I promised on my last travel post, I will share my trip to Katiet and today I would like to share it with you, but please let me update the esteem surfer to the latest version from @esteemapp. It will take a few minutes or an hour with my current connection.
The stories about my trip to Mentawai come to an end. Next day we planned to go to Katiet to see the most wonderful beach on the other island, see you there……
Katiet is on another island, so, we need to take a local wooden ferry to reach that place. At the 11 am we are ready to depart from Muara Siberut and heading to the port, as the information we ha, the ferry will depart around 13.00 hour. Our friend in Muara Siberut call the transport for us, local ojek is the best alternative transportation on the island. Ojek is a motor bike transportation, so we hired 5 motor bikes, because Syukri would no longer with us for the rest of the trip.
We arrived at the sea port about 11.30 am, and buy the ticket to Katiet, actually only one ferry to Katiet at the time. The other passenger who wanted to go to Katiet have already been there waiting for the ferry to berth onto the jetty. Soon as the ferry on the jetty, all the passenger started to load the cargo onto the ferry. We waste no time to get on board too, as we need to find the best spot to seat or even to have better view during the sailing time. I love to sit at control cabin just to ask a few things from the captain, and sometime I walked out looking for fresh air.
At 12.30 at noon the ferry started to cross the ocean heading to Katiet, while I can enjoy most of the time talking to captain and other passengers and taking some pictures of the ocean. It would take about 2.5 – 3 hours to be arrived to Katiet.
At the time we arrive, Yanti’s Friend “Edi” had been waiting us to pick up from the sea port. And brought us to his house while we arrange transport to Maelepet where the last place of Tsunami infected area need to be examined.
Waiting for 30 minutes and our Ojek were there to take us to Maelepet (the last village on Katiet).
The road access to be there was not easy to go through, but we took all the way there because we need to see the area closely for disaster mitigation purpose or at least to underline some important issue of disaster risk reduction to any stake holder on the island including international organization who was working on the area. The bigger organization working on the area was Surfe-Aid founded by International Surfer and other donator.
About 17.00 hours at the evening we arrived at the place, and we report our arrival to the head of the village, and then chief of village show us the place that we could use to stay. Our house was actually a temporary shelter built by Surf-Aid and close to the church.
While preparing the place to stay I took my camera and walked to the beach since it was only 150 meters from the house. It is really vulnerable place to stay even this place is really beautiful for vacation. A few minutes later my friend came and ply on the beach while enjoying the sun set down, in fact that was not the best place for sun set but it is the best for sun rise. The windblown softly over the coconut tree when the sun was fading down to the other side of the island. We set the fire on the beach while discussed some important issue of the community. I took some beautiful photos that evening.
These are the photos I like to share with you;
The next morning we took our time to enjoy while we are waiting the community to come to the church for FGD (Forum Group Discussion) as we planned with head of village.
Here is some of morning scene of the beach;
What makes this place so special is you can not find any singgle trush on the beach and the community there are very welcome. That is why Katiet is well known as one of International Surfer site.
At around 10 am we back to our shelter and prepare the FGD meeting to address the early disaster mitigation plan with local community, I was in charge of logistic and food security emergency plan. We discussed some very important issues as it would take crucial aspect for: Evacuation Trail to higher land, Temporary shelter at higher land, Water Supplies at Evacuation Center, Logistics Food Preparation at Evacuation Center, Medical Supplies, Radio Communication with solar panel power. From those discussions the community leader and stake holder will take necessary actions to construct log frame proposal and propose it to local government and any available source from NGO.
If any one of you like to support what International Humanitarian Organization are doing, you can visit; International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Surf-Aid International, Save the Children, IOM, and many others who work internationally to help millions vulnerable in the world.
Here I try to provide you some guideline to reach the place, check the map here or on google:
If you start from Padang, you need to find your ferry at Bungus Teluk Kabung Sea Port, the ferry will take you to Muara Siberut, From Muara Siberut you take another ferry to Sipora Island (Katiet), and if you want to visit Sikakap you will have direct ferry from Sipora to Sikakap, and from Sikakap you take regular ferry to Padang.
As it is shown on the map, we started our trip from Sikakap to Padang, and from Padang to Siberut, from Muara Siberut we took another ferry to Sipora (Katiet), and from Katiet we went back to Sikakap where I used to work for CDRM CDS HKBP Nommensen North Sumatera as Logistic and Construction Consultant for a year.
Have a nice trips travellers!!