Boat trip to Flores

  Labuanbajo, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The next day, I took a minibus to Sengiggi from where I was about to get on a three day boat trip

Party on the beach

to Flores, a big island east of Lombok. Before I get on the boat, I had a "day off" that I spent on the beach, reading, relaxing, sleeping, eating, all those enjoyable things you normally do while on vacation. That was well needed before the couple of nights I was about to spend on the boat. The first day was a bit too much organised tour type of thing for me, but what else could I expect when I am about to spend three days and two nights on a fifteen metres boat with 23 other people. Once on the boat, we sailed straight away in order to reach a small deserted island before sunset so that we could snorkel around the coral plantations that are made around the island. I've ever see coral that colourful, it was beautiful. We stayed on the island for the evening, having a BBQ on the beach, singing, dancing, just playing around the bonfire.

Singing on the beach

I was on the boat with a fantastic crew, some real cool people and some more quiet ones. We got on the boat for the night and as I was sleeping on the deck, we have been give a little mat that we used earlier on the beach and a small pillow each, needless to say there is no guarantee you will get the same pillow the following night. We lay them all down on the floor and we have a 4m x 4m big bed for half of the people on the boat. I started the night on the upper deck where all the young people were.

Sleeping on the lower deck

It was completely outside and it was brilliant to be able to lay on your back and just enjoy the stars. But later during the night, you could also enjoy the sprinkle from the waves and the cool wind from the night, so I changed bed and went to "sleep" on the more crowded lower deck with the more quiet people. It was rough, the waves, the crowd, the noise from the engine, the smell from everything, the hard ground, so I decided to check on my bag cause I noticed earlier that for some reason it was in what they called a cabin. It was actually a small metallic plate with some mattress looking foam that you could lay flat ornearly flat as there was not enough room. But hey ! No complaints, it was much better than what I had before. Lucky enough, there was nobody in there, the cabin was open and my bag was comfortably laying on the mattress looking thing. No hesitation here, I went in, closed the door and went to sleep on what after the two "beds" I have tried so far was pure luxury. It is funny how a couple of months backpacking in south east Asia just lower your standards. It is a good feeling to be satisfied with very simple little things.

The sunrise

Well I had a terrible night anyway and went back to my first bed, the one on the upper deck with the young guys in order to watch a beautiful sunrise. We got off the boat right after sunrise for a little hike on a small island home to a salty lake. Interesting to swim in there. All flat, peaceful lake surrounded by mountains but bit more snorkeling, some swimming and kayaking. Later on, we also stopped in a little very remote village on the island of Sumbawa. It was the first time the crew was stopping there and that was easy to tell. All the kids and they were representing 70% of the population in this village, were so intrigued, following us in big groups, surrounding us, staring at us, smiling, laughing, muttering.

Woman in "the village"

It was a very weird experience. A bit like being an animal in a zoo. Not that I know what it's like, but after this, I can imagine the feeling. I normally feel like an alien in Indonesia, but in that village, I was even more of an alien, something like an albino alien. The inhabitants of the village were the ones taking pictures of us, with their cell phones, yes even in the most remote places, they have TVs, DVDs and cell phones.

We got to walk around the village, play with the kids and see a bit of their houses and way of life....very remote. After this experience, we were back on the boat for a nice evening and dinner. This time, no more messing around looking for a bed, I went straight to "my private" cabin. The night was much better than the previous one, that was not hard. What was the hardest was just the constant shaking and waving from the boat, along with the lack of privacy. There was only two toilets for all the 23 people. The shower, well a hose, was in the toilet, so you could step on the Turkish style toilet to shower (That is when the sea is quiet, otherwise, better get good balance not to fall in !). There was only one sink, next to the engine room, kind of in the middle of the living/playing/eating/sleeping room. Hard to pop your pimples discretly.

We stopped only once arrived at Komodo island where we could go on a hike to see komodo dragons.

Komodos

Because it is dangerous, komodos do eat all kind of meat, including human flesh, it is a well organised track with rangers and guides. We saw a lot of animals, deer, wild boars, huge spiders, baby komodos, but only one big komodo. How many did I need to see, one was quite a highlight. Seeing that prehistoric dinosaur looking big lizard walk around, stare at us and stick out its tongue every minute was more than enough. We also went snorkeling and swimming in red beach which gets its name from the red sand.

Eating on the boat

A bit more jumping from the boat and fooling around. At some point, I was pulled by the boat, holding a rope, needless to say, I drank a lot of salty water ! And off we go to the last six hours of our sailing trip, sailing towards Labuan Bajo, the harbour on the east side of Flores. We had our farewell dinner on the boat.It transformed into a big and long party, well served with "arak", the local alcool from palm wine. Once again, we had to say goodbye,that is what my trip is all about.