GONE TEACHING, BACK SOON…

Not a bad place to have an office.

It’s become a regular Lunar New Year excursion for us – first to Singapore, then on to run a Writers’ Camp at lovely Telunas Beach in the Riau Islands.

INDONESIA’S UNDISCOVERED ISLANDS

The coolest guys at Pulau Jang school!

I almost feel guilty about sharing this. There is a part of Indonesia that is unspoilt, with beautiful beaches, patches of dense forest, skies in which you can see the stars and friendly local people with a relaxed attitude to the very few tourists that come here.

Would we want it to become the next Bali or Phuket? Despite my raving about it, I don’t think a blog post is likely to make that happen.

TELUNAS TOP TWELVE – best shots

Despite all the interesting learning experiences on offer at Telunas, the kids invariably have one highlight – jumping off the deck. It often makes the best shot too.

While the writers’ camp at Telunas Beach is supposed to be all about words, for me it’s about pictures too.

I’d bought a new camera lens and this was its first outing. It’s an ‘all-in-one’ Tamron 18-270mm, so naturally there are compromises of image quality at both ends of the range, though on the whole I found it did the job. The advantage of the big zoom is that I could get close to people without making them too aware they were in shot, thus getting a little more spontaneity.

And in Indonesia’s lovely Riau Islands, there is always something worth pointing the camera at.

TERIMA KASIH (Thanks!) JAGA ISLAND!

We don’t speak Bahasa, you don’t speak English, but we can all learn handgames.

Not many people visit Pulau Jaga, Indonesia. It isn’t easy to find. Google Maps doesn’t even name it. ‘Did you mean “Java, Indonesia”?’ says the Google search engine, trying as ever to be helpful.

No, I did mean Jaga, an island in the Riau Archipelago, two and a half hours by boat south of Singapore. Jaga is some 2.5km long and 500m across, home to perhaps 90 families, most of them supported by fishing. There are no hotels, no restaurants, no roads and no cars. There is a school, however, and we were invited to visit it. It was a privilege and a pleasure.

Welcome to Jang Island, Telunas writers!

There’s a lot of interest in the visitors. They don’t have many on Jang Island.

We are expected.

On the rough jetty between rickety stilt houses, a guard of honour is forming. Kids from the Jang Island school beat out a deafening rhythm on hand drums as our open pancung boat pulls up and we file ashore.

Twenty students, two teachers and a visiting Australian author have come to do a writers’ camp at Telunas Beach Resort, in Indonesia’s lovely Riau Islands, a couple of hours across the water from Singapore. Each morning we set off on a different adventure. Each afternoon we gather back at Telunas to discuss and write about our experience.

There is never a shortage of material.

BEYOND BATAM – Indonesia’s Riau Island villages

The archipelago of 3000 islands south of Singapore has become one of my favourite places on the planet. I’ve visited them at least once a year for the past seven years.