Jakarta Walking Tour Festival 2025 Trip To Pulau Onrust dan Pulau Untung Jawa.

Jakarta Walking Tour Festival 2025: Trip to Pulau Onrust and Pulau Untung Jawa.

It was the first morning of the Jakarta Walking Tour Festival 2025, and my heart pulsed with that familiar excitement of discovery. Around me, dozens of other participants gathered—some photographers with cameras dangling from their necks, others with notebooks, sketchbooks, and wide smiles that seemed to mirror mine. The theme of this year’s festival was simple yet profound: “Rediscovering Our Roots Through Steps and Stories.”

Our destination that day was Pulau Onrust and Pulau Untung Jawa, two small islands resting quietly in the Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu) north of Jakarta Bay. While most people thought of them as just another weekend getaway, for us, they were pages of forgotten history waiting to be walked upon.

After an hour, the outline of Pulau Onrust emerged. The name Onrust comes from Dutch, meaning “unrest” or “never resting,” and it suited the island perfectly. Despite its size, it has lived many lives: a Dutch shipyard, a quarantine station, a prison, and even a leper colony.

Stepping onto the island felt like stepping into a time warp. The remnants of red-brick walls peeked through the trees, whispering stories of sailors, soldiers, and exiles. At the small Onrust Museum, we saw photographs and artifacts: rusted anchors, maps, even a few personal letters from prisoners once held here. I found myself staring at a faded photograph of a man in shackles, his eyes still burning with defiance.

I thought about Jakarta today—its rush, its chaos, its endless growth. Maybe, I mused, the city still carries the spirit of Onrust—restless, always rebuilding, never stopping.

There’s something about islands that makes you reflect—maybe it’s their isolation, or maybe it’s the way they hold onto memories. I thought about how easily we forget the stories that shaped us.

We often treat history like an old photograph—something to glance at and move on. But standing there, surrounded by the ghosts of Onrust, I realized that history is not behind us. It’s beneath our feet, carried in our blood, waiting to remind us who we are.

By noon, we boarded another small boat to Pulau Untung Jawa, just 15 minutes away. The name itself, meaning “Lucky Java Island,” promised a shift in tone—and it delivered. Later, we visited a small mangrove conservation site managed by the community. Volunteers were teaching children how to plant and care for mangroves. One of them explained how mangroves protect the island from erosion and support marine life. I thought about how sustainable travel isn’t just about taking less—it’s about giving more. Travel, when done with awareness, becomes an act of gratitude.

Nuh Prabawa Laurens

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