Taketomi Island

Today was reserved for going to Taketomi Island.  With low tide at 1100, it didn’t make sense to go in the morning as swimming would not be good.

We spent the morning indoors checking our to-do lists from home and paying bills before heading out around midday.  We grabbed some food from the convenience store to eat at the ferry terminal.

We bought our return ticket to Taketomi and also paid a tourist fee (towards conservation) from a kiosk.  As it turned out, no one checked the latter at any point.

We went out of the waiting room to the pier less than 20 mins before the 1300 departure.  We hopped on the ferry and it left 15 mins ahead of schedule quite full and leaving a large queue of others waiting on the pier.  It looked like demand was high and there would be another coming along soon.

It was only a 15 min journey to Taketomi.  We disembarked to several shuttle buses that were offering rides to their bicycle rental shops.  In the stinking heat, the thought of a 15 min walk to the village and a further 15 min to Kondo beach for a swim seemed a little too much.  So, we settled on a minimum 2h rental bike for each of us.

We cycled through the village to the west coast of the island, firstly to West Pier.  Some visitors chose less energetic options of being taken around in a large bullock cart.

Some of the smaller roads in Taketomi are made from crushed coral, shells and sand.  Apparently, the white roads help show vipers in the moonlight!  And fences on the roadside are made from coral limestone, just like the old houses in Jeddah where I’ll be in six months!

The single storey buildings are mostly topped with orange clay tiles, with little upward horns. There were pockets of lush green between the houses.  It’s not a very built-up island at all.

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We then went to the end of the road in a southerly direction to Kaiji Beach where people collect sand in small bottles as souvenir.  Finally, we backtracked to Kondo beach around 1420 for a much-needed swim. I was already drenched from cycling in the heat, even though we had only covered a part of the 1km by 1.5km island.

The shallow water (about thigh-high was warm and wasn’t refreshing.  It was better than being hot and sweaty though.  After about 30 mins in the water, I washed off in the shower rooms.  That was the cool refreshing experience I had needed that the swim couldn’t deliver.

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We made our way back to the village area and towards the bicycle rental.  We had about 10 mins left on our 2h allocated time but had missed the minibus to the ferry.

It would be another 40 min wait for the next shuttle to connect to the ferry.  In consideration of the crowd on the shuttle and the ferry being full, we decided to walk down to the pier instead.

There, we waited in the air-conditioned hall until a crowd arrived by shuttle.  We queued at the pier, eager to be the first in line.  Again, the ferry departed some 15 min ahead of schedule, pretty full, leaving people behind.

We got back to the room before 1700 in a hot and sweaty state, in need of a shower.  After a rest, we set off for dinner around 1800 to eat at a noodle house a few doors away.  It started spitting but fortunately the noodle house was open and we didn’t have to venture any further.

The chilled dan-dan noodles and the hot sesame soup version were both delicious.  We had another early night indoors after dinner.