TravelStream™ news feed for member lisa_nz on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/lisa_nz en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:17:45 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1259420834/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1259420834/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1259420834/tpod.html Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:17:45 -0500 My Return to SE Asia ...

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Bali, Indonesia

As we stepped off the Lombok-Bali ferry, the skies opened up and it hosed down, for a couple of hours! We had a very slow mini-bus ride from Padangbai (the ferry terminal in Bali) back to Kuta as a result,

We really didn't have much in the way of plans for these last few days other than to get all the clothes through a proper laundry, to meet up with some friends and get organised for the onward trip to Singapore/Malaysia.

Easy money

When I first arrived in Kuta nearly 2 months ago, I was approached several times by people with scratch-and-win type cards that offered the 'opportunity' to win a prize. All I had to do was sit in on a 1-hour presentation. And bonus for the guy that gave me the card – he would earn $50USD. These guys were practically begging for me to go. Well, I knew it was a timeshare thing, and of course I had no interest in listening. Furthermore, I had big doubts about these guys earning $50USD just for bringing tourists in to listen to a spiel about timeshares.

On our first morning back in Kuta, we walked past this guy with a stack of these scratch-and-win cards. I immediately just said ‘no thanks, I’ve already seen it’ as they approach. Well, this one guy had a ‘special deal’. He was going to split the $50USD with us! Yeah, right!

We carried on walking. We then thought about it – our cash was running low and we really didn’t want to withdraw more Indonesia money from the ATM due the high transaction costs that we’re being forced to pay (good on ya, ASB.... (and all other NZ banks!).

So..... we went back to see this guy to find out what the real deal was. I was still very sceptical that there was even $50USD being paid to this tout, much less believed that he was going to split it with us. But sure enough, that is what the deal was!

The guy handed over 250,000rp (= NZD$36) before we even jumped into his nice air-conditioned car. We were also told that we would also receive 2 T-shirts at the end – or get a 75,000rp gift voucher to use in a supermarket. This is sounding better by the minute! On the drive there, he advised us the best way to answer all the questions. (We have been married for 10 years, own a house, have just arrived in Bali for a 10-day holiday, etc, etc!)

So.... we filled in the forms and listened to the 1 hour+ spiel about a travel club – essentially a timeshare opportunity. We were given a couple of drinks, and after we said that we weren’t interested, they gave us the 75,000rp voucher, and a taxi voucher to get back to our hotel!

All in all – it took about 2 hours out of our day, we had a bit of fun – and earned a bit of money to keep us going for another couple of days – about $47 cash in the end! All in all, a good result! (The things you do for money when you are on a budget!)

Massage and sucker fish

Using our newly acquired cash, we decided to treat ourselves to some special treatments. I went for the back and foot massage, as well as a ‘cream bath’. The cream bath was essentially a shampoo and deep conditioner for my hair – and then she blow-dried it for me. It was bliss! (Usually I walk around with wet hair for hours after washing it....)

Alan had a massage as well – but he also opted for ‘sucker fish’ treatment. Basically you sit for 20 minutes with your feet and arms dangling in a tank full of these little black fish that come and nibble the dead skin off your feet. Alan said it was a tingling sensation. Hmmm...

Catch-up with friends

We met up with Stuart (from the Travelfish website that I use) and Fiona (a forum user that I have been corresponding with) for the afternoon. Stuart lives in Sanur and Fiona is travelling around Asia for the next few months, and our paths were crossing in Bali. Stuart picked us up and took us for an afternoon at a beach near Ulu Watu, followed by a fantastic seafood dinner at Jimbaran Bay. There are rows and rows of tables on the beach. All the seafood is fresh and you get to pick your dinner victims. We had an awesome dinner of king prawns, squid and fish. Yum!

Early start to the airport

We had a 7am flight to Singapore, so had to get up quite early, and left the hotel at 5.30am, missing the great breakfast that they provided. We get to the airport, and half hour later, they announce that the flight is delayed by 4 hours. Grrrr!! We could have slept in, had a decent breakfast and had a swim before leaving!

Oh well – Air Asia has a policy that they give out vouchers if flights are delayed by more than 2 hours. They don’t volunteer this info - and I had to contact them. But we got our 2 x 500,000rp (= NZD $75 each) vouchers to use on our next flights!

All in all, our couple of days in Bali ended up being financially rewarding!
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Gili Air, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia

We're on the final countdown of our days left in Indonesia. We left the main island of Lombok to head to Gili Air, one of 3 small islands just off of Lombok. (Before Alan arrived, I had stayed one of the other ones, Gili Trawangan, for 4 days or so).

We had arranged a shuttle bus/boat ride to Gili Air, which in theory, meant that we were picked up from the hotel in a bus, taken on a 45 minute ride up near the northern end of Lombok to Bangsal, form where we had a 'special boat’ to take up us Gili Air. We would be picked up by 8.30, and should be sitting on the beach in Gili Air by 10am – or so we were promised.

The first part went according to plan, but it turns out that our ‘special boat’ was really just the ‘public boat’. That in itself isn’t a problem (in spite of the boat being overcrowded, and packed solid with baskets of vegetables, etc) – but public boats don’t leave until they are full. This means you have to wait around until they sell enough tickets. Again, not really a problem, and to be fair, I think we only waited ½ hour or so – but it’s not quite the deal that we were sold. Oh well – I guess we DID talk them into knocking 30% off the published price.

Gili Air is only 3.5km (I think) from Lombok, so once we got going, we were there pretty quickly. It didn’t take us long to find a decent place (cheap rooms with a swimming pool!) – and we were in the pool by 11am or so, just an hour later than promised.

Gili Air is a bit more basic than Gili Trawangan, more quiet and laid back, and not quite so many tourists there. We chilled out for the afternoon and snorkelled off the beach.

Turtles, fish and eels

Alan was keen to see a bird sanctuary on Gili Meno the next day (to take photographs). We decided to treat ourselves and charter a glass-bottomed boat to take us snorkelling for the day. The plan was for the boat to take us to Gili Meno (the middle island) and drop Alan off to see the bird farm. While he did that, the boat was going to take me for the first snorkel of the day.

Snorkelling was awesome! First I saw a large turtle happily swimming along about 3m below me. I quietly stalked him for quite awhile until he decided he had enough and skipped over the edge into deeper water. What a sight!

A few minutes later I came across this particularly large and colourful fish – I’m guessing he was about 60-70cm long - and I watched him for ages as he methodically ripped out large chunks of coral and tossed it aside. Lots of smaller fish would move in to see what goodies had been unearthed. It was fascinating to watch! For a finale, I swam over a huge moray eel that was poking his head out from under some rocks.

We went back to get Alan and continued on with some more snorkelling on the other side of Gili Air. We came across another 4-5 turtles swimming just below us, including a big granddaddy turtle.

After stopping for lunch on Gili Trawangan, we headed back to Gili Air to do another couple of snorkel drops off of Gili Air. All in all it was a really successful day, and it was quite nice to have our own personal boat to take us where we wanted to go!

Movie time

Alan had bought a couple of cheap DVD’s on Lombok, so we asked the hotel people if we would be able to borrow their TV / DVD player in the restaurant that evening if no one else was around. They did one better than that – they grabbed a DVD player out of one of the more expensive rooms and set it up for us in our room. So Alan grabbed a beer and some chips and enjoyed a movie night! There's nothing quite like watching a wide-screen movie on a 14inch TV! :-/

Onward to Bali

We had arranged another shuttle to take us back to Bali. We travelled by boat from Gili Air back to Bangsal, in Lombok. Then a small bus took us to Lembar, at the southern end of Lombok. From Lembar, we caught a ferry to Padangbai in Bali – about a 4-5 hour ride. This is where I am writing this now. It’s a huge car ferry and the journey is slow. But there is a good strong breeze which means it’s very comfortable. It’s a good opportunity to catch up on the blog and to do some more reading!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1258280590/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1258280590/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1258280590/tpod.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:53:23 -0500 My Return to SE Asia ...

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Senggigi, Lombok, Indonesia

My first comment was going to be along the lines of 'It's so bloody hot in Lombok’ – but blow me down, we just finally had a massive dump of rain which dropped the temperature by a good 6-7 degrees I think!

There is apparently a heat wave going through parts of Indonesia, including Lombok. This trip was planned for the first month of the rainy season, but we have seen very little rain so far – maybe an hour when we first arrived over a week ago, and maybe 1-2 hours today. Wahoo – what a difference it has made – temporarily, anyhow. Prior the rain today, Alan checked the thermometer on his fancy-pants watch and it was apparently 36.8 degrees C.

To make matters worse, Lombok (along with other parts of Indonesia) are subject to regular power blackouts because the power supply is so dodgy, due to a recent explosion at some substation. This means that the fans will cut out suddenly meaning the rooms heat up very quickly! Fortunately, many accommodation places also have backup generators. But these blackouts are very painful for the locals trying to run businesses – unless they also invest in generators.

Anyhow – what we have been doing?

Senggigi

We finally made a flight out of Flores. We could only fly via Bali, but we were lucky to catch an immediate flight to Lombok. (Flying was cheaper and more convenient than boats and taxis).

We arrived in Senggigi – the main touristy area of Lombok. At the airport, we were ‘hijacked’ by some guys promoting accommodation, and we ended up scoring a fairly decent hotel with swimming pool, hot water, etc for a very reasonable price. So… why suffer when you can have a swimming pool for just an extra $5?!

Senggigi is a bit like Bali was many, many years ago – but fairly laid back. We still have to deal with the touts selling transport, sunglasses, watches, bookmarks and sarongs – but they’re not as aggressive as the Balinese ones. We also found a particular good restaurant that serves excellent Indonesian food at a very cheap price – PLUS they throw in a bowl of popcorn (!) with drinks, and give us a free fruit salad for dessert! You can’t beat that!

After 2-3 days of doing very little but eating, swimming, reading and sleeping, however, it was time to jump back on the traveller’s trail!

We decided to hire a car to travel around Lombok as public transport to where we wanted to go was few and far between, pricey and not very convenient anyhow. Once again, the car gave us flexibility to go where we wanted, when we wanted. We also managed to negotiate a fairly good deal for Lombok – 110,000rp / day – which is about NZD$17.50/day. Pretty cheap when split between two of us.

First stop – Senaru

Lombok is a round-ish island, with a massive volcano in the middle/northern area. Gunung Rinjani is the second largest mountain in all of Indonesia, and is a popular trekking area. We knew that we wouldn’t be doing any trekking, but were keen to head for the mountain area where the temps would be a bit cooler, and I hoped to meet some interesting people from the villages.

We followed the coast road around to the northern tip of the island – and it was so incredibly dusty, hot and dry (a recurring theme for us at most places we go!). We found an abandoned little bamboo warung (shop) on the side of the road, next to a beach so we stopped there for a place to sit and ate a mango for lunch. (Exciting stuff, huh?!)

At the top of Lombok, we turned inland and climbed up into the mountainous area where the air cooled (slightly!) and the scenery turned into a lush landscape.

We found a decent place to stay. There is no need for fans or aircon as the temps drop a bit at night, which was very pleasant. Once checked in, the pressure started on us to hire a guide for a walk to the waterfall, for hiking or for wherever. As soon as we stepped out of the door, everyone wanted to be our guide. It was difficult for people to understand that we were just happy to wander around and explore on our own.

Next stop – Tetabatu

The next morning we continued our journey around Mt Rinjani. Instead of following the coast, we cut inland and drove along a fairly narrow, winding and steep road through the lower mountain area. This was great, as again, the temps were pleasant and the scenery was much more interesting the flat and dry coastal road.

Tetabatu is an area that is surrounded by lots of small villages and we expected this to be an interesting area to spend a day or two in.

What we found, however, is that once again, we were hounded to death to hire guides to show us around, particularly by the people at the hotel. We really didn’t want to do this, as firstly, we have found that the local ‘guides’ do not end up sharing a huge amount of useful info anyhow, especially when you start asking questions.

Alan and I headed out for a little walk on our own – the plan was to just walk down the road and … wander, as you do! As we were leaving the room, a ‘housekeeper’ guy came to our room and sorted out our hot water. We got to talking to him, and he wanted to show us some plants around the place that we were staying (cloves, cinnamon, fruit trees, etc). We also showed us a large dark shed where they grow mushrooms as part of a village co-op. It was all interesting stuff.

Alan and I continued to walk down the drive – and he came with us, happily chatting away. He then offered to take us to his village across the road, to meet his wife. We were taken through a rabbit warren of fairly basic and ramshackle houses and he pointed out various aspects of ‘local life’. It took about 1 min before I realised we had somehow ended up on a ‘guided tour’ whether we liked it or not. I was feeling very intrusive as he pointed inside people’s homes as the family gathered on the floor to eat their dinner. It became awkward for us to escape, but we had no choice at this stage to continue without rudely walking away. We never did meet his wife, and I don’t believe this was even his village. After walking through rice fields we returned to our bungalow where he very promptly hit us up for money for his tour.

It’s so frustrating! I tried to explain to him that if he expected to be paid money for a tour, he needed to discuss and negotiate a price beforehand. He just didn’t get it. He said no problem – we just give him money for cigarettes. The money is incidental – but it leaves a bad feeling when you feel that every step you take around the place has to cost you money.

We didn’t particularly enjoy our stay in Tetabatu, and decided to move on the next day. As we weren’t interested in mountain trekking, we didn’t feel that this area was going to offer us anything and the people here (primarily at our accommodation) were rubbing us up the wrong way.

The Lombok ‘Kuta’

We gave up on the mountain area, and headed back to the beach! Many people know about the Kuta in Bali. Lombok also had a Kuta beach – but it’s very different to the Bali one! It basically is just a road that runs along the beach. There are various market stalls in bamboo huts along the beachside of the road, and accommodation places line the other side of the road.

We found one of the cheapest and better accommodation places that we’ve stayed in during our time in Indonesia. It only cost 100,000rp (NZD$15/night) for the both of us and included breakfast. It was a family-run place with a restaurant offering very good food at a reasonable price. This place brought our spirits up a bit – in spite of the crushing heat!

The best thing that we enjoyed about Kuta was a glorious beach that we visited about 10km away. We drove over the roughest road we’ve driven on yet – we would have needed a 4WD if it had been the rainy season – but it was worth it!

Mawan Beach is a crescent-shaped bay with a beautiful golden sand beach and crystal clear blue water. There was no rubbish on the beach (a first!), only 1-2 sellers (who kept away from us), and maybe 2-3 other tourists on this entire beach. There was no fish or coral here so it wasn’t any good for snorkelling – but it was just an awesome swimming beach. Probably the best I’ve seen so far in Indonesia. I didn’t have to worry about creepy-crawlies in the water and I could see the sandy bottom even when the water was over my head. Pure bliss!

We also did a tour through Sade, a traditional ‘Sasak’ village. The Sasaks are the original Lombok inhabitants as I understand it. We got to see inside a typical traditional village, saw one of the wells where they collected water – and had plenty of opportunity to buy local wares. It was interesting – but again, we were left with a bad taste after the guide told us to not leave money in the ‘Village donation’ box (it would be taken by the government rather than given to the village) and that instead we should pay our ‘donation’ to him directly to distribute. It didn’t ring quite true – but who do you believe? How do you know what’s really going on?

Back to Senggigi

After 3 nights in Kuta, we stopped at the shopping mall in Mataram (the admin district of Lombok) where we enjoyed a lunch at KFC (!!) and bought some groceries at the supermarket. We made our way back to Senggigi for another 3 nights and plan to move on to Gili Air tomorrow. (Gili Air is one of the 3 Gili Islands off of the top of Lombok; I stayed on another one, Gili Trawangan, before Alan arrived in Bali).

It’s insanely hot at the moment – which has been temporarily relieved by the heavy downpour I mentioned at the start of this post.

All in all, Lombok has been a bit of disappointment for us. I think we are getting worn down by all the people who are trying to sell us something – whether it be tacky souvenirs or some sort of service. The Indonesians that we meet along the way are usually lovely and very friendly. Many young ones will approach us in the street and want to strike up a conversation so that they can practice their English. But the tourist numbers are down, and the sellers are working overtime to get us to buy something. It just wears me down. I was the one telling Alan in the beginning that you have to do roll with it, be polite and tell them ‘Tidak mau’ (I don’t want it). However, I’m the one getting the most frustrated by it now and he's just taking it in his stride.

I don’t feel that we have learned anything about the culture of Lombok, which has been disappointing for me personally, nor really gotten to know any of the local people. We’ve spent far too much time in Senggigi enjoying a ‘resort’ lifestyle (albeit on a budget!) and whilst it has been nice, it wasn’t quite the way I had expected things to go.

We will have a couple of nights on Gili Air for a few days of snorkelling, then back to Bali for 2-3 nights before heading off for the next stage of our journey (more on that later!)



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Moni, Flores, Indonesia

Moni is a very tiny village that is fairly basic. There are a few places to stay, and a few very basic restaurants. The place we stayed in had been described in Lonely Planet as a couple of ramshackle bungalows – but the owners replaced these a year or so ago with a decent block of 4 rooms so they rooms were still reasonably clean and tidy.

Going out for a meal requires an unusual amount of patience in Flores, and especially in Moni! You are given a menu and a pad of paper on which to write your order. After deliberating for awhile, you write your order, then wait for them to come back and read it. This may take awhile. When they do come back, they tell you that half of what you ordered is off the menu. (We later found out why: they don't have much in the way of refrigeration due to the unreliable electricity. So they don’t have chicken, for example, unless there is a group of say 4 people to make it worthwhile running out back and dealing to one of the chickens wandering outside.) Your meal then arrives one item at a time. By the time Alan finished his meal, I was able to start mine! Oh well – just as well we’re not in a hurry to go anywhere.

The scenery here is beautiful. There are lots of green rice fields and other vegetable gardens, volcanic mountains in the distance. And the temperature is really pleasant as it’s up quite high. It’s almost just a bit chilly in the evenings…. Almost, but not quite. You don’t need to worry about having a fan in the room, and there have been no signs of mosquitoes.

Market Day

Our first full day in Moni was spent just exploring village life. Today was market day for the village, and as we were only 500m or so from the market, we were woken early by the sounds of the cars, motorcycles and tooting bemos arriving, along with some lovely Indonesian pop music broadcast loudly over a speaker system.

People from all the surrounding villages bring their goods to sell, and everyone drives away with bags full of veges and a chicken or two. You can buy just about everything you need: fruits and vegetables, hardware, clothing, ikat (a special local woven fabric). I couldn’t find a replacement wireless PCMIA card for my laptop though. Oh well – you can get almost anything..

The majority of the women at the market (and everywhere else in Flores, for that matter) chew betel nut as a kind of stimulant. Aside from the fact that it leaves their mouths, teeth and tongues stained a horrendous black-ish red colour, it also corrodes their teeth. I have never seen such terrible teeth (if they were lucky enough to have retained any, that is).


The kids all love having their photograph taken – and often ask us to take their photo. They get the biggest kick of then looking at the photo on the digital camera playback. But many of the women outright refuse to have their photos taken. I think this is because they are ashamed of their teeth. The ones that would allow us to photograph would quickly wipe the red stain away from their mouth and clamp their mouth shut without smiling.
Exploring a local village

Rather than do a village 'tour’ which was on offer for a ridiculous price, we decided to just walk along the road that led through several villages. It was nice to enjoy the country air and stop to talk to some of the locals along the way.

We passed a group of women sitting on their veranda, chewing on sugar cane. They invited us in for a chat and to try some of the sugar cane. They asked the usual set of questions (where are you from, where are you going, how many children do you have). Instead of making up my two imaginary children, I decided to be truthful and tell them that we didn’t have any. Well, you should have seen the look they gave Alan – he is obviously to blame! I think he is now happy for me to tell the little white lies about having 2 kids rather than suffer another one of those looks again!

At another house, a couple of young girls were weaving ikat cloth. We asked if we could have a look so they pulled up some chairs and allowed us to watch for a while and learn a little bit about the process of making a ikan cloth. It takes up to a month to make a sarong-size piece of cloth.

Hire-a-driver

We knew that we had to start making plans for transport the next day for our visit to Kelimutu volcanic lakes, plus we needed transport to our next destination. Our intention was to catch a bus from Moni – but this would be difficult as Moni was a drop-off point only; no buses originated from here. We would be forced to squeeze on to an already-overcrowded bus. And I mean it would be so overpacked that people would be hanging out the doors, and sitting on top. There would be dead and alive animals. There would be spewing passengers. We would have to transfer to another bus along the way – and who knew how long THAT process could take just to get going. This was going to be our longest leg, 7-8 hours if we were lucky, but more likely 10-12 all up. All this on ‘spaghetti roads’, as the locals call it.

Many people hire a driver to take them across Flores. We resisted this when we first landed in Maumere, but we were starting to see how attractive this option was. It was going to kill our budget, but we also knew it was going to make the difference to us in actually being able to enjoy Flores. And this would allow us to stop at interesting places along the way.

So.. we now have a chauffer in our own private car. We negotiated it to 500,000rp (NZD$75/day) for 5 days. In Indonesian terms this seems ridiculously high, but we rationalized it back to NZ terms – and decided it really wasn’t that much, especially when it was split between two of us, and when we considered that we would have hire people to take us to the sights that we wanted to visit anyhow.

Kelimutu Lakes

Up at 4am, ready for a 4.30 departure up to Kelimutu to see the lakes at sunrise. There are lakes, each a different distinct colour. What makes them interesting is that almost overnight, one of the lakes will change colour. They have a chart showing the different colours that the lakes have been over the years: green, chocolate, light green, blue, maroon, black. One of the lakes had changed to a light milky green the week before we arrived so that there were now 2 green lakes. Apparently they have never had the lakes the same colour before (or for a long time, anyhow).

After a 1km walk from the carpark we reached the top, but unfortunately missed the actual sunrise. There were maybe 4 other tourists there at any one time, and a couple of locals selling coffee and instant noodles.

Awesome stuff!
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Kanawa Island, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Stranded on a deserted island

One night in the port town of Labuanbajo was more than enough. Now that we knew we would need to fill in 4 days before our flight back to Bali, we figured we would base ourselves on a small island, Kanawa Island, about 45 mins by boat out of Labuanbajo.

OK – picture this. A small little island surrounded by beautiful blue tropical waters teaming with colourful coral and fish. Lush grassy grounds with cute little bungalows dotted along the beach. An open-air restaurant serving divine Indonesian food and pina coladas next to the infinity pool. And a handful of fellow travellers to share it with – just enough to make it interesting, but not so many that it feels crowded.

OK – that's NOT where we were! The boat dropped us off on a long, rickety old wharf that had a fairly precarious wobble as we walked along. Half the planks weren’t nailed down properly or had partially rotted. We learned later as we snorkelled underneath why the wharf wobbled so much - half the supporting posts were just dangling in the water. They weren’t secured to anything!

We were taken to the open-air restaurant and pretty much just left there. (No singing guitar-playing welcome party with shell lei necklaces to be found here!). Someone, without actually speaking to us, eventually showed us to our bungalow.

The island is extremely dry, arid and dusty. We walked past several bungalows until we reached our one (the farthest one away) and I swear it felt like a ghost town here. The place just has an abandoned feel to it. Doors were swinging in the breeze; some had broken windows with curtains flapping outside. A broken chair was lying outside another. We were waiting for the tumbleweed to blow down the walkway. Our 'guide’ opened our door and walked away. No welcome, no introduction or explanation.

We were the only guests here – for the entire 4 days that we spent here! A few showed up for an hour or two as a stop on their snorkel trip, but otherwise we had the island to ourselves. The electricity is turned on from 6pm-11pm only. Water is limited as they have to bring it in from the mainland. We had to ask for the water to be turned on each time we wanted to have a ‘shower’ or wash clothes, or ‘flush’ the toilet.

We didn’t actually have a shower or toilet; this was an old-style outdoor Indonesian bathroom with a squat ‘hole in the ground’ toilet and a ‘mandi’. The mandi is a large container of water and you use a small handheld bucket to scoop up the water to pour over yourself to bathe, or to flush the toilet.

All of this was manageable – but service of any form was non-existent! There were maybe 4 ‘staff’ working here – and I use that term very loosely! No one took the slightest bit of notice of us. Mostly they just spend time on texting on their cell phones, or sitting around their table. We walked into the restaurant – and after 10 mins or so, would get the menus ourselves. We then walked back up to tell them what we wanted. And then we waited. And waited – for an hour (no kidding) for our meal to come! Honestly, how long does it take to cook up fried rice and fried noodles? And the food was so bad that by Day 2 I decided I just wanted scrambled eggs on toast. Well, that was a problem as they had run out of bread. I settled for fruit salad – but they only had 2 fruits left. They ran out of Sprite. We stuck to vegetarian dishes as anything else just seemed to dodgy. The fish could have been OK as we saw them catch it in the morning – but it was left to dry out in the sun during the day. No thanks! I could have ordered chicken, but there was only one chicken running around and I didn’t want to be the cause of it’s demise.

Having said all of that, we DID at least have beautiful tropical waters teaming with colourful fish! We did lots of snorkelling right off the beach and saw a good range of marine life, including eels, small rays, sunfish, starfish, an octopus and my favourite – dozens of little Nemo’s!

The island was so quiet. No cars and motorbikes, mosque calls to prayer, and only one rooster to announce that it was (almost) time to wake up. Mosquitoes were non-existent. There was a lovely breeze blowing most of the time which meant the temperature was really pleasant. At night we could sleep with the door open and enjoy the fresh sea breeze. And the snorkelling really was quite good.

Aside from reading and snorkelling there really isn’t anything else to do here. Alan walked around the island early one morning – that took him an hour, including photo stops. And we watch the fish swimming around the wharf, dead fish drying in the sun, and ants carrying away grains of sugar off the table. Hmmmmm.. it really IS a stress free place to be.

Alan tends to have one beer a day, usually with dinner. After the 3rd day, I told Alan that I knew we had been here for 3 days as there were 3 empty bottles lined up on the floor. Having nothing better to do one night while waiting for dinner, I rewrote this little ditty:

3 bottles of beer on the floor; 3 bottles of beer.
Another night, Alan has one more,
4 bottles of beer on the floor.

Yep – things are pretty quiet on this island…..!

At the end of our 4th day, we got our bags organized for the boat trip back to Labuanbajo and for the flight back to Bali. We went to the restaurant to try and rustle someone up for our final ‘feast’ – and one of the guys handed me his cell phone. It was the travel agent guy who had booked our ticket to Bali. Apparently the flight had been cancelled, and we would now have to go a day later. Argh!!! We had already waited 4 days until we could get a seat in the first place. I tried to find out why the flight was cancelled – and got the usual vague type of answer that didn’t really answer my question: "Today all the Muslims are travelling to Mecca so maybe they cancel the flight tomorrow". Huh? We just gave up and rolled with it; it’s about all that you can do here. As we ate dinner, the generator died, so that’s the end of the electricity.

We decided that we would head back to Labuanbajo the next day anyhow as it would get us just that much closer to the airport. Knowing our luck, if we stayed another day a cyclone would move in and prevent us from leaving the island!

Up close and personal with Komodo dragons

Before we left Labuanbajo, we had arranged to do a day trip to Rinca Island to see the Komodo dragons, one of the key reasons for coming to Flores in the first place. The dragons can be seen on both Komodo and Rinca islands, but apparently they are more abundant on Rinca.

Komodo dragons are large monitor lizards that can grow up to 3m long. One dragon can bring down a buffalo with a single, poisonous bite. They can run up to 18km an hour I think so would have no problem catching one of us!. They are not something you want to mess around with.

We enjoyed a 2 hour boat ride to Rinca past lots of islands – it was lovely to just get off our own little island for the day and see something different. On Rinca, we had a guide to take us for a 2 hour walk to see the dragons along with buffalo and monkeys. The guide carries a large stick to keep the dragons at bay.

As we wander along the track, we spotted a few nesting dragons. They just stare as we walk by, within 15-20 feet. Lucky for us (?!), a dragon had taken down a buffalo that morning further up stream, so we were taken there. It was pretty ghastly. Most of the skin had been ripped off the buffalo, and there were 3-4 dragons chowing down as we watched. Alan was busy photographing, and I was doing my best to not watch the feast, but instead to kept an eye on the dragon that was crawling up behind Alan, who was sitting between the dragon and the buffalo. It’s amazing to think that we were so close to such dangerous animals: no fences to keep them separated from us! And of course, I’m not sure what good the guide and his stick would have been if one decided to eat one of us for dessert!

It was a fascinating day! Afterwards, the boat dropped us off for some more snorkelling – which was a nice respite from the heat of Rinca.

Waiting, waiting

So now, we are back in Labuanbajo, killing time, drinking yummy mixed fruit juices at the only decent restaurant in Labuanbajo and making use of their internet, connection. With a bit of luck, we’ll catch our flight tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422981/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422981/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422981/tpod.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:11:01 -0500 My Return to SE Asia ...

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Labuanbajo, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Onward with our travels to Labuanbajo, our final destination. We figured we would stay here for a night or two, with the primary aim being to organize transport to Lombok, and to see the Komodo dragons.

We were less impressed with Labuanbajo when we arrived. It's another port town with not much on offer other than lots of travel agents offering snorkelling and Komodo trips.

We decided that we didn’t want to do the 2-3 day boat trip to Lombok (via Komodo or Rinca) and instead would fly. Except there are no flights to Lombok – so we will have to fly to Bali, then take a boat (or fly) back to Lombok. More doubling back!

The first flight to Bali was in 5 days time. Yikes – that was at least 3 days longer than we wanted to stay. We figured the next best thing would be to go to an outer island where we could get away from the hustle of the port, do some snorkelling, and arrange a day trip to Rinca to see the Komodo dragons.

We read up on 1-2 outer islands, and picked Kanawa Island which was supposed to have excellent snorkelling. We figured that wouldn’t be a bad way to kill 4 days. So we made sure we had a good supply of reading material – and off we went.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422861/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422861/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422861/tpod.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:09:25 -0500 My Return to SE Asia ...

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Ruteng, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Leaving Bajawa, we continued on for another 5 hour drive to Ruteng. Along the way we stopped at a local arak (rice wine) distillery which is made from palm sugar and takes several days to make. They have 4 grades, ranging from 20% - 50% alcohol. We tried that 50% one – and I gagged after the first sip. Alan polished off the rest of the taste sample – and had a headache later that day as a result!

In Ruteng, we went to a place that we found in the Lonely Plant guide, but they were full. They suggested we stay at another place – and I wasn't sure at first if he was saying 'the nut house’ or the ‘nun house’. Either way, it sounded … interesting. We were told that it was nice and clean, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

Well – it turns out if was a nun’s convent – and this was by far the nicest accommodation we had in all of Flores. Who would have believed it? The room was tiny, but it was immaculate. The bathroom was completely tiled and scrubbed clean. It had a ventilation fan, a flush toilet, a proper shower (with hot water!) with excellent water pressure. (Oh it’s the small things that mean so much!) We had hand towels AND bath towels. And all for less that we had been paying at other places. And it included breakfast! The only condition: we had a 9pm curfew which is when the gates closed. Not a problem for us – I’m usually dead to the world by then!

We found a nice little restaurant for dinner – Agape Café. They roast their own coffee, and I couldn’t resist ordering a ‘Coffee Hot Chocolate’. Yum – this was the best mocha ever!

For most travellers, Ruteng is really just a place to stop for the night, to break up the journey – which is what we did. But we found the people here to be some of the nicest people that we met. There were many young students who very politely would come up to us and say "Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you but I would like to ask you your name (or where you are going)". They really just wanted to practice their English. And when we stopped to ask directions, we had 3 different lots of people walk us to the places that we were looking for.

The next day, back at the convent, we woke to the lovely sounds of choir singing. It sure beats the motorbikes, honking bemos and roosters!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422763/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422763/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1257422763/tpod.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:07:10 -0500 My Return to SE Asia ...

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Bajawa, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

After getting up early for sunrise to see the Kelimutu Lakes near Moni, we continued our journey towards Bajawa, another town in the hills. Bajawa is known for the many traditional villages in the area.

This leg of the journey was our longest one – about 7 hours of driving all-up. Having our own driver and our own car certainly made a difference for us. There was no let-up in the winding roads – I doubt that you'd find a straight road that was longer than 50m here! The roads are just a series of hair-pin curves, with the road constantly doubling back on itself. At least the driver seemed to be a reasonably careful driver, unlike the Balinese death-defying drivers. Luckily for us, there were only a few occasions that he overtook on blind corners. It could have been worse!

The scenery is stunning here though. We saw rice fields that would rival those in Bali. We passed by imposing, smoking volcanic mountains. We stopped at a beach with the most amazing coloured stones, in particular these turquoise blue-coloured ones.

We planned to stay 2 nights here after having a full day of driving. This would give us a full day to explore Bajawa and the nearby villages.

In the morning, our driver took us to two traditional villages: first Bela village, and then Bena. It’s hard to describe what these are like. You are expected to pay a small fee for the privilege of invading their private life for a few moments and to take a few photos. The conditions are incredibly primitive, although both villages seem to have power. They carry water from the river or nearby springs. The houses are rudimentary thatch huts.

After wandering around the Bela, we stopped to chat with an elder for quite awhile. He spoke limited English but was very interested in finding out about us and about New Zealand. I asked if I could take a photo of him, and he ran inside to grab a towel which he wrapped around this head. (I’m not sure why!). I showed him the photo that I took of him and Alan, and I guess he decided it was too formal as he wanted another one, this time with their heads together.

Later that day we went to a hot water waterfall, about an hour out of Bajawa. It was awesome – and just about the only time we had a hot water shower in Flores! There are two rivers, one hot and one cold, which join up at the water falls. So depending on where you go, you can find yourself a hot spot, a cool spot – or a lukewarm spot. It was fascinating to sit under a waterfall that was gushed such hot water!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1256792660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1256792660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1256792660/tpod.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:05:41 -0500 My Return to SE Asia ...

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Moni, Flores, Indonesia

W nice and early, we were packed and ready to go by 8.30. At 9am, our driver shows up in a fairly decent car. The bags are loaded into the car and we are ready to go, when the driver tells us we can choose to pay another 200,000rp (NZD$30) on top of the 120,000 we were already paying if we wanted to head off for Moni now. Otherwise, we would have to wait until we fill up the car with more passengers. (We took this to mean that they had to get a total of 6 passengers).

I asked how long this was going to take: about 3 hours. I just about choked! After some discussion with Alan, we agreed however, that we would not pay the money, and they could recruit some more passengers. Why did it take 3 hours? Because that's when other busses would be arriving from other parts of the island, and they would have people that also wanted to go to Moni, our destination.

So, we parked in the cool shade under a large tree, and waited. And waited. After an hour or so, the driver’s friend jumped in, started up the car and we took off into the city, No explanation as to what was going on, of course, but we assume that after spending the last hour on his cellphone, he had found some passengers. But it wasn’t to be. This performance was repeated a couple of times.

We waited for awhile at a petrol station (no shade except under the forecourt) and waited for the buses to arrive to fill up with gas. We found two more passengers (local guys). And then we picked up a family of 3 – along with their dead chicken!

So now we are ready to go. The driver jumps into the driver’s seat, then his two 'friends’ also jumped into the car. There were 4 in the back seat (plus the dead chicken), 5 in our seat (including a young girl) and 3 in the front, with 2 people sharing the front passenger seat. So much for only needing 6 people! (Fortunately we did drop off 2 of the people about ½ hour into the journey).

Within 10 minutes of driving, the young girl next to Alan starts throwing up. Oh joy! And she repeated this about once every 15 mins. Poor Alan!!

Flores has the windiest roads I have ever come across. Motion sickness isn’t normally a problem for me, but I felt pretty dodgy by the end of this 3 hour busride. NZ has some pretty windy roads, but nothing like this. It’s hair-pin curve after hair-pin curve the entire way with very few straight patches. The roads are narrow and steep and the driving it a bit hairy. On the upside, the scenery is just amazing. This is such mountainous country – incredible!

At the end of 3 hours, the driver stopped fairly abruptly in an area that I would call ‘the middle of no where’. He turns around and declares that this is ‘Moni’, our destination. We jumped out, got our bags – and just stared around us wondering where to go!

After finding somewhere for a drink, leaving Alan with the bags while I wandered off in search of accommodation, we found somewhere that was fairly decent and reasonably priced pretty quickly.

Moni is a tiny little village, with the key attraction being the Kelimutu volcano with the 3 lakes that change colour on a regular basis. In fact one lake had just changed from chocolate brown to green just last week.

We had a little wander through the village before finding somewhere for dinner. We were pretty wiped out after the harrowing drive. What we expected to be a 2-3 hour journey ended up taking over 6! But when we think what it could have been like in a public bus, we were pleased we hired the shared taxi.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1256789936/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1256789936/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/lisa_nz/2/1256789936/tpod.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:16:24 -0400 My Return to SE Asia ...

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Maumere, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

The flight from Bali (delayed by an hour) first stopped in Sumbawa (the island in between Lombok and Flores) before landing in Flores. After having a gorgeous views of Java and Bali when I flew in from Singapore, I was looking forward to some more fabulous views on this flight, but the cloud cover finished off that idea.

We landed in Maumere around 4pm, and knowing that we would be leaving early the next day, we decided to stay in the town area rather than going to the nicer beaches further out.

They say that Pittsburgh is the armpit of the nation in the US; well, Maumere is the equivalent of that, here in Flores! The town was pretty much a dump. Rubbish everywhere (and believe me, we've seen some pretty bad rubbish in our travels so far!), stagnant and smelly open drains, a surprising amount of graffiti around the place – and Alan lost count of the number of rats he saw.

Our room was just tolerable (although I think Alan will debate that point!) – and funnily enough, it was rated by the Lonely Planet guide and another blog that I had read as the best place in town. But it was cheap (90,000rp for the 2 of us = NZD$14. And it included breakfast… which consisted of coffee and green bread (green from the pandan leaf), butter and jam. I asked for mine to be toasted – and they ended up making a toastie out of it: butter on the outside, and jam on the inside. But it wasn’t actually toasted – just warmed up!

Maumere was a disappointing start to Flores, but we knew that Maumere was rundown, and it was only for the night.

Apparently, Maumere suffered a massive tsunami back in 1992 which killed 20,000 people and destroyed the coral reef that was supposed to be quite spectacular. And of course, it destroyed many homes and buildings. Apparently the government (local and otherwise) have done little to help re-establish the town, hence it’s ramshackle appearance. We saw one abandoned, concrete block building that had massive sections missing from the wall, and we did wonder whether it was leftover from that period.

I also found that my ability to speak Indonesian wasn’t being appreciated here in Maumere! No one could understand me, and no one spoke much English (aside from the guys at the hotel). Dinner was ordered by pointing to pictures in a book. In Muamere, it seemed many spoke Sikkanese (sp?), a local dialect.

Our first priority was to establish how we were going to get to Moni, our next destination on Flores. We spoke to someone at the hotel who tried to convince us to hire him as our personal driver for the days that we would be spending in Flores. He had a 6-day program outlined, for a mere 650,000rp per day (about NZD$100 per day). This was just for a driver, with very limited (if any) English. We could also hire the guy that we were talking to, to provide the English commentary – but this would be significantly more. We didn’t bother asking how much, and told him that both options were out of our backpacking budget.

So back to the original plan: to catch a public bus for the 3 hour ride. A couple of locals tried to talk us out of it, saying that they buses were often very crowded, that they often didn’t’ leave until they filled it up with people which meant we could be driving around for awhile trying to recruit additional passengers. They suggested that for just a few dollars more, we could hire a 'shared taxi’ instead.

The shared taxis are actually quite nice, comfortable vehicles. The idea (we thought) is that they hold 6 people. Our ‘friend’ called his ‘friend’ and it turns out they had 2 seats available, and could pick us up at the hotel at 9am. This seemed a much better option making our way to the bus terminal, then muck around for another hour or so while they tried to fill the bus.

So we agreed that this was the plan. We figured we would leave at 9am, and be checked in at Moni by 11.30 (seeing that a shared taxi would be much quicker that a large old bus) giving us the afternoon to explore.

How wrong could we have been?!

(I didn't take many photos here, and the ones here are pretty shoddy, and we haven't loaded Alan's on to the PC yet. Check back later for some updates.)



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