The Village On the Water

In a childhood dream

Sampela is definitely one of the most remarkable villages I have ever been to. Riley said it was like being in a childhood dream, which is the perfect way to describe it.
Imagine a colourful village on the water, completely disconnected from any land. Only a string of thick cable, hung from big wooden poles high above the water, connects the village to a neighboring Island to draw from its power. All the houses are small and on stilts, linked by a web of wooden boardwalks. Some boardwalks are sturdy covered with thick wooden planks, but some are fragile with huge gaps and derelict wood and rusty nails. So “Hati hati” watch where you step.
Most the houses are built of bamboo with woven walls, but here and there are brick houses painted in bright colours. One thousand people live here, and everyone knows each other.

And you say, what if there was a mosque in the middle, with a shiny silver onion on top. Someone could be singing every morning and evening for everyone to hear.
And you say, what if there was a school and a hospital and a shop with fried bananas. Maybe dead coral could be stacked high and a cement football court built on top of it. And there could be billiards, ping pong and weekly dances.

All of that is here in Sampela, the village on the water.

the water nearly disappears underneath

And you imagine when the water goes up and down with the tides as it does. At high tide the water is clear and close to the floors of the houses. The kids are doing backflips into the water and catching tiny fish whom they feed to tame sea birds.
But at low tide, the water nearly disappears underneath the village and the town seems tall and hazardous.
High out of the water, the childhood game ‘Lava’ where you can’t touch the ground, suddenly becomes quite realistic.

sound like helicopters

Everyone in Sampela has a boat. Long and narrow canoe- like boats with sharp bows which cut through the water at ease. The larger ones are powered by diesel engines and sound like helicopters. The small boats run on benzine and fly through the water like jet-skies. But they are also easy to row and sometimes you see a kid, not much older than four, at the bow with an oar moving his family along to or from the market in Kaledupa on the neighbouring island.

The boatbuilders workshop is found in the shade under a house on a foundation of stacked dead coral.
A boat consists of a carved-out log for a keel. The sides are planks epoxy-glued together with dowels to give the boat more freeboard.
They split the planks using a chainsaw, and this they do in a space where an adult can’t stand up straight.
It takes one boatbuilder less than a week to build a decent size boat and it sells for around five million rupiah. (350USD)

The so-called Sea Gypsies

The residents of this magical village are the so-called sea gypsies.
They live almost exclusively off the sea and eat almost anything it has to offer from Tuna, Barracuda, small coral fish to Manta Rays, Moray Eels, Turtles and Sea-Cucumbers.
They fish with both net, line and speargun sometimes at the island and sometimes far away when they go on fishing trips for multiple days, sleeping in their open boats.

Real Estate is Free where there is no Land

We visited Pondang and his family many times at his yellow brick house on the edge of Sampela.
We can take our dinghy right to his doorstep and tie it off at a wooden latter which leads up to the boardwalk right in front of his house.
Two flowering trees made from recycled plastic bottles stand on display on the veranda. They were created as an incentive to bring awareness to the plastic pollution, which is a huge problem throughout Indonesia. But underneath the village the water is full of it, and sadly it seems that people have gotten used to it being there.
We sit on the veranda where the water, reflecting through the floorboards, sparkles on the ceiling. We drink hot tea and eat colourful cakes, and all agree that it is too hot today.

When I asked Pondang the first time, why they built the village out here on the water, he laughed and said they didn’t like the mosquitoes. But later we have learned that the reason is most likely that real estate is free where there is no land, and much of the wood is provided by the government. The village is under constant repair as all the wooden stilts, which of there are thousands, need replacing every year.
I have also tried to find out how old the village is, but so far no one has been able to tell me. All I know is that Pondang grew up here and so did his parents.

The Great Reward of Traveling

We are anchored across the lagoon on the fringe of the protected reef at the abandoned Dive Resort. Pulau Kaledupa to the south and Pulau Hoga to the north provides good protection from the weather which is always changing direction and can switch from calm to fierce squall in a matter of minutes.
The water is blue and as clear as gin and offers great diving with diverse coral and fish life.

Our visits to Sampela reminds me once again of the great rewards of traveling. What is somewhere a dream or a childhood fantasy might somewhere else be real life.

Thank you Sampela!