East Kotawaringin is one of the thirteen regencies located in Central Kalimantan Province. The capital city of this regency is Sampit.
This regency may not be as famous as the other regencies in Indonesia, but it surely has some interesting tourist spots worth visiting. There are national park, city park and beach as well.
Let’s get to know more about these 5 famous tourist attractions in East Kotawaringin.
- Ujung Pandaran Beach
Ujung Pandaran Beach is the first popular tourist attraction you can find in East Kotawaringin, Central Kalimantan.
It is located around 80 km away southern of downtown Sampit. This beach is quite far from the city crowd so that it can give you good relaxation. It is also well known for its white and soft sand.
Most of the local people are fishermen so you will be able to see them fishing using their boats. Besides, they make salty fishes, so once you enter the area, you will smell the salty aroma around.
This beach has an interesting ritual held every year. It is called “Simah Laut”, which is used to cast away disaster.
It starts on Syawal 10th on the Islamic calendar by cleaning the beach then floating the ritual offerings. This ritual is believed to bring prosperity to the local people.
- Sampit
Sampit is the capital city of East Kotawaringin. It is also one of the oldest settlements in East Kotawaringin. It is known as the largest timber port due to its timber-producing forests. Besides, Sampit is also known as a plantation area so that most of the income comes from palm plantations. You can also put these tourist attractions in Sampit in your itinerary.
It is used to be a producer of timber, however, because of the scarcity of timber, the society and company began to change it to oil palm plantations. Besides palm plantations, there are some other sources of income for the local people, such as from fishery, rubber, and coal mines.
Sampit as a large river named Mentaya River. This river is used for transportation. It is also a pride of Sampit community due to its extensive and length. You can also find some orchid gardens at the upstream drainage area, which is located at the end of Sampit City.
- Tanjung Puting National Park
Indonesia has so many national parks to conserve the natural resources. You can see some of them in national parks in Bali and Nusa Tenggara. Central Kalimantan also has it. It is called Tanjung Puting National Park.
If you wish to meet orangutans, then you should visit this national park. Tanjung Puting National Park is the largest conservation of orangutan in the world. It is estimated that there are around 30,000 to 40,000 orangutans both inside and outside the national park.
Tanjung Puting National Park covers an area of 415,040 hectares and it was set in 1982. It serves as one of the tourist attractions in Indonesia which provides natural habitat for the orangutans. So, when you visit this national park, you will see the natural habitat of orangutan in the wild.
To reach this national park, you may need to use Klotok Boat as the accommodation. It locas 7 to 12 passengers. The boat does not move too fast, so that you will be able to enjoy the atmosphere of Sekonyer River along the way.
You can even enjoy the sunset along with the firefly and wild animals in the bank of the river. Along the way on the river, you can also see some monkeys swinging from one tree to another, including the long nose monkey (proboscis).
Kalimantan also has some other national parks in Kalimantan Island. Besides for tourism, they are also used as conservation spots.
- Mentaya River
Mentaya River is also known as Sampit River due to its location in Sampit City. Mentaya River is not only a river, as there are some things you can do here, such as strolling around the jungle on the other side of the river and enjoying the beautiful sunset by riding on a small boat. If you wish to enjoy sunset here, you can come here at 5 p.m.
Get to know the other sunset spots in other provinces, such as sunset viewing points in Kuta Lombok and sunset view spots in Flores.
- Sampit City Park
Another tourist attraction located in Sampit, East Kotawaringin is Sampit City Park. It is simply a park which has strategic location, near the port, market, and river. No wonder that this city park becomes the center of trade in the city.
In the past, this park used to be surrounded by street vendors, however, now all the vendors have been relocated so the park is more organized.
You can simply do some activities here, such as jogging or just strolling around to relax your mind. In the evening, you may also find some food stalls in the culinary center at the back of the park.