurbishing. After the exploration was complete, we walked back to the village to transfer back to the beach hut, spending the rest of the day napping.
Another cool climb was possible right from our beach. On one side of the beach, the sharp granite rocks the island is made of were raising steeply through a jungle to an open viewpoint. The rocks were really knife sharp and the climb would not be possible if Irwan and his friend did not support parts of the path with planks and ropes. Wisely, we choose the afternoon for the climb, when the air was the hottest and we were sweating like crazy after the first 5 minutes. Nevertheless, the view from the top was stunning. You could see several white sandy beaches on the rim of the island, with the thick green jungle in the middle, surrounded by coral reefs and the never-ending sea.
This is the place I imagine when listening to Netsky`s drum and bass song Bird of Paradise, so I played it over in my headphones for a few times just soaking the view, before taking another dozen pictures and climbing down. Seeing how difficult it was to climb this hill, cutting my trainers wide open on the sharp rocks, I understand why Irwan told us nobody ever ventured into the seemingly inaccessible middle of the island.
The local Bajau did not have a reason going so far inside. They are also known to distrust any land out of the immediate reach of the sea. For the scientists, the island was far too unimportant and small. Either that, or they just have been busy exploring one of the other 16,999 Indonesian islands. After seeing what lies behind our small beach with simple huts, I have seriously started to respect the wilderness of this place.
The Lost Lake
Arguably the best trip Irwan took us on with his boat was the trip to Danau Kembar aka Twin Lagoon. First, we stopped for a short climb to a viewpoint besides the Nirwana resort. From the viewpoint, you could see the Raja Ampat-like scenery of multiple granite jungle covered rocks rising from the beautifully green water. On the other side of the viewpoint, there was a turquoise lagoon in the shape of a heart.
No wonder this place is becoming quite popular on Indonesian Instagram accounts being just the right mix of stunning and cheesy.
The Nirwana eco resort is entirely built on stilts with piers in between the huts that were attached to some of the rocky islets across the bay. The resort even had its own zipline through the heart shaped lagoon and a via ferrata on one of the high rock walls above the bay. A bit overpriced I guess, but still seemed like a cooler version of your typical Maldives resort on stilts for more adventurous honeymooners. At that time, the resort was closed for the season. There were still some members of the staff left for maintenance, who basically spent almost their whole day lazing in the luxurious resort. Speaking of a good job.
Afterwards, we set off into another bay, which was long and thin with jungle hills rising right from the coast. Riding the boat deep into it, we could admire the size of the island little touched by civilization. The purpose of our trip was equally cool – Irwan wanted to find a special plant as a present to one of his friends, and it happened to grow only within the Twin Lagoon. Soon I could understand why the plant was so prized, as the lagoon seemed to represent a small world into itself with strange palm trees and ferns growing on the sharp rock formations.
The look of that place completely took us by surprise as it truly felt like the Lost World. I was expecting a pterodactyl could fly over our heads at any time.
Crossing over the rocks, we got the view of the small lagoon lake of radioactive green color, surrounded by Jurassic flora. Never having seen something even remotely similar, me and Carlos were happy like kids. Neither of us could resist swimming in the lake even if we had to keep the shoes on due to the sharpness of the rocks.
I also got excited and decided to try jumping from a small cliff into the strange lake. How many more surprises like this does this remote island offer? I felt as if you could spend a year just discovering this small island close to Sulawesi and find something breathtaking every day. In case you do not kill yourself on the rocks.
In the next and last post about Labengki, I will tell the story about visiting the place that I came to Labengki for – the Sombori island. To get to know how to get to Labengki and where to stay, check out the Practical information.
