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The morning of the 25th of September
brought us in site of Bellington (Belitung) Island. The guide book talked about a
300 room world class resort that was being built in 1994. Surely it would be
completed by now, so we set off to find it. Approaching the harbour it looked very
promising. A big tile roof rising from the palm trees, an area where there was
obviously a swimming pool, a nice big dock with a new marina office at the head. |
 Bellington
Island has some very beautiful beaches. This one is an ideal location for a resort.
Still wondering why this one did not get built. |
| With
thoughts of hot showers and fresh hot cooked meals we turned for shore. The depth
gauge showed that we had gone from 14 meters of water to ½ a meter of water in a very
short distance and we were still 2 miles off-shore. Looking over the side of the
boat we could see a very beautiful reef right under us (not what you really want to see
while moving). A quick reversal got us out of there and a friendly fishing boat came
over to show us the way in. The beach is very
shallow so we anchored out about ½ a mile from shore (good for building rowing muscles)
on a nice sandy bottom. Dave and Dave went ashore to scout out the hot showers and
the dancing girls. Unfortunately, it appears that work on the resort stopped the day
after the book was written. There was nothing there but half completed buildings and
a hole in the ground for the pool. |
| Luckily for us, in the house at the
head of the pier was a small store with a girl, Iyut, who spoke halting English.
Dave D. immediately latched onto her and she gave us a very warm reception, including a
ride into town for fuel and food, and a party thrown that night just for us. We
made lots of new friends that night. |
|
 The
unfinished Bellington Resort looks very inviting in the sunset. Unfortunately on
closer inspection, it was not to be. |
| In all we
had a great time despite the lack of hot showers. We did find that there is a
resort there of sorts. Not quite up to world class standards, but we approached the
idea with an open mind. Iyut was the manager but for some reason seemed reluctant to
tell us about it. Dave D. went to check it out and reported back that they had
retrieved his college mattress from a rubbish bin 15 years earlier to use in the
rooms. The padding appeared to have been bolstered by a copious amount of
cockroaches. The bath water was a dark brown and slightly smelly. Not bad when
you consider the nightly rate was only US$0.50, but we decided to sleep on the boat
instead. |
