The dive centre on Kadidiri Island
The Togian Islands are pretty much undiscovered territory as far as tourism goes. There are a number of beach losmen dotted around, and the clientele is almost exclusively western, but in terms of mainstream tourism, the Togians are off the beaten track.
Not for long, though. If you manage to ignore the fairly typical and disgusting town of Wakai – smelly, dirty, environmentally hopeless and only there as a port for the boats to and from the mainland – the Togian Islands are relatively untouched, though worrying trends such as fish bombing and hunting the almost extinct coconut crab are symptoms of typical Indonesian foresight. There are six main islands, plus the recently erupted volcano of Unauna, as well as countless tiny islands dotted all around, and with the lush vegetation and beautiful blue sea it's a perfect place for paradise.
My beach hut on peaceful Kadidiri Island
The big bonus of the Togian Islands is the large amount of good coral reef surrounding the islands, and it's one of the few areas in the world where all three main types of reef are found: barrier reef, atoll and fringing reef. I had met a couple of fascinating travellers in Ampana who had been hiking through Sulawesi in search of very rare pitcher plants, and we teamed up to take the ferry to the Togians, all in search of some relaxation; our destination was Kadidiri Island off the north coast of Togian Island itself. What we didn't realise was that Kadidiri Island was also home to the only diving operator1 in the Togians, and with all that reef about, it turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to throw off all the cares of the outside world, and enter the silent world of scuba.
During the four days I spent in the Togians I went on two dives. The first was easily the most amazing: a B-24 bomber had come down in the sea off the south coast of Togian Island back in 1945, and it's a pleasant 20m below the surface, perfect for diving. It's now encrusted in coral, and exploring a wrecked but pretty intact plane at the bottom of the sea is an amazing experience, especially when the water is a warm 29°C 20m down. Everything is covered in growth, not surprisingly after over 50 years, but it's amazing how much is almost untouched: the pilot's throttle controls, the engine's radiator fins, the machine guns, the landing gear and so on were all instantly recognisable, and living on this plane-shaped reef were plenty of weird and wonderful marine creatures. Diving the site was a clash of history, surrealism and imagination, where you could almost hear the conversation as the crew prepared for crash landing, an event that they would all survive, to be rescued by the inhabitants of the local fishing village of Liberty. It was my first wreck dive, and hopefully not my last.
The Togians consist of lots of tiny volcanic islands with great diving
After a day's snorkelling the following day – a poor man's second when you've learned to dive, but a worthwhile occupation when the coral is just off the hotel beach – I decided that the budget could stretch to another dive, so the next day I joined the others for a dive in the Labyrinth, a more standard coral bommie dive that was nonetheless very pleasant.
The two Togian dives were just wonderful, and they acted as a catalyst to relieving the accumulated travel stress and fatigue that Indonesia had so far piled onto my shoulders. When I finally left Kadidiri for Poso, I was sad to see it disappear over the horizon, but I felt quite, quite recharged2.
1 Living on the Togian Islands was Paul, our Australian dive master, but that wasn't Paul's most distinguishing feature: he had got blonde dreadlocks, something of a unique sight in an island community full of Indonesians. When Paul first arrived in the Togians, he would visit Wakai, the main village on the islands, and the kids would run up to him and shout, 'Hello mister, what's your name?'
Before long everyone in Wakai got to know Paul: the shopkeepers, the ferrymen and the hotel owners. He'd been there for eight months when I met him, and when he walked down the street, the kids still ran out and followed him. And what did they say to Paul when he walked down the street after eight months?
'Hello Paul, what's your name?'
2 If you ignore the shocking hangover I'd gained from the last night on Kadidiri. Any excuse for a party, and this time the excuse was that it was a full moon, so out came the beer, the arak (rice wine) and, when the arak had run dry, the Indonesian vodka. I passed out on the beach by the fire, and the next day awoke with a familiar feeling: I was still quite drunk. Just what I needed for a long bus ride through bumpy Sulawesi...
