Flores trip: Day 4

We started around 8:30am to go to our first destination, Bena village. Bena is a scenic Ngada village on the foot of mount Inerie. There are some other Ngada villages around Bajawa, but Donatus recommended Bena since according to him the others are not that traditional anymore (some modern buildings around). Bena indeed is a pretty village with two lines of traditional houses facing each other. On the space between them, there are a megalithic tomb structure for the sacrifice ritual and nine-pair Ngadhu and Bagha to represent each of the sub-tribe that lives in the village. Ngadhu is a kind of totem pole dedicated for male ancestors while Bhaga is the one for female ancestors (but not really a pole, is more like a small house). We had a guide to whom we could ask a lot of questions about Ngada's beliefs and customs which are still strictly followed. Thomas, our guide (I am not sure his name anymore actually, keep on mixing the name of our guides throughout this trip :-P, but I am quite sure it's Thomas), told us that the wood of the pole is a special wood that should be acquired from a certain place. So when a pole is damaged they will perform a kind of ritual to decide where they can get the wood material and it could be anywhere in Flores. They have to bring that wood material to Bena with a special ritual ceremony too, he told us they could spend 40 million rupiahs just for replacing a damaged pole! They believe they have to do it to avoid something bad happens to their family or sub-tribe. It was amazing to learn the beliefs and customs of the tribes during our trip even for me as an Indonesian.

We spent the morning in Bena and then we decided to have another visit to Boawae village, a traditional Nage-Keo village. Nage-Keo is another tribe in central Flores (besides the Ngada), what I remember about the Nage-Keo's custom is that a man required to give ten of everything (like 10 buffaloes, 10 cows, etc) to propose a woman to get married to.

After that we drove to the direction of Moni to visit Kelimutu lakes. We stopped by at Blue stone beach on the main road to Ende which is indeed full of blue stones (and also other colored stones too actually, oh and dark black sands which made someone regretted the fact that she did not take some of the sands as souvenirs :-P). We brought some nice stones with us too (like 10 big bags of them...just kidding).


We then passed through Ende, passing the house where our first president Sukarno had lived during his exiled time there (it is a museum now, but it was closed already when we passed it). We reached Moni around 6am, almost dark and we struggled to find accommodation there. I think we visited all the places that offer accommodation in Moni. At the end we decided to stay at Hidayah which is the nicest one compared to all of them (and the most expensive rate, but we managed to bargain the price, thanks to Desy :-P).

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.