Flores trip: Day 3

We left the hotel around 8am after breakfast, dropped by for a while (sure, photo sessions) to a complex of traditional houses in the center of Ruteng, and also managed to send some postcards at the local post office. We headed to Golo Curu (means a hill used as a meeting point - according to Donatus) in north of Ruteng. It is a pilgrimage area where you can find a shrine with a statue of Virgin Mary at the top of the hill. We got a beautiful view of terasiring rice fields from the top and also met a hyperactive cow that wanted to follow us (or was it only Ole, I did not remember exactly :-P) in a 'scary' way.


Leaving Golo Curu, we continued our exploration to Compang Ruteng, a Manggarai traditional village. We visited one of the two traditional houses in the village with a guide to show us around.


After spent some time in Compang Ruteng, we started our journey to Bajawa with a stop by at Ranamese lake which is located right next to the main road Ruteng-Bajawa (surrounded by a wall, made it kind of a hidden lake :-P) and a palm wine refinery.


We reached Bajawa around 3pm and decided to stay at Edelweiss hotel with a nice view of Mount Inerie. After taking a rest a bit at the hotel, we went to Mangaruda hot spring at Soa, about one hour from Bajawa. The water is quite hot at the main pool so we moved to the side pool which has some jacuzzi effects (ask Ole for that :-P). We left the hot spring before dark and returned to the hotel afterward.

Flores trip: Day 2

We had a 'wake up call' at 5am because the boat started to leave Rinca for Komodo island. It was dawn already. The sea was calm and the islands that we passed through was so beautiful creating a such tranquil image. Almost forgot that I woke up too early that day :-P


We reached Loh Liang in Komodo island around 7am and after registered at the PHKA office (we still can use the entrance ticket that we bought at Rinca), we joined a free 1-hr trekking around Komodo island. We did not see so many komodos in Komodo island, we only saw some of them around the PHKA office, but there are some special birds and we found a small poisonous green snake (scary!) , and saw some deers too. We did not spend a long time there since we had to reach Pink beach early before the current came.


We stopped around Pink beach area, still a bit far away from the beach... we could see the colorful fish, blue starfish and beautiful corals through the clear green water. It was beautiful even for me who could not do snorkeling at that time. It must have been more beautiful to see them under the water.


After spending some time snorkeling and watching people snorkeling (that's me :-P), we left Komodo island for Kanawa island on the way back to Labuan Bajo. Kanawa is about one hour from Labuan Bajo and it was mentioned that it has a bungalow resort. But when we arrived, the island was so quiet we even thought that it was only us there. It looked like a deserted island, there were some bungalows indeed but nobody's there. The beach was beautiful with a crystal clear water so that we can see the swarm of fish swimming. We walked along the beach and had some (jump) photo sessions. It was really sunny and warm on the beach but we could not help spending some time there, so much for darker skin (that I regretted later on) :-P


We reached Labuan Bajo around 3pm. The car that we have rented through Pak Tasri has been waited for us with Donatus, our driver for the next five days. We started directly our road trip to Ruteng, a four-hour winding road from Labuan Bajo.

It was a bit raining (and dark and we were all tired) when we arrived in Ruteng around 7pm, so we decided to take a big room for all of us in Rima hotel, the first hotel that we found in Ruteng based on Lonely Planet's recommendation.

Flores trip: Day 1

We officially met each other during breakfast in our hotel in Kuta and we left for the airport around 9am. Our flight was scheduled at 10am and unfortunately it was delayed for one hour. The good thing about the delay is that we managed to have our return flight tickets from Maumere to Denpasar that day since we were on the waiting list in the previous day.

It was my first time flying with Fokker 50, kind of funny experience because we had to weigh ourselves and our cabin luggages during the check in. But the flight was okay, it was not as scary as I thought :-P

We arrived in Labuan Bajo around 1pm and were picked up by Ino, the guy who arranged our boat rental, to the port. Then we met Marzuki and Rusdi, the captain and helper of our boat, we departed directly after we arrived at the port since we were already late because of the flight delay and we had our first lunch on board not so long after.

We reached Loh Buaya, in Rinca island around 4pm. Loh Buaya is one of the two developed visitor site in Komodo national park, the other one is Loh Liang in Komodo island. After registered and paid the entry tickets at the PHKA office, we took a two-hr trekking around the island. Oh and we encountered the komodos for the first time when we entered the PHKA office, there were 3-5 of them under the houses. They look lazy but scary. We did 2-hr trekking in Rinca and it was a bit muddy because of the rain (but the trekking was great, nice sceneries and we met some more komodos). After the trekking we decided to go to the toilet to clean up a bit and our guide has left us alone.Then as you can guess, there was one Komodo approaching us without we knew his coming. It's really quite close to us (like 2-3 meters) and we screamed to call the guide but thanks God, the komodo decided that we were not that interesting after all and he just returned back after ... had an eye to eye contact with us :-P

We left the PHKA office in Rinca around 7pm and was too late to go to Kalong beach to see the swarm of bats coming out from their nests. It was dark already and we were a bit dissapointed that we missed it (blaming our flight delay again :-P) but it turned out that they would not come out anyway if it rains... at least that was Marzuki told me, maybe to comfort us :-)

We stayed overnight on the boat, first time experience to me to stay overnight on a wooden boat :-P

Flores trip: Introduction

The Flores trip is my ultimate destination for this going-home trip this time. I did not remember why exactly I chose Flores, but the main motivation is to visit Komodo island to see the dragon and since there is also the three-colored lakes of Kelimutu nearby in the eastern part of the island, the idea is to combine them in one trip. First I discussed the plan with Runi, my travel mate from some of my European trips who has returned back to Indonesia (so it's kind of reunion for us :-)). Then Ole, my German friend who planned to visit Indonesia during my holiday became the 'victim' to join us for the trip. The last one to join us is Desy, Runi's friend who was not sure to join until the very last minute, but glad that she finally made it :-)

Runi and me (well..Runi was the main coordinator, I was more like the supporting one) have been busy preparing the trip several days before I left Germany, discussing the itinerary, trying to find the cheapest boat and car to rent, finding info on the flight tickets, etc.

The four of us met each other in Kuta, Denpasar. Ole and I were the first who arrived in Bali at 10th of Dec morning from Malang with an unforgettable night trip with the minibus shuttle. After finding some rooms for us in Poppies lane, we had a mission to finalize the flight ticket bookings, including collecting our flight tickets to Labuan Bajo for the next day. We managed to walk around Kuta shopping streets and spent some time on the beach and had dinner in Jimbaran (that was after we got the tickets on hand :-P).

Runi arrived around 9pm from Balikpapan and Desy arrived around midnight from Jakarta, was totally slept when Desy arrived since I (and Ole) did not have a normal sleep the night before.

From Scheveningen to Muenster

I have not posted anything after my Baltic trip, mostly because I was so busy with my work (and getting back to real life :-P). Time just passed by so fast... a lot of deadlines at work and especially because finally I found a new apartment (so exicted!!), I have signed the contract already and will move soon (1st of Nov..). So it is going to be very busy in the near future too..

It means also there will be no traveling (no budget anymore :-() before my going back home in December (that will be very exciting too since I will meet my nephew who was just born last month... :-P).

Those are my excuses for have not traveled that much after Baltic...though actually the weekend after Baltic I went to Scheveningen, the Netherlands for Ruben's birthday party. Scheveningen is a famous beach area in the Netherlands (the most famous one I think), it is located close to Den Haag about 3.5 hours from Duesseldorf. Ruben is my ex colleague in TU/e and he moved to DH after getting a job there and he invited some of his ex colleagues. It was my first beach party, very nice one and we're lucky to have quite a nice weather (the weather forecast said it would be rain that day), there was no rain though it was a bit chilly later on. It was always nice to meet some old friends and I was a bit surprised that it was really lovely in Scheveningen by night :-)



After that I spent one day in one weekend to visit Muenster, an old town nearby Duesseldorf that I planned to visit for quite a long time. There was a marathon when I was there, so the town was crowded with people and I was lucky that day was kind of Open Day for Muenster which means that some museums and some special buildings gave free entrance to the visitors. I spent the whole day walking around and visited some interesting places...indeed Muenster is a lovely old town.