Why You Should Not Forget About Visiting the Forgotten Kei Islands

Whenever Daniel and I mentioned that we had planned to go to the Maluku Islands during our trip, we were met with a lot of “and where is that?”

The Maluku Islands is a large region in Indonesia, which is made up of a bunch of different island systems. Think south and cheaper than Raja Ampat, but with good beaches, snorkelling, diving, trekking, and locals! At first, our plan was to just hit up the Banda Islands, but I ended up reading a blog (1 of the millions that I read before the trip) that mentioned the Forgotten Islands aka the Kei Islands aka the Kai Islands. In this blog post, I saw white sandy beaches and what I imagined as paradise. So, we decided to add the Kei Islands onto our trip. But what is this place and how can we get there?

• Why are they called the Forgotten Islands?
• What to Do on the Kei Islands
• Basic Information about the Kei Islands
• How to Get to the Kei Islands
• Accommodation on the Kei Islands

Feel free to click on the anchor links above to skip to your favourite part! Make sure you read what we did since it involves 5 days of DIVING!

Why are they called the Forgotten Islands?

Why are the Kei Islands also known as the Forgotten Islands? Well, all the colonizers forgot them. Unlike the rest of the Maluku region, which had a huge influence from the Dutch and also some influence from the British and Portuguese, the colonizers never made their way to Kei. This is cool since you will not see any Dutch colonial buildings like you will in the Banda Islands. So, they are the Forgotten Islands since no one ever paid them a visit. However, you should not forget about them!

 

What to Do on the Kei Islands

Go Diving at Kei Pirate Divers

Whatsapp Number: +62 812 4094 84 30
Email: info@kei-pirate-divers.com
Website: www.kei-pirate-divers.com
Price: 4 600 000 IDR (412 CAD/2832 SEK) for the SSI Advanced Adventurer Course and 500 000 IDR (44 CAD/303 SEK) per fun dive (NOTE: prices are per person and we got the rental equipment for free since we did more than 10 dives)
Wifi: Yes, and they just got a new cell phone tower in the area which means you have 3G or LTE service

This 2-year old dive centre is run by 2 Germans, Eva and Jan (aka Janosh). They have been living in South East Asia since 2010 and moved to Kei Kecil 2 years ago. They are very passionate about diving and we really enjoyed chatting with them and getting their intake on living abroad in Asia, especially in the remote island of Kei Kecil. Before moving abroad, Jan was an architect and Eva owned a computer store. So, we found it fascinating how they decided to move abroad and never (and maybe plan to never) moved back to Europe. I especially love when people change their entire life outside of their 20s when it could be seen as a bit “easier” to do so. Inspiring!

For us, diving was the highlight of our time in the Kei Islands. We read some blogs about diving here so we instantly booked in 3 days worth of fun dives with Eva.

Before we entered the coral reef on a fun dive with Eva

We had originally planned on doing our advanced diving course in Banda, but Eva and Jan are so experienced and we thought we could benefit a lot by taking the SSI Advanced Adventurer Course with Jan. Eva and Jan offered to do the course alone or with a couple that would arrive from Germany. Since I got a mild cold after the fun dives, we took a few days off to explore the island and took the course with the other couple.

Relaxing between dives with Eva and Janosh, the air tanks ready to be loaded onto the boat, us with Janosh and the German couple we took our Advanced Adventurer course with, and Janosh filling in our dive logs

We learned so much from the course, especially since Danne and I are quite new at diving. We are ashamed to admit that after doing our PADI Open Water in Thailand almost 5 years ago, we have not been diving since. The course included 5 dives, making our total 15 dives when leaving the Kei Islands. This SSI course allows you to do 5 specialty dives, 1 of which is required, the deep dive. We also did a drift dive (the currents were not very strong on Kei, so it was more of an attempt), perfect buoyancy, fish identification, and a night dive.

Eva doing a briefing before a fun dive and Janosh doing a lesson before our deep dive

When Eva and Jan moved to Kei Kecil they asked the local fisherman where the good reefs were. They then prepared an excellent map and even tied a line for some of the dive sites. So, go diving with them to see some dive sites that only they know about!

During our 11 dives, we saw a lot of different things. The list is extensive and unfortunately, our Go Pro 6 does not work below 10 metres and our housing case for our old Go Pro does not work with our new one. So, we don’t have very many pictures and none that show how beautiful the reef was.

But if you are interested, here are some things we saw: a green turtle, Mobula (aka devil ray or mini manta), Kuhl’s stingray, Pacific lionfish, moray eel, clownfish (like in Finding Nemo), Moorish idol (Finding Nemo again!), devil scorpionfish, pufferfish, trumpetfish, humphead parrotfish, feather star, longfin batfish, Redtooth triggerfish, garden eels, many types of angelfish and butterfly fish, catfish, and lizardfish. We saw a bunch more types of reef fish and also tonnes of different types of corals, crustaceans, and molluscs!

Go diving on Kei! It was a great experience for both of us

Go to Bair Island

Price: 600 000 IDR (53 CAD/364 SEK) for boat and captain

Bair Island is known in Maluku as the “mini Raja Ampat”. So, you can imagine some beautiful views and the perfect place to fly a drone.

On Google Maps, you may also see Bair Island listed as Baeer Island.

We were staying at Coaster Cottages at the time and booked a boat through them. In the morning, we were running a bit late and tried to call the boat captain, but he was not reachable. Thankfully we had not left Coaster yet, so we had Anjie from Coaster Cottages try to reach him and then arrange another boat captain, Ajon.

For 350 000 IDR (31 CAD/212 SEK), Coaster Cottages can arrange a taxi to and from the pier on Tual. We had already rented a motorcycle and wanted to use it, so we decided to be adventurous and find the pier, which is obviously not listed on Google Maps.

We found out later that although getting a captain seemed tough, it was actually easy. The hard part was getting to the pier. So, where is the pier to Bair Island? If you look at the Google Map above, it is the other pinned location!

The signage was not helpful for us, so after some wrong turns we found the pier, and we were only 1 hour later than originally planned. Not too shabby, right?

We followed who we think was Ajon (I ended up getting some missed calls later and the Whatsapp picture did not look like the guide we had…but he said his name was Ajon?) and what we assume was his younger brother onto their boat. The trip to Bair took about 1 hour since it was low tide and Ajon had to expertly navigate through some sand patches in the water. The trip was really nice and you get to see some very blue-green waters.

On the way to Bair Island

We finally arrived at Bair Island and, to our luck, we were all alone. Our guides docked the boat and we walked to the little bit of sandy beach to take a look at the view. Of course, we wanted an even better view so we hiked up with Ajon and his co-captain about 5 minutes to the lookout point. Make sure you bring proper running shoes since this is not a maintained trail and you are quite literally walking on scary death rocks. However, 1 of our guides did it in flip-flops and the other barefoot. So, perhaps we just not trained for this terrain.

Once we arrived at the majestic view and took some time to play with the drone, we saw a few boats of tourists coming to join us. There goes our alone time at Bair Island. Since it was Sunday, the only day that the workers on Kei are free from work, it gets very busy. We had many teenagers wanting pictures with us once we descended our climb and met them on the beach. Two young teenagers were especially infatuated with me (even though they only knew the English words “hello” and “mister”) and loved wearing my sunglasses in the millions of pictures we took.

Once the water levels rose a bit then we hopped back into our boat and we toured around the waters inside Bair. There are many small canals and it is really beautiful.

Then on the way back to the pier, we took a snorkel stop. We saw quite a bit while snorkelling and the reefs here were healthy.

This coral is actually from outside of our homestay so just so you know, the corals outside of Bair Island are much nicer

Overall, we enjoyed our time on Bair Island and we hope to see the real Raja Ampat someday!

The price for the boat was quoted at Coaster Cottages as 600 000 IDR and we were out for about 4 hours. Ajon tried to ask for 700 000 IDR (maybe because he wasn’t really Ajon), but we politely said that Coaster Cottages said 600 000 IDR and there was no further discussion. If you can find other travellers to split the cost with, then it works out to be quite cheap per person.

Swim in the Hawang Cave

Price: 10 000 IDR (0.90 CAD/6 SEK) to park our scooter

There are 2 natural caves called Hawang Cave 1 and 2 on the island.

The caves are located in the same area and are right beside each other. Inside of Hawang Cave 2, there is a large pool of natural fresh water. When we asked the locals, they said that they are not sure what the source of the freshwater is.

Other than paying to park our scooter, visiting and swimming in the caves is absolutely free. You will encounter many locals here.

Exploring the caves

Once we arrived the Hawang Cave 2, we had an entourage of 7 school-aged boys who were very excited to watch us swim. Daniel just changed down at the cave (typical Swede), which the boys found very hilarious. I had to make my way back up the steps to the change rooms.

These boys thought it was really fun to watch us swim in the cave

At the time we visited, there was a construction crew building up a new Hawang Cave sign of cement. One of the workers ended up coming down to shoo the boys away from watching us.

It was really warm the day we visiting Hawang Cave, so we both really needed a cool down. The freshwater is really refreshing!

Explore the Island by Scooter

I will start off stating that I am so lucky that Daniel grew up in Sweden with their “scooter gang culture”. If you are unfamiliar with Sweden, once you turn 15, you are able to ride a moped. When I first arrived as a teacher in Sweden, I thought this was the dorkiest thing ever since riding a moped in Canada is, well, very dorky. However, Daniel’s expertise as a 15-year-old was our saving grace. The roads on the Kei Islands are often filled with potholes and although there are rules while driving, we can say that no one follows them. This means that while facing an intersection, be very careful. I would not recommend learning how to scooter on Kei Kecil.

Daniel and I had to ride the scooter a few times into Langgur to go to the ATMs there. We also had to ride it to Hawang Cave and the pier to go to Bair Island. We did attempt a day trip to Matwaer Beach, which I have heard is a very beautiful beach. Since we drove down the west coast, which we later found has the worst roads, we ended up getting stuck and just looking at some small local villages instead.

While riding the scooter around, there are gas stations and also small stands that sell gasoline in water bottles all throughout the towns and little villages. So, getting gasoline is very easy. Most guesthouses have scooters for rent. We had Eva from Kei Pirate Divers help us rent a very reliable scooter from just around the corner from where they live.

Relax on the Beach

Since we stayed at Ngurbloat Beach (aka Pasir Panang), we had an amazing beach available to us 24/7. Except on Sundays, when the beach gets packed by the locals enjoying their 1 day free from work, you will feel like you have the beach to yourself!

There are lots of small fishing boats nearby and many of the locals work as fishermen. I personally loved all the small boats on the water!

A local fisherman’s boat and a young boy collecting fish in the morning

We swam almost every day and lying out on the sand and reading a good book. The water is warm and wonderful! We tried to snorkel, but the corals near the shore are damaged from dynamite fishing, so you have to take a boat trip if you want to snorkel!

 Daniel and I spent time just swimming in the beautiful bright blue water and taking photoshoots on the white sand on Ngurbloat Beach

It is nerdy to admit, but one of my favourite things about Ngurbloat Beach was to take beautiful pictures. If you are into photography then this place is a dream come true!

We really enjoyed playing with the tripod and drone on Ngurbloat Beach

 

Basic Information about the Kei Islands

As mentioned above, the Kei (which are pronounced and can be written as Kai) Islands are located within the Maluku region in Indonesia. So, just to confuse you, I will write it as Kei or Kai throughout this blog post!

The islands are actually made up of Kai Kecil, Kai Besar, and Kai Dullah. Kai Kecil literally means “little Kai” and this is where we spent our 10-day trip and Kai Besar literally means “big Kai” and we did not get a chance to go here, which is only accessible by boat.

Kai Kecil actually has two sides to it. One side is where the city Langgur is located, as well as the airport. The other side (Kai Dullah) contains the city Tual and the harbour. Tual and Langgur are connected by a bridge and should be treated as one unit.

There are many little islands that surround Kei Kecil, some without any inhabitants. When we went diving, we got to see some of these islands, but many day trips also offer this opportunity.

Since we are in Indonesia, the language is Bahasa Indonesia and the currency is the Indonesia rupiah. You will feel very rich with these large denominations but 1 000 000 IDR is actually only 88 CAD/606 SEK. So, you are poorer than you think.

Time to Visit

Unlike the Banda Islands, there is less of defined rain season time on Kei. Many tourists come in October since there is a festival during this time and it works well if you are combining the Kei Islands and Banda Islands in 1 trip.

It rains on and off throughout the year. We were lucky and it barely rained during the 10 days we were there.

Unlike the Banda Islands, June and July are usually nice in the Kei Islands, so perfect if you want to relax on the beach. However, if you are diving then the water has worse visibility.

ATMs

ATMs are available in the cities Langgur and Tual. Since the best place to stay while visiting Kei is the beach, especially Ngurbloat Beach (aka Pasir Panang), it is smart to rent a scooter for the week so you can easily nip into town to take out money. Sometimes the ATMs do not have enough money in them, so you are unsuccessful. Or, sometimes one of our cards just did not work, but the other one did. No idea why this happened, so my advice would be to take out money before you come to Kei, just in case. While using ATMs, press credit, so you are able to take out more money per day. Also, the best ATM that we found was at the shopping centre, GOTA Supermarket.

Religion

The Kei Islands make up a population of both Christians and Muslims. The predominant religion here is Christianity, and you will actually find more Catholics than Protestants.

We found that the religions here were quite relaxed. I never felt uncomfortable wearing shorts or a tank top, especially at the beach were locals also wear fewer clothes due to the heat. When we went into town, I wore a long sleeve shirt (that was also smart to avoid being sunburnt on the scooter) and shorts so I was a bit more covered up. I even saw a few local women around my age wearing shorts in the city centre.

Getting Around the Island

The easiest way to get around is to hire a scooter. Most guesthouses have scooters for hire. We got ours by recommendation of Eva from Kei Pirate Divers. Our scooter cost 80 000 (7 CAD/49 SEK) IDR per day, but it was worth it since we used it all the time. Getting gasoline is really easy. There are small stands everywhere that sell the bottles (which fills almost half the tank) for 10 000 IDR (0.90 CAD/6 SEK).

As I wrote about above, there is no way in hell that I could have ridden the scooter alone here. Locals are not always the safest drivers and the roads are a bit scary. However, since Daniel grew up in Sweden where there is a huge “when you turn 15 you get to ride a scooter”-culture, he had no problem at all navigating the roads. If you are not comfortable driving your own scooter, you can get an ojek which is a scooter taxi and they can take you where you want to go for the day. Ask your guesthouse and they will help you!

Locals

The locals here are insanely nice and still not very used to tourists in some areas. People will want to take pictures with you just because you are a foreigner. They are quite respectful and always ask. Children and even many adults will be very excited to see you and will yell out, “Hey, mister!” regardless of gender. Ahem, I am a miss! I loved being somewhere where the locals were so genuine and just excited to see a foreigner.

Food

The food is varied and quite good. The guesthouse that you stay at will arrange all meals for you during the day. You can also bring snacks from Ambon (like us) or from GOTA Supermarket in the city on Kei Kecil (we also did that) if you like to have some chocolate in the evening.

Breakfast could be anything from Indonesia banana pancakes (my favourite!) to just bread and cheese with some fruit. Lunches and dinner are very similar and consist of rice, vegetables, a protein, and sometimes tempeh, a delicious soy product here in Indonesia. Since I do not eat fish, I just informed the guesthouses of this, and I always got another protein with our meal while Danne always got fish. So, the guesthouses were very accommodating and I think vegetarians would have no problem staying here.

Rice, tempeh, eggplant, and chicken on the left and grilled fish on the right

There were a few dishes, which I loved and wished that they served continuously over and over again and there were others that I was less excited about. My favourites were chicken satay, eggplant in a nut sauce, deep fried eggplant, prawns in a spicy sambal, and mixed vegetables in oil. There are some warungs (the Indonesian word for café or small restaurant) in the city centre. We did not eat at any of these since we just asked for a packed lunch from our guesthouse if we were on a day trip.

Simplicity

You are visiting a remote island, so the accommodation standards are simple. No Hilton 5-star hotels. Most bathrooms are equipped with a mandi to flush the toilet. Basically, you run water into a big tub and scoop out water from there down the toilet to force the contents down. Some guesthouses have a bidet shower (aka a bum gum) beside the toilet, which makes it cleaner to thrown toilet paper away in the garbage and allows for easier flushing.

In some places, you may need to even use the mandi to shower. However, we always had showers at the places we stayed at.

The Kei Islands has quite a large population, so finding snacks in the large grocery markets in the city is no problem.

Animals

It looks like the Kei Islands should be Monkey Paradise. However, the Kei Islands are not attached to the Asian and Australian continental shelves, so, big animals could never make their way here.

A lot of the biodiversity is under the water. This is why diving is such a great option. However, there are cool lizards and megabats. If you have not heard about megabats, their wingspan can be 1.5 metres long. Super freaky!

The Kei Megabat may look small in the picture, but I promise it looks like a dinosaur in the sky
This lizard was quite large but cool to see

 

How to Get to the Kei Islands

There are 2 ways to get the Kei Islands.

1. By Plane

This is the easiest way to get here. Karel Sadsuitubun Langgur Airport has multiple flights daily between Ambon, the largest city in the Maluku region. Getting to Ambon is quite easy. There are direct flights from Jakarta and Makassar. We came from Bali, so we had a layover in Makassar to get to Ambon. You may need to stay in Ambon for 1 night, which is fine since Ambon is a cool city. The flight between Ambon and Langgur Airport on Kei Kecil takes about 1.5 hours. You get a small snack and drinks on board if you fly with Guardia.

We tried to buy our tickets on Skyscanner, but they did not work when we tried to check into the airport. I would suggest buying them at the ticket counters at Ambon Airport or online on Nusatrip if you are unsure! We bought them only 2 hours before the flight left.

We paid 2 000 000 IDR (175 CAD/1212 SEK) per person Ambon to Langgur (expensive since we bought it right before the flight) and 1 100 000 (97 CAD/667 SEK) per person Langgur to Ambon (cheaper since we bought it online).

2. By PELNI

You can also take the giant infamous PELNI ship. These Indonesian ships connect many of the small islands together and allow locals to travel with ease. The PELNI ship connects Tual Harbour on the Kei Islands to Dobo (to the east) and Banda Neira (to the north-west). For those wanting to connect to/from the Banda Islands, the journey takes about 12 hours. The tickets cost about 150 000 IDR (13 CAD/91 SEK) per person. So, it is a raging good deal!

I have read online that you need to be very careful with your belongings since stealing is quite common. There are no longer first-class tickets, which means you sleep on the big mattresses where the locals do. Be smart if you use this option. One couple we met from Germany that took the PELNi said they had to sleep outside since all the mattresses were taken. So, run straight to the mattresses!

The ships connect to Kei Kecil every 2 or so weeks. You need to check the PELNI website to check routes. I think the PELNI ships would be a very authentic experience. However, I would only suggest it if you want to go between the Kei Islands and the Banda Islands. From Ambon, that voyage would be way too long. Just splurge for the flight! It is way quicker and easier!

 

Accommodation on the Kei Islands

We stayed at 3 different guesthouses during our stay on Kei Kecil. All the places we stayed at were on the beautiful beach, Ngurbloat Beach (aka Pasir Panang).

Since we were diving, we booked our first through nights through Eva at Kei Pirate Divers. If you are planning on diving then she can help book stuff for you. Scroll up to when I write about our diving on Kei Kecil for her contact information.

Mercy Guesthouse

Whatsapp Number: +62 812 9071 9212
Price: 500 000 IDR (44 CAD/303 SEK) per day for 3 meals and accommodation for 2 people
Included: Double bed, water dispenser, fan, bed linens, towels, and wardrobe
Wifi: Yes, and they just got a new cell phone tower in the area which means you have 3G or LTE service

We stayed at Mercy’s our first night on Kei. There is a wardrobe to keep your clothes, which also locks. I liked to store our passports and electronics here since the main door did not feel extremely safe. However, the family across the road is always home and the wife there, Koma, does the cooking. She is a great cook. We really enjoyed the food we had here and they did the extra special touch of including a glass or orange juice and a bottle of water with every meal. Of all 3 guesthouses, I would say that we had the best food here.

Mercy was in the city so we talked to her sister, Kristy, during our stay. Mercy’s is located about a 20-second walk from the beach; so, unfortunately, you do not have beachfront access. When you have come all this way, you really do want the beach view. We also wish that the bathroom had a window since it got a bit stuffy. There were a shower and a toilet where you needed to use a mandi. The shower even had soap and shampoo inside! So, the accommodation was simple but nice.

There are nice beanbag chairs to sit in outside the main door. I love bean bag chairs, so comfy!

Yohana Guesthouse

Telephone Number: +62 822 3824 4447
Price: 500 000 IDR (44 CAD/303 SEK) per day for 3 meals and accommodation for 2 people
Included: Double bed, water dispenser, fan, bed linens, and towels
Wifi: Yes, and they just got a new cell phone tower in the area which means you have 3G or LTE service

There are two places to stay, the wooden or stone house. We stayed in the stone house, but we have heard that the wooden house is nicer.

We stayed at Yohana’s for 3 nights while doing our fun dives. Yohana’s is right on the beach, but also a bit private with some trees in front which is nice. I did have a local come up to our terrace to ask for a selfie, so not hidden enough apparently. Yohana manages everything and does the cooking. She lives off-site so she leaves in the evenings.

The food here was a bit simpler than at Mercy’s and Coaster Cottages, but it was good. We enjoyed the pancakes for breakfast and the side dish of aubergine with peanut sauce for our other meals. You get to eat all your meals right on your own private terrace, which was really nice.

I wish that the cupboard inside had a key to go with the lock, since it would be nice to lock up or electronics while gone all day.

The bathroom was also simple, but you could fill the tank at the back of the toilet so you could use the flush button. There was a small window in the bathroom, which made it less stuffy. There was also a real sink and shower! So, this bathroom felt most like a real bathroom.

We liked being right on the beach! If you had to pick only 1 place to stay then stay here. Although the food wasn’t the best, albeit still good, we think it had a perfect combination of what we liked and it also close to Kei Pirate Diving.

Coaster Cottages

Telephone Number: +62 81 343 472 978
Email: bob.azyz@yahoo.co.id
Website: https://coastercottages.wordpress.com/
Price: 500 000 IDR (44 CAD/303 SEK) per day for 3 meals and accommodation for 2 people
Included: Double bed, water dispenser, fan, bed linens, towel, and wardrobe
Wifi: No, and the LTE and 3G service is pretty spotty

We stayed at Coaster Cottages for 6 nights. Coaster Cottages is very popular since they have information available online. There are various houses on-site including the Old Cottage, Coaster 2, the Villa, Penny House, and the Doctor’s House. We stayed at the Doctor’s House, which is at the end, so it has the most privacy.

The Doctor’s House is very airy, with high ceilings. The bathroom has a shower, toilet, and mandi. There is a window in the bathroom to allow for airflow.

We booked our stay through Bob, who manages the place and was sometimes on-site. However, the on-site manager is Ketty. We spoke mostly to Ketty and to Anjie, who did a lot of the cooking.

The beach here is a bit less frequented by locals. We liked that we had an ocean view and could walk down in about 20 seconds. Every morning, we had breakfast on our private terrace but ate lunches and dinners with other tourists staying here. We really liked eating altogether and talking to other people travelling, the majority who were Indonesian Dutch.

The lunches and dinners were extremely varied, so we ate different stuff all the time. This was good since we got to try new things but there were also some dishes that I really like to eat in Indonesia and I would have liked to have them more than once. I also found that the breakfast here was my least favourite of all the places we stayed. I would have loved if they offered pancakes since I am a bit obsessed with Indonesian pancakes.

 

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So, the colonizers forgot about the Kei Islands. However, if you are planning a trip to Indonesia, I really recommend you check out the Maluku region and plan a visit to the Banda and Kei Islands.

The forgotten Kei Islands are so easy to get to but are not extremely popular with tourists yet. We met quite a few tourists that were Indonesia Dutch, but not many other tourists. This means that it is the perfect place to relax by the beach and leave civilization for a bit.

Have you been to the Kei Islands? If so, tell me what your favourite accommodations and activities were? 

If you haven’t been there yet, would you like to include it on your bucket list?

xx

Jasmine

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