Todd and Lisa's RTW trip

Sooo here we are again in our favorite place…. the singapore airport!!! We decided to do another little itinerary change and cut our time in Indo short to head up into Malaysia. It’s not that we didn’t like it there, but it was not what we were expecting. We wanted vacation!! We are tired of 3rd world countries (busses, touts, constantly bargaining and still getting ripped off etc.) We had a wonderful 2 1/2 weeks there though.

We had heard wonderful things from people we have met along the way about flores, an island east of bali. Getting the ticket was a trip. We decided on sunday that we wanted to go monday. The airline office is closed on sundays and doesn’t have their flight schedule posted on the website (why do they even have a website??). We went to local travel agents to find out when the flights left, but they told us “we don’t know because the airline office is closed”. HELLLO, isn’t it your job to HAVE flight schedules!! We got all sorts of answers. Different times from each office we went to…”hhmmm maybe around 8 or 9, or maybe 10.” We eventually decided that our best option was to just wake up early and go to the airport. So we got up at 7, to the airport at 8, and then we bought a ticket for the only plane that day… at 1!! We flew to town called Ende. There really isn’t much going on there, but it was the closest airport to Kelimutu volcano. It’s really tiny there, we could walk from the airport to our hotel. After we checked in we went to catch a bemo into town. A bemo is a kind of converted minivan into public transportation. We got picked up in what we like to call the ‘big pimpin’ bemo’. It had tinted windows, pictures of western women on the ceiling (not sexy, just head photos), and under the bench seats was a PUMPING sound system. Here’s the clencher… they were blairing 2 live crew. So here we are in the town in rural indonesia, cruising down the street listening to “heeyyy we want some Pussy”. They didn’t speak a lick of english, so we doubt that they really even knew what they were listening to. We were hysterical.

The next day we took a gorgeous and nausiating 3 hour ride to Moni. Moni was a wonderful tiny village surrounded by rice fields and mountains. It is slow season in indonesia, so we were the only tourist in town. Once we checked in to the guest house, we decided to take a walk to the nearby waterfall. On our twenty minute walk, we acquired a following of about 15 giggling children. We had fun playing with them and making them laugh at us. That evening we sat around with a bunch of the local men drinking arakk. moonshine made from palm. They brought out a guitar and started singing songs, with the old guy belting out in harmony. We must have kept the whole town up, especially during the indo. version of La Bamba!!

We woke up at 4 am the next day and took a moterbike up kelimuto vocano for sunrise. Kelimutu is famous because at the top of it there are 3 lakes. The lakes change color often and unexpectedly. Back in the day they thought it was a spirit thing, but now we know it has to do with minerals. It was really breathtaking to be that high up, watching sunrise, and seeing the 3 lakes. They were bright light greenish blue, chocolate brown and black. We were the only people up there!! After we decided to walk down th 13 km. Apparently there is a short cut to make it only 7km, but apparently it is not well marked. Although beautiful, we were not happy walking 13km at 7 am!!! When we FINALLY got back to moni, we packed up to jump on a bus and head to Bajawa. Overall, we loved moni!

The bus SUCKED!! We thought we were in India again! It took us 9 hours to get there. It would have been shorter but we got to a bridge that was closed. So the way they work it is that you switch to a bus that is on the otherside. Unless there is no bus on the otherside. We sat in the sun for about 2 hours while they unloaded the cargo off the bus, put it on the otherside of the bridge, waited for the other bus and then reload the cargo. We were trapped sitting on the hot bus becasue there we so many people around everytime we got off, we were hassled. There was also no reason to get off because there was nothing to eat!! We were hot, irritated and starving. Eventually we got to Bajawa and went to the hotel in the Lonely planet that was described as being clean and freindly… it was the opposite. Then we went to another….same story. Third time, we found a decent place to stay. We were pooped!!

Bajawa has lots of small traditional villages around it. We decieded that the best way for us to get around would be to rent a motorbike. We went to the market to find one. We ended up asking a bunch of guys hanging out on a corner if we could rent one of their bikes. It was pretty funny arranging the deal because they spoke no english… but$$$ is a universal language. Eventually, a kid handed over his keys and helmet. We drove through the surrounding area and visted a village called Bena. Unlike much of the “traditional” crap we have been to before, this was truly trad. Flores is not touristy, so the culture is very much maintained. After Bena we kept going and arrived at hot spring. It was not anything that was built or maintained, it was simply 2 rivers flowing in the forrest. One was scolding hot, the other cold and we arrived at the point which they merged. It was PERFECT! The road to get down to it was trecherous. Todd managed pretty well though. On our way back the bike started shaking and making a wierd loud noise. We were stressing because we were a long ways down many steep hills and didn’t want to have to buy the kid a new bike. We were riding and stopping and looking… but we don’t know jack about mechanics. Eventually a local dude came by, whipped out some tools and fixed ‘er up for us. THANK GOD!!!

From Bajawa we hopped on another bus to go to Labuan bajo. This was an unfortunate 11 hour bus ride!! The thing about the busses in indo. is that there is no schedule and no method to them. so we got to the bus station at 6’30 and left at 8. we also have no idea how much the bus cost… and we can’t expect them to tell us!! on our first bus we just handed the driver money.. he asked for more, we said no, he said ok. We still have no idea how much it really cost!! our second bus ride, the kinda sketchy guest house dude told us 100,000 rp each. We couldn’e believe that was right. When we got on the bus, Todd handed the driver 100,000 for the two of us and he didn’t complain. Again, we have know idea how much it really cost! Anyways, the bus to Bajawa was truly a flashback to india. Todd had a guy blowing snot rockets all over the place next to him and lisa had a puker. Not just any puker though… a puker with a small kid that eneded up on her lap for the trip while daddy had a date with a plastic bag. (we don’t sit next to each other on busses so that we can both have windows). Long bus ride later we arrived.

Flores in general was a great place to visit. Far from vacation, but really special to travel in. It is very far from being developed. We couldn’t find internet or atm’s anywhere on the island. Also the land is spectacular. Very volcanic, full of dramatic mountains and bright green sharp cliffs… similiar to Kauai but better!! We saw volcanos that looked like drawings. They were actually triangle pointed mountains…very cool.

While we were in lab. we arranged a boat trip to take us from flores, heading west to lombak (the island next to bali). It is a 2 day trip. On the way we stopped at Rinca island. Rinca island is part of Komodo NP and is home to Komodo dragons. This is the only place in the world that these dragons exist. They are actually a relative of the monitor lizard, but dragon sounds so much better. We read all sorts of stories about europeans disappearing on the island. We cautiously took a hike around the island ‘hunting dragons’. We did get to see a few, but honestly where we saw the most was around the ranger station. We were told that they can smell up to 12km away… and a bunch of tourist musta smelt good to them. While we sat at the station a dragon snuck up and around us and then went into the bathroom. We all followed to check it out, he was drinking from the toilet. Smart dragon huh? Luckily no one was using the toilet at the time!!!

The boat trip was a great way to travel back to bali. We stopped at great snorkel spots and met some fun other people. We got back to Bali for only 1 night, then left this morning for singapore. Now, you may be wondering why if we are sick of 3rd world countries we are going to malaysia. The answer is simple. We have heard/read about 2 beautiful island on the northeast coast of malaysia. Tonight we take a night train to kuala lumpur, and in the a.m. a flight to the island(palau perhentian). We are looking forward to sitting on the beach!!!!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 8:01 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.