ith. 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! On
ce 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...
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| Labuan Bajo, Flores Indonesia |
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