Monthly Archives: November 2015

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 96 – Here be dragons

Komodo. For us, it was all about this island. One of those things that we both had seen documentaries about as kids with a “one day I will go there” notion in our heads.

The two days and one night on the boat encompassed more than just Komodo but we were mostly excited about the dragons.

A map of the Komodo National Park

A map of the Komodo National Park

We had what is called an “early breakfast” at 7.30am which was actually late for us. The guide was said to pick us up at 8am but he was a bit early too. A hasty breakfast with coconut-filled buns later, we were trailing behind Aco to the boat. Flo and I expected other people to join us for the cruise but it turned out that we had chartered Aco and his son Side with their modified fisher boat all for ourselves. Having the deck just for us meant a lot of space on the ride out to Rinca our first stop for the day.

Rinca, as well as Komodo island, belongs to the Komodo National Park. There are fewer dragons living on Rinca but over two thousand nonetheless. It took us two hours to get out there during which Flo and I had the provided tea, coffee and water. Once landed, a ranger took us to the ticket office where you have to pay a fee for almost everything (the park itself, visiting an island, snorkelling, trekking, camera etc. and at last, the ranger’s services) before we were taken in a guided tour. At the start, you can choose if you wanna do the short, medium or long trek and we were unanimously agreeing on the short trek. Needed the time for the long trek on Komodo, you see? Continue reading →

Day 95 – Into the heat (again)

Our lovely room for the night

Our lovely room for the night

I might be getting old, but curfew rocks 😉 – we slept blissfully in the clean beds of the Congregation and got a hearty breakfast to kick start our day. I even went for the rice for the first time (the whiter than white bread is dreadful).

Because we pushed so hard to get to Ruteng yesterday, there were only manageable 120 km left to go to hit Labuan Bajo, the western port of Flores. On the way, we rode through forested hills on windy mountain roads, then through a large plateau covered in ride fields and onward, always down and west. This will be the general direction until we hit the end of Java in a month or so.

We arrived before lunch time and were happy with the first hotel we picked from the lonely planet. $17 NZD for the night, including breakfast and it had a secure spot for the bike. While still checking in, we got the first offer for a boat tour to the islands of the Komodo national park (the main reason to come here). The price was mid-range to what the lonely planet suggests and I felt absolutely no desire to shop around the harbour and main street to compare offers in the afternoon heat, so we took it.

So touristy, they even have Nutella! And no, I didn't have a crepe

So touristy, they even have Nutella! And no, I didn’t have a crepe

Labuan Bajo gives us a first taste of regions “developed for tourism” and I am getting wearier about being fleeced or taken advantage of, but so far our open and straight forward approach has worked for us. Still, seeing whites on the street and being the constant target of sales pitches is surely not something that we will overly enjoy.

… said he and went all out tourist for dinner 😉 We had fancy Italian tonight, costing about a third of what we would pay in NZ, but after almost exclusively eating in warungs with the locals for the last week, this felt supremely decadent. The pizza was OK, but we both miss our favorite Italian restaurants: Renato in Frankfurt and Scopa in Wellington.

Day 94 – Trans Flores

Today was the first time we had rice for breakfast; rice, spicy vegetables and an egg to be precise. Our accommodation included breakfast but what happened was that we got a voucher and were sent into the warung next door for it. They were slightly surprised about the early customers.

In an attempt to make it a bit more breakfast-y, we ordered tea and coffee to go with it but, honestly, it didn’t improve it.

A good way to start the day

A good way to start the day

On the way out of Ende, the road lead along the coast with beautiful black beaches that we admired profoundly. The surf breaking against the black rocks and then going up the black sand would have justified a lot more pictures than we took but we were just starting the day and didn’t want to stop too often.

Soon, the road began to lead away from the coast, into the hills and then mountains. We had entered the city of Bajawa as a way-point today. On the way, a volcano appeared on the horizon, still sending small plumes of smoke out into the atmosphere. It was a majestic sight. Flores has many volcanoes and we had been to the crater lakes of Kelimutu just yesterday but an actual volcano with smoke is an amazing thing.

May not look like much, but good food!

May not look like much, but good food!

Getting hungry, we started to look out for a warung makan at the roadside and spotted one before we reached Bajawa. It was quite crowded but as soon as we entered, a group of school girls left and thus made space for us. Stretching the little bahasa we know now and with the help of the google translate app, we were able to order for me and Flo chose a fish dish. The food was incredibly yummy, probably the best warung food we had so far. The rice and tofu came with gado gado, a local green vegetable salad and an extra bowl with soup. The soup was a vegetable broth with chives and roasted garlic but really quite spicy. Still too spicy for me to be honest but so delicious that I kept eating it despite coughing and a runny nose. Similarly, the tofu came with a sambal olek that was just a touch too hot but way too yummy to be ignored. Even Flo struggled with the hotness of the sambal and he eats way hotter than I do. So we had our meal with occasionally blowing our nose; however, we enjoyed it immensely.

As soon as we finished eating, some of the local people eating here started asking questions: Where we come from, where we are going and then, the conversation took a different turn. Instead of shifting to motorcycle talk, Primus and another gentlemen were interested in our motives for such a journey. We ended up comparing the family life of Germans and Indonesians over Flo’s local coffee. This was probably the first in-depth conversation we had with local Indonesians as they spoke English very well and if something remained unclear, google could translate it into Bahasa for us.

This is one of the reasons why I write so much about food in my daily updates. We eat in the local places, getting off our bike and taking off the helmets, having time for interactions with people that goes beyond a wave or a smile to someone at the roadside. During meals, we actually meet locals. So far, the language barrier was a big problems but the lunch conversation was simply great.

More like home: Clouds, water and ferns in the bush

More like home: Clouds, water and ferns in the bush

Back on the road, we felt energized from the encounter. Also, since it was still in the middle of the day, we skipped going into Bajawa and headed straight for Ruteng. Now the road really headed for the mountains and we were reminded of NZ a lot with all those windy roads going up and down the mountainsides, crossing over into valley after valley and taking pass after pass. Flo was pretty much in motorcycle heaven and there aren’t even many villages around to disturb the driving flow. The landscape varied between mountain tops and lush green rain forest with occasional rice patties. All of it was beautiful to behold.

I, once more, had the advantage of being able to look around, greet a lot of folks in the villages and wave to all the children at the road side. There were some heart-warming moments for us including a group of schoolkids singing a song while playing and then all waving to us and a couple of kids on the road with home-made sledges that used wheels so it would go downhill on the road. I really wish I could have taken a picture of them playing but we passed them without me even having the camera on me. Stopping and going back would have ruined the scene as they would have flocked to the spacemen with the big bike then instead of playing. Oh well…you just cannot have everything. 🙂

Individually packed cups of drinking water ... hate!

Individually packed cups of drinking water … hate!

Arriving in Ruteng, we were looking for a convent that the Lonely Planet suggested as accommodation. As always, cities are chaotic and crowded and we couldn’t find it even by going around the block. So we thought, drawing from our experience yesterday, that we try the police station again. Indeed, right after I said the words “Di mana kongregasi?”, he first pointed in a direction and then personally escorted us there on his police motorbike.

The convent turned out to be luxurious for our standards. The rooms are big, there are real showers with hot water, giving you a western standard for your $30 a night. It might be a bit pricey for us but after a long day on the bike, we took the luxus with gratitude. The guy at the reception was very surprised that we didn’t come from Bajawa or Labuanbajo but all the way from Ende and in a record time to boot.

Day 93 – Mon-three-versary!

cool fruit

cool fruit

What a day this was! It started golden already, waking up as the fishermen returned with their morning catch. The surf was still there, the view was too and the hills gave us shade from the sun long enough to get all our gear packed before the sun hits the beach. As promised our breakfast was waiting for us at Blasius’ place at 7 am. Dried banana baked in a dough mantle that looked a bit like croissants, tea and “kopi” to go with them. I love the local coffee, by the way. A lot like greek coffee, the ground and sugar are all mixed together and served unfiltered. To round it off we got offered sawo. The green fruit is eaten like a fig, broken apart and the inside that tastes a bit like sour banana with the texture of ripe pear is then nibbled out. The fruit was good, but it left a bizarre gum-like residue on the lips, like sap.

Very welcoming.

Very welcoming.

After breakfast Blasius took us and his middle son with him to his parents’ house to introduce us. We had a lovely welcome there, another round of coffee and a round of family photos. When Blasius told us that his dad is growing cocoa, amongst other things, I asked him if he had ever tried the cocoa (knowing that a lot of producers don’t know how the end product, chocolate, tastes like). He was a bit confused, nodded and wandered off. He came back with two fresh ripe cocoa pods, opened one and took a segment with bean in his mouth. We did the same and started munching away, chewing the bitter bean … when he spit the cleaned bean right back out! Turns out that one can eat the sweet sour fruity skin of the bean, which is quite good. The bean is disgusting of course, until dried, roasted and mixed with heaps of sugar …

After the visit it was time to leave and I asked what we owed for the dinner and breakfast and he said whatever we were ok to give. Ah, what a terrible burden! I gave 100k rupiah, and he seemed genuinely happy with this. After a sec, I added another 50k (all together $17.50 NZ). We did not have to pay for accommodation and the food was excellent, plus the kindness we received!

On our way down we saw 15 calmly crossing the road. Magical!

On our way down we saw 15 calmly crossing the road. Magical!

The road to Moni and on up Kelimutu was a beautiful mountain road. We had to stop for 15 minutes at a work site, but it was only a couple of turns and we could move to the shade to sit it out. The Trans-Flores Highway is great, reminding me a lot of NZ roads (although a tad less repaired). After a brief lunch in Moni, we headed up the volcano(es). From the car park it is only a 1.5 km walk to the viewing platforms. It is all about the three candela lakes here, each one a different colour and all visible from a single point. On the way we spotted macaques, shy as they should be, on the track. Wohoo, wild monkeys!

Up top we met Lili and Sebastian, a couple of French backpackers. We had a good chat and were able to fully NZ-geek-out when Lili told us about her working holiday visa and her soon to start NZ year 🙂

satisfyingly green

satisfyingly green

The road down from here to Ende leads through a super narrow valley, beautiful rice fields or rivers at the bottom of them and overall a riding highlight on this trip so far. One of these roads that deserve a youtube GoPro clip. The only downside was another road closure for half an hour and two work sites with muddy roads, but nothing too wild. When the road opened again, we got spilled through the work site in a frantic rush of motorcycles and down and out towards dusky Ende. Once there, a wrong turn got us into a police station, and after we got swarmed by officers we got a final escort through the one-way jungle to our guesthouse.

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 91 – A question of style

We got of when it was still mostly dark!

We got of when it was still mostly dark!

The boat was early! We were mentally prepared for a lot, but not really for arriving at 5:30 am, ahead of schedule. Never mind, we got a moderate level of sleep out of this night and were ready to embark onto Flores in the first light of day. After a last brief interlude – before everyone could leave, an ambulance backed onto the ferry and the coffin got heaved into it by the assembled crowd. With a long salute of the ship, the ambulance rode off into dawn, and we close behind.

View over the bay at early morning

View over the bay at early morning

I have read about a series of guest houses 100 km to the east offering beach views and much needed tranquility and not too much in terms of sights on our way there. The road offered gorgeous views and was in good repair. That allowed us to arrive at our destination still early in the day at 8:30 am. The first place we went to, Lena House, had a bungalow at the beach available. Tired and exhausted we were more than happy to call it a day and booked ourselves in.

While the room was prepared, we got into a conversation with Andy, a globetrotter character originally from the UK, and his lovely partner from Java, where they currently reside. As we were talking, we discovered that we had an interesting thing in common. A while back I would have been surprised, but NZ and traveling really made us accept that small world encounters are more common than one would think. So it turned out that both of us have hosted Chris Schlatter, a motorcycle traveller from Switzerland, and his partner Francesca at different points of their trip.

Has been alive quite recent

Has been alive quite recent

After a lot of lounging and relaxing, we decided to follow a recommendation by them to have dinner at the guesthouse next door. As it turns out they would eventually join us, and later on we were joined by She Ye and Matt. The dinner turned out to be … exciting. No meat was available in the kitchen, so Andy set out on a quest to find us something nice to share. Nina was sorted, with an eggplant curry using the only remaining eggplants. When Andy came back, there was more than one raised eyebrow. He bought meat all right. In his hand on the bike was a feathered, white and very much alive chicken! Turns out he got the directions to the chicken farm and not to any sort of butcher. Well, the bird met its timely end right there behind the kitchen and we got a great shared dinner out of it. We washed it down with some home distilled arak, a sort of palm tree spirit.

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.