Tarakan
An Oil Island Taken By Japan Days After Pearl Harbor And Retaken By Australians In 1945, With A Mangrove Reserve Inside The City Where Proboscis Monkeys Come To The Boardwalk · Tarakan, North Kalimantan
TARAKAN HAD OIL, AND THAT IS ITS WHOLE HISTORY. The wells were producing from the early twentieth century, which is why THE JAPANESE TOOK THE ISLAND WITHIN DAYS OF PEARL HARBOR - among their first objectives in the entire Netherlands East Indies campaign - and why AUSTRALIAN TROOPS LANDED HERE IN MAY 1945 in one of the last and least remembered campaigns of the war. Memorials and remains are scattered across the island. THE OTHER REASON TO STOP IS ODDER AND BETTER. INSIDE THE CITY ITSELF IS A MANGROVE CONSERVATION AREA WITH A BOARDWALK THROUGH IT, AND PROBOSCIS MONKEYS COME TO IT - the big-nosed, pot-bellied primate found only on Borneo, in an urban reserve you can walk to from a hotel. There is nowhere else on earth where you can see them that easily, and almost everyone who lands here is in transit to somewhere else and never finds out that it is here at all, half an hour from the airport.
Tarakan Island, North Kalimantan, Tarakan, North Kalimantan, Indonesia
TARAKAN HAS FLIGHTS from Balikpapan, Makassar and Jakarta and is the transport hub for North Kalimantan - including the onward connections toward MALINAU and KAYAN MENTARANG, and FERRIES TOWARD NUNUKAN AND THE MALAYSIAN BORDER at Tawau. THE MANGROVE CONSERVATION AREA is in the city, open in daylight with a small entry fee, with a boardwalk through the mangrove; PROBOSCIS MONKEYS ARE MOST RELIABLE IN THE EARLY MORNING AND LATE AFTERNOON and may not appear at all in the middle of the day. THE WAR MEMORIALS AND REMAINS are scattered and are best reached by car with someone who knows where they are. IT IS HOT AND HUMID year-round. Most visitors are here for a night in transit, which is a fair use of the place.