Tanjung Uma

Last weekend I took a trip with two colleagues to a traditional village in Batam called Tanjung Uma. There's a large community of people living in houses built over the water. Over time the area beneath the houses has been filled with rubbish, some of which is caused by the residents themselves, and some of which drifted over from Singapore thanks to one not-so-nice company. To get to the village we took a 5 minute boat ride through the water, although it was 70% mud on the journey over. On the way back, there was no more water and the three of us (200kg+) were humbly pushed through the mud by two men who (try to) make a living ferrying people back and forth.

The community covers a large area and consists of hundreds of wooden houses connected by wooden bridges. I walked along watching my every step for fear of the bridge collapsing at any moment, which was perhaps amusing to the locals riding motorbikes down the same "streets". The initial smell during the crossing was almost too much for me to bear, but once we got into the village it wasn't so bad. The people living there were very friendly, asking us where we were from and laughing when we answered 'Batam'. One old man shared his story with us (well, with Rex) of his son who now lives in Germany (he couldn't remember whereabouts) and sends him money but rarely visits, preferring to go to Bali instead of Tanjung Uma.

The concrete bridge at the entrance to the village is new, funded by Unesco so that the village could survive.

As the sun set, the water disappeared and we wondered how we would get back...