Kai Islands

When Wallace came here in 1857 he stayed only briefly using the islands as a supply base on his onward journey to Aru. Reading through his old journal entries from The Malay Archipelago, Wallace was enamored of the cultural and biological differences he found here. Wherever he went he observed and compared. Visiting Kai he enthusiastically noted that the people here were more similar in features and custom to Papua than to Malay people. Biologically speaking, Wallace observed Kai?s flora and fauna to be more similar to Papua than to Asia. Among the species Wallace observed and collected here were fruit pigeons, huge butterflies, many beetles, and the shy and nocturnal cuscus, one of the only mammals found here.

One day I walked across the peninsula to a place called Pasir Pajang, the most famously beautiful beach on the island. With my friends Guenther and Stevie we made a day of beach combing and lying in the sands on what is surely the most lovely beach in the world. Miles of white flour- dusted sand fringed by palms and long limitless expanses of shallow tropical water made this place unforgettable. Children splash and play in the shallow waters and local families occasionly stroll by from the village, but otherwise there is no one. Anywhere else in the world beauty like this would soon be defiled by hotels, resturants, and tourist trinket shops. The remoteness and isolation of this place though leaves it largely unscathed from the ravages of the 20th century. It feels like walking back in time, back to Wallace?s time where his descriptions over 150 years ago remain alive today.