Photo Traveling Southeast Asia: Maratua Island, Indonesia

A couple we met on Derawan wanted to go to Maratua Island for a few nights and were looking for someone to share the cost of hiring a boat for the 45 minute ride. We knew there was a fancy resort on the island, but no one seemed to know if there was somewhere to stay within our backpackers' budgets. We decided to take a chance and go for it. Our boat man took us to a village with one hotel and a few families offering homestays. The couple stayed with a family and we went to check out a new place that just opened outside the village. As soon as we pulled up to the small dock and saw the pavilion overlooking the water and a secluded beach we knew we were staying. The owner wasn't on island but the guys building new units called him and we negotiated a price as well as use of his restaurant kitchen and food. Meals were half price if we cooked ourselves, he would be back in a few days. We had the place to ourselves and spent six days snorkeling, beach walking and relaxing.

There was a ledge just off the guesthouse that dropped to 750ft

Stone fish

No need to kill this one, it is not invasive here

We moved to the village for a few nights to be within walking distance of the dive resort. There is no public power in Maratua so each house has its own generator that only runs at night. No one spoke English in the village and we struggled to communicate with every interaction. We ate nasi goreng and ayam goreng (fried rice and fried chicken) for dinner almost every night because every time we tried to order something else the woman got confused and frustrated with us. She even turned us away one night with what we thought was "I'm closed" signals and when we tried to ask where to go for food we realized she was just sending us away because she was out of the only meal she thought we ate, nasi goreng. She made us fried noddles instead, mie goreng.

Our grocery store

We were told this was the only restaurant on the island

Last weeks catch set out to dry

We didn't stay here, but enjoyed hanging out between dives. We did seven dives over two days with the resort, the last dive was the highlight when we saw three thresher sharks! We went down to 130ft looking for them with a small chance of actually seeing them. It was so exciting when we got lucky!