Belitung: A Sumatra Neverland

We touched down in Belitung with a thud, followed by cheers.

I looked out the window of the plane, it was raining really hard. It didn't seem like the right time to be in Belitung.

Bangka Belitung is a province in southern Sumatra that comprises two main islands separated by a five-hour ferry ride, and a number of smaller islands.

We were waiting for friends to arrive from Bangka. They'd booked their tickets to Belitung through a travel agent in Jakarta who'd apparently thought Belitung and Bangka were the same place.

So, when they'd arrived in Bangka the night before and confidently asked for directions to our hotel, the locals told them there was no hotel called that in Bangka. My friends showed them the scrap of paper with the hotel's address on it, and the locals answered in unison, "Oh, it says here that the hotel is in Belitung, Pak -- this is Bangka! It's a five-hour ferry ride to Belitung." Oh yeah? Very good.

Andrea and Belitung

We'd developed a sudden craving for gangan or fish-head casserole, a Tanjung Tinggi speciality, and by the time our friends arrived we were starving. There's a word in Belitung, kempungan, which is used to describe the bad luck that follows indulging in a "guilty" pleasure. But still we went in search of gangan.