Tag Archives: Flores

Day 98 – On to Sumbawa

tucked away behind all the little ones

tucked away behind all the little ones

After our two day holiday from the bike, we were back to business today. Since we had reached the western end of Flores in Labuan Bajo, it was time to hop on the next ferry bringing us to Sape on Sumbawa. The ferry goes every day and was scheduled for 8am this morning.

To make this rather early cut-off, we got up at sunrise which is about 5.30am at the moment. Packing still is rather quick (if you don’t have to put the tent down and store all the sleeping gear) so Flo got Rocinante out of her safe parking spot in the hotel yard to put the panniers back on. The bike didn’t fit through the gate to the yard when it was fully loaded so to manoeuvre it, it had to be without luggage.

At 6.45am, we were on the bike, driving to the ferry terminal. These tickets turned out to be expensive, probably because Flo ended up paying bemo fares for Rocinante which means she was treated like a mini-bus. One of the first on the ferry, we again, selected two empty rows for us and I lay down for another nap. Being scheduled to leave port at 8am, we finally left Labuan Bajo at 9.45am. While the cargo hold was pretty full, there were still many empty seats on the ferry. We had feared that it might be overcrowded with the volcano on Lombok playing up and all flights being cancelled. On the other hand, we trusted that vendors will come on to the ferry to sell us lunch but we were disappointed as they only sold bananas and snacks this time. Flo braved his first “Pop Mie” instant noodles cup while I stuck to oreos and TimTams.

No trouble with space this time

No trouble with space this time

We had lovely company for hours on the ferry, meeting Katja, a German backpacker, and Clement, a traveler from Slovenia. They both told us more about a story we heard…a tourist dying while snorkeling at Komodo. At first, it was said through the grapevine (aka news that travelled from boat to boat) that the tourist stayed in the water too long and exhausted herself which lead to her breathing in water and she basically drowned. Katja and Clement said it looked more like a stroke or so in the water. The tourist lady was about 70 years old.

Despite our late start, the ferry arrived in Sape at 3.30ish. So the ride itself was not nearly as long as getting to Flores and passed quicker than we had thought. There was a bit of chaos at the port as everyone tried to leave at the same time and get to their further means of transport on land but we managed to get out fine. We even found an ATM that would let us withdraw about NZ$250. The limit on the ATMs here seems a bit arbitrary and each withdrawal costs us fees at kiwibank.

Better than expected from reading the Lonely Planet

Better than expected from reading the Lonely Planet

Coming to a new island is always exciting. Sumbawa is less developed in tourism then Flores but, all in all, it seems to fare better. The houses all look bigger, all built out of stone and quite neat. The fuel at the roadside often comes in little pumps with the same brand as the gas station rather than in reused water bottles. However, there are also horse-drawn carts on the road which seems slightly weird. It’s not a tourist attraction but a legitimate way of travelling. Those poor horses must be close to a heart attack in the dense traffic.

Riding out of Sape, we headed for Bima, a town further north. The road was again in very good condition (but most roads are compared to East Timor) and we came through quite a few roadside towns. Now, it is noticeable that the majority of the people here are muslim. Mosques can be seen quite often and some of them are really impressive. The majority of women also wears hijab, most of them in very colourful tones.

We booked into a hotel for the night and it has free wifi, something we haven’t had in ages. On top of the free-ness, it is also quite fast so Flo is in internet heaven at the moment. 🙂

Day 97 – Manta Manta

Morning mist hiding the sun a bit

Morning mist hiding the sun a bit

To our surprise we had a good night’s sleep in the cabin of our little boat near the flying foxes. The sea got dead calm over night and once  everyone was settled into their resting place, the swaying stopped and the boat stood calm and still through the night.

We got up early to watch the sunrise and the flying foxes one more time. The vistas were once again beautiful, the breakfast of batter fried bananas and Flores coffee rocked and soon we were well under way towards Manta Point.

Passing close to the boat

Passing close to the boat

Once again, we scored with the wildlife! Two rays were feeding at this point, and we got within meters of them snorkeling around. Nina was a bit apprehensive of their tail spikes and got back onto the boat while I stuck with them and got to swim a while longer with these majestic creatures.

After that cool start, we made our way, roughly back towards Labuan Bajo to stop at the last itinerary of our excursion: Kanawa Island. We did another two great sets of snorkeling to explore the reef. Once we were good, the last lunch of the trip got served (I got the fish that Aco caught last night). And that was it, two hours later we were back in Labuan Bajo, gave our exhausted but happy goodbyes to our crew and retired to our hotel for some wifi and packing.

Tomorrow, Sumbawa …

Day 92 – Surprise at Koka Beach

We took our time this morning. The original plan was to stay two days at Lena house to get a bit of a rest from the ferry but since we had arrived here yesterday at 8am and didn’t do anything except for resting and eating, we felt good enough to travel on. The idea still was to have a short day though.

Getting ready to leave. She Ye took a picture of us because we just have so few with both of us

Getting ready to leave. She Ye took a picture of us because we just have so few with both of us

Breakfast with pancake and fruit salad was very yummy. She Ye also had breakfast so we had lovely company. Talking to other travelers is always good fun. Matt appeared quite a while later. Both of them warmly recommended Koka Beach where they had just been. So we put it on the agenda to check it out, at least.

It was warm, very warm at 11.30am when we left. And almost lunch time again. The next bigger city was Maumere so we planned to have lunch there. When we got there, nothing really took our fancy while I remembered a recommendation for a restaurant in Paga. According to the GPS, Paga was a mere 20km onwards so we decided to give Restaurant Laryss a try. It was astonishingly hard to find, in the end. We passed it on the first try, met a bunch of schoolkids ad had troubled turning around but found it on the second try. The sign had fallen down and nothing was advertising it as anything else but a regular looking place anymore…

Lunch at Restaurant Laryss

Lunch at Restaurant Laryss

The owner spoke English and a bit of German which Flo used to get a recommendation for food. Thus, he ended up with squid (very yummy according to him).

From Paga, it was only a short ride to Koka Beach. Off the main road, you take a small track down to the beach, maybe two kilometres. We were greeted by a guy with a machete at his side and a twelve year old shadowing him. He spoke English quite well and let us know that he is volunteering as “beach keeper” for Koka Beach: He gets a dollar from every visitor but for that money, he looks after the beach, clears it of rubbish and has a strike rule that no motorbikes are allowed right on the beach. He wasn’t kidding. The beach looked amazing! Funny story at the side: Our motorbike and our trip reminded him of another traveller who had stayed at Koka Beach. Turns out that Hubert, the German traveller we met in Dili, had stayed here for a couple of days.

A local named Blasius runs a little warung, shop and ‘guest house’ for Koka Beach. Right at the beach, a couple of tiny huts have been built out of bamboo which can be rented for $3 dollars a night so you can either stay in one of those or camp with your own tent. Some shaded benches and deck chairs for day visitors or use at the beach complete the set. All of them are also made out of bamboo.

Surprise attack during the selfie shot =P

Surprise attack during the selfie shot =P

We decided to stay for a night in a lovely hut. Since we didn’t have a mosquito net, we used just our inner tent in the hut. It was almost like living in a hobbit hole right at the beach. =P

Dinner was prepared by Blasius’ wife for 6 o’clock. It was lovely, delicious and way too much food. Two grilled fish were dished up for Flo while I got egg fritters, spinach and a delicious tomato-chili-salad that was just a notch too hot for me but which I ate anyway. Blasius joined us for dinner, well at least our dinner conversation, and we talked in English, a bit of Bahasa and a lot of gestures. Afterwards, we were treated to tea and coffee (local coffee, brewed like Greek ones) and an invitation to visit Blasius’ parents in the morning after breakfast.

It was dark early so we listened to an audiobook and took some photos in the dark before actually going to sleep.

Day 90 – Ferry Ride

The day that Flo and I really weren’t looking forward to: Taking the ferry from Kupang on West Timor to Larantuka on Flores. A 15 hour ferry ride.

Mahdi style baths are not for everyone ...

Mahdi style baths are not for everyone …

Anyway, we tried to get up late and failed horribly. The sun now rises at about 5.30 which means you start waking up around 6am. At 7am we gave up and went to have breakfast. Toast and jam as well as coffee was included in the price for the room and while we were munching away a French couple arrived doing a similar route to ours on push bikes, and also the other way around. They asked us a bit about Timor-Leste before heading off to find cheaper accommodation.

We, however, packed up and rode to the ferry terminal. Accounts of the ride we had read/heard promised a horror trip on an overcrowded ferry with no life boats etc. Common advice was to buy dinner and snacks for the day as nothing would be available on the ferry itself so we carried 4×1.5l of water, oreos, chocolate cookies, salted corn snacks and dinner with us.

professional stevedoreing ...

professional stevedoreing …

The ferry was bound to leave at 2pm but advice also stated to be there early to get a ticket. Arriving at 8am, tickets were no problem. NZ$35 for shipping us and the bike across the ocean for 15 hours doesn’t seem too much. Then we had to wait. The officer explained with gestures that Rocinante was too big for a regular motorcycle parking spot and would need to go in after all the lorries had passed. Thinking this might take hours, we started walking around but were called back before long and drove onto the ferry. While passing the gate, our tickets were checked and devalued. Hm.

Rocinante got her spot but was not tied down. We could just hope for calm waters so that the bike wouldn’t start sliding or falling. But then we were on the ferry at 9am. Parts of our tickets already ripped off. I didn’t trust our Bahasa Indonesia enough to explain that to an officer if we left the ferry again. So we bit the bullet and claimed a space, a whole row, towards the back of the ferry. At about 10.40am it started to fill up. Also, with more passengers, many, many vendors came offering snacks, fresh fruit, whole meals with rice and meat or eggs and much more. We weren’t too sure about the guy selling sunglasses but most of the other items made a lot of sense including cross word puzzles and colouring books for kids and mats so that you can sleep on the floor. Despite our overpreparedness, we spent a couple more dollars getting a proper lunch, fresh oranges and two sleeping mats. It seemed to be a thing to spread those on the ground and lay down.

1 mm to separate sleeper and filth.

1 mm to separate sleeper and filth.

At what felt like 1pm, our tickets were checked again and by then the ferry was full, maybe even over capacity already, but by no means as overcrowded as we had been made believe. Surprisingly, no one contested our complete row for two people so we put our mats on the ground and had two places to lie down: One across all four seats and one on the ground. The spaces around us were well filled though and checking up on Rocinante showed us a colourful picture of people, chickens and a coffin in the previously empty space at the cargo floor. The coffin was accompanied by a whole company of mourners who lit candles and probably prayed.

The ferry left right on time if not even early and we were on our way to Flores. Trying to make time go by while reading, we got a bit tired of a group of young Indnesian men (early twenties) who seemed to have too much testosterone and needed to show it. Also, we figured, they enjoyed the white audience even if Flo and I tried our best to completely ignore them. Anyhow…time went by okayish till dinner, then another hour of reading and off to bed. Each of us had a pair of trusted earplugs and with those, I slept quite long. Sure, you wake up and turn around…but then I went back to sleep again immediately.