04-04: At 5.30pm we checked out from the hotel, feeling completely exhausted, but it was time to move on and go to take the bus to Labuan Bajo in the terminal. Yesterday the guys constantly offering me their taxi and tourist guide services drove me completely mad. Today, early morning, only a few were passing by, not stopping even Paul and I waved our hands up. The terminal was a few km away and we needed a ride, or at the least informations how to get there. Eventually one stop, but with an absurd price. Paul took it, I kept walking, and met again a few minutes later in the terminal. I wonder where is the empathy, the hospitality, the willing to help somebody who probably needs help, once he’s waving his hands? I guess when they find a foreign, the only see a walking wallet. Therefore, if they have no space in their motorbike or car, of if they are in a worry, here in Bajawa, they will not stop. That’s for sure!
Now the 1.000.00$ questions: First, why they build bus terminal outside the cities and really far away? Second, why they have terminals at all, once all buses come to the city and pass by every street looking for passengers until it gets full?
While reading Paul’s phrase’s book, I found the translation for the word orangutan: “orang hutan“, in Indonesian. Immediately I realized that this should be a word originated from here, but I wanted the confirmation, so I checked if existed the translation to the term “hutan”. There was, and it means “forest”. Knowing that “orang” means “human being/person”, I got where the word came from… 🙂 Now I’m just wondering how they call a man who lives in the forest! :p
The landscape we crossed in this long 11 hours trip (with only a stop for lunch at Borong) was outstanding. Once again I don’t know which adjectives I shall use, but believe me, it is definitely a trip worth to be done, although very tiring. Giant picks with round clouds on top, forest and jungle, surreal range mountains, dream beaches, endless ricefields… unbelievable! Sadly the battery of my camera was almost flat (no outlet in the hotel’s room), so I only photographed the first 2 hours, but still, this wonder pictures would be saved in my memory until my last day of life, and I hope I will have enough opportunities to share with people until this day. 🙂
A word’s picture: the green flat plateau, becoming yellow with the strong and shining sunlight, contrasting with the sharp and dark green picks covered by enormous clouds touching its summit…
05-04: The first think to do today was to check about ferries and flights from here to Sulawesi Island. Then I would be able to schedule my staying here in Baluan Bajo and also the trip to the islands where Komodo Dragons actually live! Travelling in this adventure stile, specially with short budgets like mine, it’s not always an easy thing. Transportation out from here is the perfect example of it. There’s a cheap ferry to Sulawesi only on April 12th (too late), and flights to expensive to my wallet. I know they have another ferry in Maumere on April 9th, but it doesn’t make sense to do all the way back to there, specially because it is quite expensive and tiring, and would also take too much time. And there’s more, my one month visa is expiring soon, so i need to go out and in of the country in a few days or find a city where to extend it. In Labuan Bajo there’s not an emigration office, so let see how much will change the trip’s route. Probably i’m not going to Sulawesi (at the least in this part of the trip), but there’s plenty of options, actually thousands… just check the Indonesian map! 🙂
Paul rented a bike to go around, I opted to walk towards the Pede beach. Dream, quiet and clean one! Great choice! There I had time to finally relax for a while and swim on its clearly water. 🙂 Later Paul showed up there, asking me if I wanted to take the bike for the rest of the day, once he had already “seen all”. I made a short tour on the semi-automatic gear’s bike to check if I was able to drive it and then took the road towards the sightseeing that Paul told me about. What a feeling of freedom to drive a motor bike through this exotic and and unseen lands! First stop, the communication towers, on the top of the hill. Paul said the people there invited him to climb the tower. He went up some stairs and made great pictures from there- I was jealous and willing to get there to and climb even higher! Once I found nobody in the area, I didn’t ask permission before climb it. Several minutes walking slowly and focusing on nice things to avoid thinking about highs and vertigo… and yah, I got to the first stage, really high. Far higher than my previous record! :p I was proud of my self and feeling extremely happy for have succeeded on doing it, but the main idea was still the pictures. To take advantage from such exclusive place to taken unique pictures. Unfortunately, the moment I reached the stage, several people down in the base started to calling me, ordering me to come down. They refused my request to take just a picture before go down. They refused, so I simply took several quick shoots and followed their order. Mission accomplished, somehow… :p
Second mission: to find Binonko Beach. Not so easy to find the right entrance, because of the rich fauna covering the roadside, but eventually I discovered a less dense spot and walked in. Big mistake, it was a swamp with moving sand! F***! I got stoked on it, very scared, not knowing how to get out from there. My instinct told me to step on a laid down trunk nearby and start to run fast. It was very sticky, but hopefully I managed to do it. Already on save land, I was then enough calm to see the exotic red crabs that were there all the time in the swamp, probably surprised with this strange mammal in troubles to walk on it. The beach was now only a few meter away from me, but on the way I still had the opportunity to see more bizarre wild life: giant butterflies, fishes walking on the water surface, a kind of a black stork and an unbelievable beautiful kingfisher bird! The beach could be cleaner but, to compensate it, the water was warm and the view from the small island in the coast was really, really great!
Back to the town, I kept asking in the tourist offices for the tours in the Komodo Islands. Still now solutions for the next day, so I went to the bar where Paul was relaxing. Unexpectedly, there Paul introduced me Katerina, a German girls who kindly offer herself to find a solution to my problem. She call an Indonesian guy first, then I took a bike and went to meet him in person. A few minutes late the problem was solved, ans I was finally ready to share a mint “shisha” with my travel mate Paul on that bar…
NEW WORDS:
Lingua (old word, now they say bahasa) – Língua
Prosesi – Prossissão
Komuni – Comunhão
Back to the hotel I had the chance and the pleasure to meet a group of 8 French persons, very kind and talkative, and with a big travelling experience. They gave me many tips and advices about Thailand and Cambodia. I explained them all I knew already about the tours to visit the Komodo dragon islands and snorkeling on Labuan Bajo islands, drinking, meanwhile, from the beers they kindly shared with me.
06-04: Yesterday night Paul arrived late and really drunk. Today I was trying to wake him up, but was impossible. I really needed to talk with him, because I was going to take the boat to visit the Komodo dragons, and he would be taking a flight back to Australia a little bit later. I needed to organize a way for Paul to leave the room’s key in a safe place where I would take it back later. The alternative was to bring the bag with all the expensive stuff with me for the whole day… And that’s what I did. While taking my breakfast in the corridor a smiley English couple (Steve and Claire) asked me about breakfast. Once I had a double one (they brought for me and Paul by mistake), I shared with him, especially because they were in a hurry to take the boat to visit the dragons in Rinca Island and snorkeling in a very small island. Cool! The 3 of us were going to take the very same boat! Jefry, the guy who sold us the tickets told us we would be 5; a few minutes later we discovered the other in Jefry’s office: 2 Polish girls. They were in the same hotel as us too! I remembered very well the face of one, who rudely and arrogantly came next to me and the French group, yesterday, literally saying “shut up because I have a trip tomorrow”, without and “hello”, a “please”, and with a threating expression. :p But you know, really fast we realized that she was the “kind one”, comparing with the indescribable rudeness of the other! Lol. Better not bring details to here, but because of their arrogance, everything in the trip needed to be done on their way, regardless to the fact that Steve, Claire and I, together, were the majority! Just pay attention in these detail, I mentioned the name of the English couple, but I have no idea about the names of the Polish girls. Still, we had a lot of together (the 3). About them, always quiet, not even talking to each other. The less rude communicated a little with us during the journey. The extremely rude one was opening her mouth only to criticize somebody, to complain on something or to impose one more rule! I hope they will find a way to enjoy their trip too, but according with what I saw from them, it will be very improbable, unless they call fun to behavior this way! :p For Instance, the very nice guy who drove the boat during the day (gave us also coffee and tea, and even let me drive the boat for a while): he shacked hands with all of us at the end, in the harbor. The extremely rude one, face to face with the guy, and with his hand there waiting her one… she simply ignored and kept walking…
Yesterday Jefry, the guy who organized the trip for us for a very expensive price, told us that the snorkeling EQUIPMENT was not included, but we could rent it for 15000 rupiah more. Today, when we went to take the EQUIPMENT at the place he told, he conveniently disappeared when the owner of the renting shop asked for 30000 rupiah, saying that 15000 was only for the MASK, and that his business is separated from the other one! Yah, of course. Steve, Claire and I tried to renegotiate the price renting the 3 together, but the f***ing guy took the equipment from our hands and ordered us to leave his place, complaining that we western are greed and never stop bargain. But we only did it because the price changed, for double! Eventually we found Jefry who, lying, argued that he had talk about MASK, not the whole EQUIPMENT. Lol. I do have a good memory, come on! Anyway, we order him to talk with the guy, and the finally price reached was 25000 rupiah (RP). Keep talking about money, you will not believe the kind of few they have the effrontery to apply in Komodo National Park (at Rinca Island). Per person: 20000 RP for the park, 20000 RP for the government. Per group: 50000 RP for the guide, 50000 RP to park the boat in the coast! Yah, to PARK THE BOAT! And there’s more 50000 RP per camera or video camera. Steve, Claire and I had previously decided to cheat them, saying we were together and with only my camera, so we shared the cost of this last few. It could have been cheaper if the other 2 girls were not from another galaxy… So, with the price of the tour: 200000 RP, the total for me was 300000 RP, 25€! It looks like I will be eating rice with rice and sleeping in the jungle for the next days…. :p
Now the good side of it: 🙂 Separating the Flores Island from the Komodo National (Komodo Island and Rinca Island), there a small sea with plenty of small and tiny paradisiac island from all colors and shapes. Flat ones with dream beaches, others with mountains covered by forest or by simple grass, even just a volcanic pick! Unbelievable landscape they have here. About the sea, some parts were light blue with dark spots, letting us guessing about nice places to dive. For me it was interesting to finally see the traditional fishing boat on action, away from the harbor, and it was very cool to sight 2 dolphins passing by our boat… 🙂
2 hour later and we were in Rinca Island to finally visit this amazing and exotic creatures called Komodo Dragons. We gave the first few steps in the island and, luckily we sighted very first one, very big, resting in the shade, in a great position to take a photo! 🙂 Short moment of bliss, before the stress with the fews in the tourist office. Already with hour guide, we opted for the long path (2 hours), once we will have enough time for it, and more time means bigger probability to find wild life. Dragons we sighted a lot, both in the wild and nearby the guides’ houses, and during the trekking we sighted also buffalos, monkeys, wild pigs, a kind of wild chicken, many birds and insects (my favorites were the colorful butterflies, the water walking fishes again, colorful crabs. In the other hand,we didn’t sighted the vipers, neither the eagles or the wild horses.
I called it “trekking”, as it was told us to happen, but here comes some explanations that would be useful for the next visitors: Once again, what I found was careless people about the need of the visitors (who paid a lot to be in the Island). The guide was literally running, not trekking, giving us no time even to breath under the intense heat, scaring the wild life with the noise and speed, making hard to sight the animals I wanted to photograph, or scaring them before I get into a good spot to do so. I got really upset with the guide and asked him to slow down and start trekking for real! He respected my request for 10min, then kept going with his mad rhythm. As you can imagine, I started to stay behind, loosing them for a few minutes, getting enough quietness so the animals could show up, taking some good shoots, then running to catch them, several times… over and over… I have wonder words to say about the nature in this part of Indonesia, but people is a very big disappointment. It’s all about many! For the very high prices they charge, the minimum they could do would be to do things in the right way. And visitors should be able to decide their own rhythm, not the careless and stressed guy who has the effrontery to call himself a “trekking guide”. Yah, sure… We are only walking wallets for them. Their work is like “mass production” visits… Shame on them!
Back to the entrance where we drunk some refreshing sodas, I met a Timorese guy who was listening Brazilian music. I told it it was it was singed in Portuguese. He said the music was from Porto, but I explained that this was a traditional Brazilian stile of music, the “sertanejo” if I’m not wrong. Happy with the information, we introduced himself as Da Costa (Portuguese name), and made effort to say some words in Portuguese! Really cool guy! 🙂
Again in the boat, we moved towards the dream Kukusan island of to snorkeling in its clear and light-blue waters. Steve and Claire have previously snorkeled at Gili island and Lombok (ultimate destination for diving and snorkeling), so they didn’t found that interesting. For me was the opposite, being the first time I snorkeled in Asia, I was astonished with the the immense variety of colors and shapes the fishes have here! Corals not so much, but still interesting. Now I’m wondering about Gili and Lombok. They said it is hundreds of time more rich and it’s easy to sight turtles! 🙂
At the evening I came back to Abbas restaurant, my new friend in Labuan Bajo. He’s a really wise and interesting guy, and also very friendly. He was not there, his smiley wife served me the food and explained me that Abbas went to pray at the mosque. When he came back, we continued our previous conversations, and after finished the meal he presented me the wife and his daughters, a little girl, and a baby who I took in my arms and played with for a while! 🙂
07-04: I had to take the ferry today to Sumbawa Island, but I was not sure about the departing time: some said 8am, others 9am. I woke up at seven and bought the ticket at 7.52am, and the ferry would actually depart at 8. I still had time to run and by a cheap meal before enter the ferry! :p In the hotel I stayed in Labuan Bajo, a guy tried to sell me a tickets’ pack for several ferries and buses to Sumbawa. I was confused, insisting that one ferry ticket would be enough. In the harbor the same happened again, but this time they told me the final destination: Mataram, the capital of Lombok Island. It is situated in Sumbawa region, but I only wanted to go to the very island of Sumbawa, not Lombok island, but they kept insisting! Is like they want to force me to jump from the tourist Labuan Bajo directly to the hiper-tourist island of Lombok, without check and visit the non-tourist Sumbawa. But come on, I decided to stay in Sumbawa several days precisely because of that! It was a very cool Korean girl, back in the hotel, who said so, and that tip was the final information I needed to have in order to take such decision! 🙂
Once again, during the 7 hours journey by ferry, I had the opportunity to sea plenty of amazing island and surreal landscapes. The best one was the Sangeang Island and its outstanding 1949m volcanic pick! Ah, and the big storm just before arrive in Sape harbor.
South East Asia 2011 