Diving and dragons on Flores...

Talor: 30-freakin hours to get to Labuan Bajo! What the hell were we thinking??? Actually, I think it was more than that because the last ferry arrived two hours late. It was one of the most grueling journeys yet! It started off at 1:00pm in a van to the big bus at the main terminal. As we waited, a guy who seemed like he was with the bus company tried to sell us ferry tickets from Sumbawa to Flores. We declined knowing the price was much less than what he was quoting, but I guess he felt like he wanted to make money off of us somehow, so just when the bus was about to leave and we were comfortably settled into our seats, he came and demanded we pay to have our packs stored in the baggage compartment on the side of the bus, or else we'd have to keep them with us by our seats which were tight to begin with. We literally got into a shouting match with him, and I am not proud to say that at at one point, I lost my cool and threatened him with bodily harm if he touched our bags. Then, the real bus guy came by to say that the guy was crazy (which we knew) and reassure us that our bags would be fine. Argh!

The busride took us to a ferry that had several not-so-interesting live entertainers, including a bizarre one-man show where a strangely effeminate guy was, at times, literally writhing on the nasty floor as everyone looked on with expressions of amusement, puzzlement and horror. Then back on the bus, we stopped in the evening for dinner, which was truly a cheerless affair of rice and a bowl of chicken soup. Then it was back on the bus til they dropped us off at a town on the island of Sumbawa (between Lombok and Flores), where we would have to wait for a smaller bus that would be better suited to negotiate the narrow broken roads to another ferry. At 3:30am, we wondered when the smaller bus would be leaving so we asked and were told at 6:00am... crap! We had 2 ½ hours to kill in a dark and ugly bus terminal in the middle of nowhere while we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes! When the bus finally took off, I was so exhausted from lack of sleep, I actually fell asleep on the two-hour bumpy ride to the port where we would get on a ferry (the last leg) to Labuan Bajo, Flores.

Got there, sipped on coffee until the ferry ticket office opened, got our tickets and were told the ferry would leave at 8:00am so we hurriedly boarded, and found it peculiar that we were the only passengers. When we asked one of the staff, he said we wouldn't be leaving til 11:00... what?? With nothing else to do, we waited... and waited... and waited... until finally, we were moving at 10:00. I felt a sense of excitement because we were almost there! Nevermind that it would be an 8-hour ride! Not even sure how we managed to pass the time... napping, reading, napping, reading some more, and so on. When we finally saw the bay up ahead, it looked absolutely lovely!

Unfortunately, once we landed, it wasn't as lovely as it looked from the ferry. The main road was completely dug up making it hard to walk as we went from place to place looking for accommodations. And this was the first time in awhile that we saw shades of meanness... when we asked one of the pricier places if they had any rooms for cheaper rates, the guy looked at us contemptuously saying, “That's the price.” Then we looked at another place which was totally overpriced with a squat toilet, and when we kindly said we'd think about it, the guy suggested it wouldn't be available if we were to come back. Shit like that kinda turned me off. But after that long journey, we were definitely in need of comfort so we decided, the hell with our budget, let's splurge and be comfortable. Well... seems that's not as easy as it sounds. We checked into the Sunrise, which is one of the more luxury places with AC, but after negotiating, we settled in to find the bathroom had some real issues. So we moved to another room that was not as nice, but we were too tired to move so we settled in for the night, got ourselves cleaned of the skank and went for a meal.

The next day, with a bit more energy, we walked around and found Laguan Bajo to be one of the dustiest, ugliest places we've ever been in. But we decided to treat ourselves by moving to the Green Hill Inn... it turned out to be a big mistake. The room looked nice enough, but once we settled in, we discovered it's shortcomings... the bed sunk so badly, we couldn't get comfortable, the bathroom was full of mosquitoes, and the doorknob was broken. The band-aid gluing the lightswitch to the wall should have tipped us off. But oh my! Once we got a look out on the views of the bay, it was a beauty! It was up on on a hill with panoramic views of amazing sunsets. And in the end, that's what we were paying for. It wasn't for the constant hassle of them turning the water off, or the measly serving of coffee and breakfast in the morning, it was the views... absolutely gorgeous!

Anyway, the other drawback about Labuan Bajo is that tourism is just taking off and there is no infrastructure. In order to do anything or go anywhere, you really need to rely on the locals, but the locals were in the mindset of “get as much as you can” so we were getting super-inflated prices for anything and everything. And nobody would say what all the options were, they just told you what they wanted to sell. Needless to say, this really put us off.

But we decided we had made it that far, we were going to see komodo dragons, at the very least damn it! We negotiated hard and booked a half day boat trip to the island of Rinca, a two-hour ride away. Though the scenery was lovely, we were sucking in petrol fumes the whole way as the boat loudly chugged along the water. But as a bonus, we spotted dolphins! That alone was worthy, but then we got to Rinca, and after paying the park fee, the conservation fee, and every other fee they could think of, we began our tour and lo and behold! Just a few minutes into it, there they were... the most crazy looking, prehistoric, amazing creatures I have ever seen, hanging out right by the park kitchen! Wow! I'm talking WOW!

Anyhoo... after that we were so ready to blow that dusty town, but when we went around asking about transport to the next town, we got crazy inflated prices, at which point, we decided, it's not worth it. The prospect of having to deal with this every time we wanted to move round the island on the rough roads in broken down buses just didn't appeal to me anymore. What would have seemed like an exciting challenge in the beginning of our trip was now becoming more of a chore than anything else. Truth is, we were travel-weary and ready for a “vacation” from our travels. So we booked a flight back to Bali for a little R&R and to buy time to figure out our next move.

Erik: Yes, T's right about so much – the trip getting to Flores was grueling. 30 hours on tiny, winding roads during which the bus was weaving and bumping and heaving – impossible to sleep. When we arrived at the final, 8-hour ferry to Flores island, I saw the cushy banquettes inside and was sure i'd sleep for a good few hours, but they put the tv's on full volume to music-video and children channels, so there was no chance of dosing off unless you had a packet of morphine stashed away.

Labuan Bajo is, indeed, one of the nattiest, ugly cities we'd been in. What T didn't have the chance to benefit from, though, was the absolutely amazing diving there. I'd never seen so much marine life in my life – i couldn't figure out what to look at – there was just too much – sharks, lionfish, turtles, scorpionfish, so many things i'd never seen before. I was dumbfounded. The currents are wicked-strong, if any of you happen to go, so be forewarned and be careful – i and two diving buddies were nearly swept out to the open sea on one dive (never been so scared on a dive in my life!), but the next dive, we were graced to see 10 manta rays doing a mating dance, after which they swam (flew?) past us in formation, only a few feet away. My diving buddy captured this on video. Check this out:

So, labuan bajo is a horribly ugly, unaccommodating place, but if you dive, i'd totally suggest you go there nonetheless – the best diving i've done anywhere.

I'd have stayed a few more days to dive a bit more, but t had nothing to do ashore, so we decided to head back to bali (the only place you can fly to from the town), and relax and have a little r&r.

More photos...

Labuan Bajo, Flores Indonesia

Friends and parties on Lombok...

Erik: From legian, bali, talor negotiated us a great deal on a speedboat out to the gili islands (off of the island of lombok, near bali.) $40 instead of the usual $60-$70 the boat should cost. T's become the best price negotiator during the course of the trip. We were on the tiny tropical islands within a few hours of leaving, but the boat left us on the super-touristy island of gili trawangan. there we found that everyone was after the all-mighty tourist dollar, and all the tourists looking to do drugs and party all night. Kappy and I had booked a dive for the next morning, but we soon canceled it, wanting to move on to the smaller island of gili air, where we hoped we'd be less a walking money-bag and actually meet some nice, local indonesian island folk.

What difference a short boat ride makes! Gili Air was totally chill, though just lively enough to keep us entertained. We found a wonderful little italian-run set of bungalows, Biba Beach Chalets, which were beautifully done up – very luxurious, except for the on-and-off electricity and the salty tap water which the entire island suffers from. We made several local friends in bars and restaurants around the island. Kappy even was serenaded by a couple of singing bartenders at the tiny Corner Bar where we had a send off “party” for her. (The party consisted of the 3 of us, a guitar player and our singing bartender, Sonny G, but we had a great time.)

Kappy and I had a few days of good diving before it was time for her to move on. She wanted to fly west to Java to see the Borobudor ruins, while we had our sites set east, towards the island of Flores. In the oddest bit of timing, Kappy left 3 hours before the arrival of another friend of ours, Rumana, who'd worked with Talor in NYC. We don't have anyone come travel with us for 15 months, and then we get back-to-back visitors, separated by only a few hours! Wish they could of overlapped a couple of days so we'd be more of a gang to contend with, though I might have gone crazy with all the “girl talk” (just joking, ladies.) Our musical bar tending friends were very surprised when we showed up again the very next night, but with a new friend this time – ready for a “welcome Rumana” party to follow up on Kappy's farewell.

Rumana seemed to love Gili Air, and she decided to learn to dive there, so we ended up staying much longer than we'd planned – 10 days in all. Not that i was complaining at all. During that time I got to know the dive staff at Manta Dive quite well, and I very nearly stayed for another month to do my dive master training. Up until the morning we left, I was still unsure if i'd be staying or not, but in the end i decided it was best to continue our travels and leave my DMT for a later date.

We had a great time with Rumana, though after gili air, she wanted to head back to bali to check out ubud, etc., and we still had our sites set west, so we said our goodbyes one morning after 5 days together, and got on the small wooden ferries heading in opposite directions. Still, we felt very lucky to have had friends come visit us from so far away. We were also a little eager as well to get back to our travels.

The gili islands lie offshore of the much, much bigger Lombok Island, which is where we headed next. After the ferry we got a taxi to the beach town of Sengiggi, which was supposed to be beautiful and laid back. What we found was one main touristy strip where we were constantly hounded by touts wanting to help us find hotels, scooters, tourist trinkets, etc. We couldn't walk more than 10 steps without being approached by someone wanting to sell us something. It was so bad that we decided to leave the next morning. And not just leave Sengiggi – we left Lombok all together, getting a combined series of buses and ferries all the way across lombok, across the next island of sumbawa and on to flores. 30 hours non-stop travel. Woo-hoo!

Talor: Gili Air is a nice little island with a friendly chill vibe. Like Gili T, all the locals wanted to sell you something (everyone's gotta make a living), but they were also happy just to get to know you. And like Gili T, everything was overpriced (for the tourists, which is their main industry), but they were a lot nicer about it and were willing to negotiate.

But what made our time there special was the company we had. It was great hanging out with Kappy then having Rumana join us... so the parties continued, including a super-fun one Saturday night at the Blue Bar where we got totally trashed and kicked up our heels in the sand. Then, in a state of euphoria (or stupidity), Erik decided to go in the water, and I followed suit. Within minutes, tragedy occurred... I lost my ring! I felt it slipping off my finger and two seconds too late, I was frantically searching, but all I saw was pitch black... aghhhh! The next morning, Erik went searching, but to no avail. Felt like I lost a friend, and shed a few tears, until Alice (the ever-wise Dive Master) posed her theory that the ring left because it felt it had done its job making me happy and it was time to move on to give to someone else... not sure if I was completely convinced, but it did make me feel better or maybe the hangover wore off... hmmm.

While everyone went diving, I spent the days walking around, exploring the island's many sandy paths into the interior and chatting with the locals. I was really surprised at how well everyone spoke English. Had nice conversations with Arsa, a horse-cart driver who also worked as a tour guide. Talked a lot to Roling, who dreamed of going to Korea one day for a better life. He spoke better Korean than me! Then there was also the teacher at the public school and his students eager to practice their English. And getting my hair cut, the hairdresser happily talked about her family. It was really nice being able to chat with the locals and learning about their lives. But outside of that, there wasn't much to do since I couldn't go into the water...

I have an allergic reaction to sea lice. For most people, their stings are just an annoyance. For me, I break out in a rash that bubbles into tiny little blisters, and it itches like crazy for about two weeks. Usually Erik will go in the water first and let me know if he feels them, and if so, I won't go in. Unfortunately, that has been the case through most of SE Asia. Not being much of an aquatic person, I've always preferred beaching more anyway, but I still enjoyed looking out into the lovely blue waters.

But after 10 days, I was ready to move on. I was really missing stuff like reliable electricity (the island was having power issues so it would go out for hours), good food (there wasn't much of a variety on the island so we ate a lot of fried rice, which is Indonesia's national dish), fast internet (there were two internet cafes using dial-up which cost a fortune), and a fresh water shower (never actually feel clean after bathing in salt water). So we decided to go check out Senggigi on the main island of Lombok to enjoy some of these luxuries.

Unfortunately, we never stayed long enough to find out... the super-aggressive touts annoyed us so much, literally following us around at times, that we decided to get outta Dodge! The very same day, we booked a 30-hour journey (that's how desperate we were to leave) to the island of Flores... OY!

For more photos...

Gilis, Lombok Indonesia

Senggigi, Lombok Indonesia

A date with a friend in Bali...

Talor: With much anticipation, we boarded a plane for Bali... after 7 weeks in Malaysia, we were excited about going to a different country, and for the first time on our trip, a friend was coming out to travel with us... woo hoo!

But somehow, I didn't get Bali, and why it's so popular. For one thing, it is overpriced... we were surprised to find everything more expensive than Malaysia, and less value for the money spent. For another, it is incredibly touristy... we saw just as many western tourists as locals, and the only locals being friendly were those trying to sell us something. And authentic Indonesian food was hard to find... there was a lot more Western food available than local food. Plus the beaches were nice, but crowded and we'd seen nicer. But, we decided to be tourists and just enjoy ourselves, and soon none of the above mattered.

Once Kappy arrived, we spent two days in Legian, two days in Ubud and two days in Amed, moving more rapidly than I would have liked, but we had a lot of ground to cover over a short period of time because Kappy only had 2½ weeks. It was a bit of an adjustment getting used to traveling with another person, but it was soooo nice to have someone else to talk to! And all things considered, Kappy turned out to be a great travel companion... adventurous, flexible and considerate. And, she can take the spice... perfect!

The two days in Legian were spent lazily... going to the beach, indulging in the Western foods (pizza, burgers, salads, etc.) we had been missing, and checking out touristy merchandise for sale, while Kappy got through the jetlag (a lot better than we did in Bangkok, which took us like a week!).

Kappy came prepared with an international drivers license so we rented a car to explore the east coast. About five minutes into the drive, we were pulled over for a traffic violation (running a red light), which was a total scam by the police, but after paying a light fine on the spot, we were on the road again. Another ten minutes later, we got a flat. Erik tried to fix it with the help of a very kind local, but found the tools were inadequate so we had to drive the car with a flat to an auto repair shop some five or so kilometers away, which ended up totally shredding the tire. Got the tire replaced, then wondered... should we continue? No spare, inadequate tools... what will happen if we get another flat??? After much deliberation, we decided onwards and upwards. Spent the next several harrowing hours in the car as Kappy got used to driving on the left side of the road, on somewhat paved roads that are way too narrow for two-way traffic, and then, it started to rain... hard!... d'oh! But made it... whew!

Spent the next couple days in the touristy, but artsy Ubud, exploring the many side streets, visiting the Sacred Monkey Park, chowing down on roast pork, and taking in a traditional show (pics of the show didn't come out, but Erik took this short video clip ).

Then we moved onto Amed, and by then, Kappy was driving like a pro! We were hoping for something a bit less touristy, but got there to find, it was in fact, over-developed and not as off-the-beaten track as we thought... o well. Kappy and Erik took a day to go diving, while I explored the one road in town and discovered there was absolutely nothing more to the town but resorts and restaurants. Ok, maybe it's time to explore another island...

Headed back to Legian to return the car, spend the night, then find transport to Senggigi and the Gilis off the island of Lombok, which would be much more remote, and hopefully, a lot less touristy...

Erik: It was exciting to be actually meeting up and traveling with someone else for a while. I was a little worried that T and I might be so set in our travel ways – like some cantankerous old married couple – that we wouldn't be able to adapt to any other way of doing things. I hope that wasn't the case – we had loads of fun, and hope Kappy did too. It was great to have an excuse to relax, forget the budget for a while, and just be tourists. Eating all the stuff we'd deprived ourselves of for so long (pizza, burgers, beer – OK, maybe I hadn't been depriving myself of beer!) We actually found a pizzeria in legian with NYC-worthy thin crust pizza, as well as the cheapest Bintang Beer in town – I was in heaven...

Kappy had been to Bali before, and so she was filled with great advice and ideas, such as the famous pork restaurant in Ubud (Bourdain's favorite), and the diving off Amed, which was great. It was nice to travel with a dive buddy as well. (I still haven't managed to tempt talor underwater...) The wreck dive there is definitely worth one's time.

The traffic ticket was annoying (it was a total scam), but not nearly so much as the flat tire. Ever try changing a tire with a faulty jack and a stripped lugwrench? In 98 degree heat and 100% humidity? I was drenched through with sweat after just a few minutes, and then laying on the ground under the car trying to get the jack to work – I succeeded in thoroughly covering my sweaty shirt and skin with a lovely layer of dust and grime. And to no avail. We ended up thrashing the tire to all hell driving the car to the service station (a small wooden booth by the side of the road where the guy did nothing but change tires for $4). I was nervous when we returned the car, thinking they'd try to charge us for a replacement, but they were rightly ashamed of having given us faulty equipment to begin with – phew.

After Ubud, Kappy wanted to visit a famous hindu temple on bali – Besakih (it is one of the oldest and largest Hindu temples in Bali) which was a nice, if a rainy experience. I was told that i'd need to wear a sarong to enter the temple, which may have been a scheme by kappy and talor to get me to wear a sarong (I found out later that I could've entered with long pants.) We were there just after one of their major festivals, and so got to see offerings left by the villagers, including a huge sculpture made entirely of flowers and another – about 20 feet high made entirely of pork. yes, pork. Meat, fat, tendon, it was all in there. It was disgusting and fascinating at the same the time.

Perhaps the best part of this day was our drive from the temple to amed, through the rain, when we got lost and traveled through some of the loveliest tiered rice paddies imaginable. (Oh, yeah, we also had to make several u-turns along the way, and what should have been a 2 hour drive turned into about 8 hours – kappy was very patient with my faulty navigation.)

After a week of bali's super-tourism, though, we were ready to escape to the much smaller gili islands off of lombok...

Our photos from Bali (albums for Legain, Ubud and Amed):

Legian, Bali Indonesia

Ubud, Bali Indonesia

Amed, Bali Indonesia