Back to the northern hemisphere

We spent the last week exploring Flores and we are ready to leave Indonesia. We’ve seen some great scenery and did a couple fantastic dives, but Indonesia hasn’t really impressed us. Traveling in this part of the country is very slow and expensive. Towns are not that nice, accommodation is very much below standard and quite expensive. To be fair, it is really nice to be in a part of the world that is a bit less traveled and not set up for tourists, but on the other hand, we have been disappointed with the costs and quality of things. Shitty accommodation is still costly and it takes forever to get from A to B. Probably due to the fact the island of Flores is dotted with volcanoes and mountains, which makes the scenery absolutely stunning. So a negative does turn into a positive. We also know there are so many other countries waiting to be explored, and traveling on south east Asia’s mainland is a lot easier and cheaper. In addition, we have both been sick pretty much the entire time we’ve been here, which hasn’t helped. Hygiene is very poor and food seems to make us sick all the time. We have had a couple of really nice meals, including one fantastic home-cooked meal in Sulawesi, but other than that it’s been rather disappointing.

We left Flores by public ferry. It was very cheap to get across to Sulawesi by ferry, but it was going to take 48 hours, someone had told us. While we mentally prepared for the trip, we also stocked up on supplies with overly sweet jam, crackers and instant noodles. When we boarded the ship, there was no room for us anymore. All seats had been taken, mattresses were already reserved… we looked a bit lost. So a few friendly locals made some room for us on the floor so we could sit/sleep there, which was very nice. They were very interested in us and we tried to have a bit of a conversation with a little word list of Bahasa Indonesia helping us. It was great fun chatting to them, listening to them playing music and just watching people. We spoke to lots of different people and they told us the trip was only going to be 24 hours, not 48! We didn’t believe them at first, but when we heard it from different people we were so relieved! It turned out our supplies weren’t going to last us two days either. After we found out the trip was going to be halved, we also heard that we weren’t going to Makassar, but Bira, about four hours south of Makassar. Luckily we booked a flight to Kuala Lumpur from Makassar on Friday, that would leave us two days to get there from Bira. 24 hours was definitely enough on the boat.

The people on the ferry took good care of their personal hygiene and everyone there had at least two showers while we were stinking away in our sweaty tshirts. However they do not care about rubbish around them. After a day the boat was absolutely filthy with food leftovers, cigarette butts, plastic bottles, dirt, fruit peel, rice and anything else you can think of thrown away on the floor. Loads of plastic just got thrown overboard as well. Bins were provided but were only half full and we saw one parents balancing his little boy on the bin to pee in it! Yet the passengers were very anal about us taking our shoes off when we went to the toilet. We had to sleep on a floor that was covered with a bit of carpet, but was also quite filthy with bits of peanut, chips and biscuits stuck to it. Halfway through the night another load of passengers came on board from a tiny island, waking us all and wanting to grab any space they could find (but there wasn’t any so we just got shoved out of the way). It was an interesting experience, but never again, at least not economy class. It was literally cattle class, with about twenty buffaloes on board, as well as goats and a horse! The poor buffaloes slipped on their own poo and pee all the time and they were tied up with a ring through their nose on a very short leash, so when they slipped the ring painfully pulled on their nostrils (at least we think it would be painful).

Bira was a nice place to stumble upon. The waters of this southern little fishing village of Sulawesi are picture perfect! We stayed in the best and cheapest guesthouse and they cooked us an awesome meal. We wanted to stay another day, but we fly from Makassar on Friday, which is a muslim holy day, which means transport might be hard to get. So we left on Thursday for Makassar, which took us six hours in a cramped little bus. Makassar is apparently famous for its food, but again it has disappointed us. David got sick and had to vomit it all out again. But Makassar seems a nice city, very alive! Tomorrow (Friday) we fly out of here, happy to leave Indonesia. But we did have a great last few days here in Sulawesi.

White beaches, beautiful sunsets

Forget what we’ve written before, Indonesia is great! We might not have liked Kuta Bali and Gili Trawangan, but Lombok is beautiful. We spent 2,5 days exploring the north and south of the island by scooter. Kuta Lombok (not to be confused with Kuta Bali) is a great little place that isn’t overdeveloped yet. The beaches there are spectacular and the sand is rather fine rock, so it doesn’t stick to everything, which is really nice too. The food there was great and people very friendly. The north of the island has some spectacular waterfalls. It was about a 100 km scooter ride to a very cool waterfall. On the way there we had something to eat… And then it happened. Jenny didn’t feel too well after lunch. Food poisoning. The journey home took us hours because we had to stop so often because of Jenny’s vomiting and diarrhea. On the side of the road we had lots of spectators looking at this white chick getting sick. A little wave goodbye after the show gave us lots of smiling faces! After a horrible 2,5 hours on the scooter we finally made it back. Luckily it cleared up overnight so we could enjoy our four day boat trip to Komodo and Flores.

It certainly was not a luxurious boat we stayed on. The engine was horribly loud and the boat was very uncomfortable. The toilet was the usual squatting style, complete with cockroaches and there was no fresh water on board (besides the bottles drinking water – only five bottles per person for the four days, not enough for a shower). But the company was great! We met some really nice people on the boat and heard all about their interesting itineraries. Everyone got along really well. On our trip we saw lots of dolphins playing in the water and stopped at a few places to go swimming and snorkeling. One night the boat had to sail for about twenty hours straight and during the night we felt we might tip over. That was really scary, but we made it through the night and the next morning we woke up to a magnificent landscape of islands dotted everywhere. Amazing! The beaches around these little islands are so beautiful, the colours of the water so turquoise – just like a little paradise.

One of the islands we went to was Komodo, to see the Komodo dragons. It was great to see these huge lizards in real life. They’re only found in Komodo, Rinca, some other island we can’t remember the name of and northern Flores. So it was quite special to see them in the flesh.

Eventually we made it to the island of Flores, the end destination of our boat trip. Labuan Bajo, the village we are staying in at the moment, is very nice and quaint and nobody bothers us. All of the people on board ended up in the same restaurant at night which was good fun.

Today we did two dives around Komodo Island. When we were diving in Sipadan Island in Borneo two years ago, someone told us the only dive sites that can top Sipadan are around Flores. She was definitely right! The diving was absolutely amazing, the best ever! The temperature differences in the water, together with very strong currents bring loads of exotic sea creatures to these waters. We saw the brightest corals teeming with fish – huge fish! Everything here seems on steroids! We saw turtles, sharks, huge manta rays, the biggest murray eels, everything! Very, very much worth our money for sure!

This evening we’re meeting some people at a restaurant for the sunset, but before that we might pop into a café with free wifi to publish this.

Our plan for the next two weeks is a bit hazy. We are definitely not going to make it all the way to Sumatra, so the flight that we booked from Medan to Kuala Lumpur we just have to cancel. So our options are to either go back to Bali or Lombok and catch a flight to KL from there, or to sail to Sulawesi and go to KL from there. We prefer to go to Sulawesi (another two day boat trip), but we’re not sure if this is the most economical way to get to Malaysia. We’ll see. We’ll get there somehow before the 3rd of December.

Indonesia

Indonesia. So far it has had trouble making an impression on us, but it is slowly starting to get better. We were not impressed by Kuta, the very touristy, chaotic city in Bali everyone seems to end up in for the first day (or some people, poor buggers, spend two weeks there!). After one mandatory night in Kuta we found an escape to a more pleasant town on the east coast, Padangbai. From here we took a ferry across to Lombok.

Padangbai was nice and quaint and we had some lovely food from a street stall, which we haven’t been able to find since. It took us a whole day to get from Padangbai to a little island just off the coast of Lombok, Gili Trawangan. This island also failed to impress us. But we did have some fantastic views of Lombok. Lombok is just a gorgious lush and mountainous island. We’re back in Lombok now and starting to enjoy ourselves a bit more. We’ve just had a lovely swim at one of the great beaches and rode around on a little scooter. We also booked a trip to Flores by sailing boat, which will also bring us to Komodo to see the Komodo dragons. We’re very excited about that!

Accommodation here has been fantastic. We haven’t had to go to a dodgy hotel just yet and it’s all quite cheap. We haven’t found great food yet and that really is disappointing. If we want burgers and pasta, we’ll go to a Western country. We’re hanging out for a good Indonesian meal. Surely it will happen sooner or later.

The people here are very friendly and we only get hassled a little bit around town (except Kuta). Traffic around Kuta in Bali is absolutely mad. There are so many scooters and little 125cc motorbikes there and they’re all in each others way! But somehow it seems to work and we’ve not seen anyone come off. The slow pace must have something to do with this. These scooters carry up to four people at once!

We have seen a lot of little baskets on the streets with offerings for the gods. These baskets include bits of fruit and flowers, which the rats gladly take. We’ve seen some fat ones running around! And of course there is an abundance of geckos, cockroaches and other little creatures you’d rather not see in your bathroom. The streets are full of stray cats and dogs, kittens and puppies and cats are going for it in the streets! We also see chickens running around everywhere. But apart from the little creatures, stray pets and rats, Bali and Lombok are relatively clean. Especially the bungalows we stay in. As soon as we step onto the porch, the tiles are nice and clean and the place is generally quite nice and tidy (a few exceptions of course).

We really hope Indonesia will have impressed us after the sailing trip to Komodo and Flores. If not, there’s still Sumatra to check out before we move on to Malaysia.

We can't include photos yet, because we have only taken photos with Jenny's camera and she forgot to bring the USB cord! Photos coming soon.