Saturday 20th February
Today we flew from Denpasar to Labuan Bajo – the view was incredible over the beautiful islands. As promised our driver and guide for the week was there to pick us up. It’s a strange one isn’t it….meeting someone for the first time who you’ve been emailing? You have a pre-conceived image / personality of them in your head. Augustinus was an Indonesian height man with a big smile and a very calm personality. From the emails I thought he was going to be much more invasive and extroverted. 
August had a chap with him who was going to be our driver for the week. We were never 100% sure of his name, we think it was Buddy. So he will be Buddy for the rest of the week! So anyway, we were greeted with our lovely little cardboard sign and bundled into our sweet ride….a little silver granny car that would serve us just fine for the week ahead. We weren’t due to start our tour with August until Monday, tomorrow we were going to squeeze in a visit to the Komodo Dragons, and that’s when August said he could help us arrange something. Firstly we went and checked into our accommodation, a little homestay that we had booked via AirBnb and just happened to be opposite Augusts office. Once in we went over to the office where we were given some coffee and treats before settling down to business. We went through the itinerary of the week and discussed the various options and put together an almost final plan. We were keeping things slightly fluid depending on how we felt each day and how much time we needed would depend on whether we liked a place and wanted to hang around a little longer. Some days were going to be lots of stopping and starting so that we could get out of the car and see lots and walk around and visit people and places, while some days would be a lot of driving to make sure that we covered the island by the end of the week and to ensure that we kept a good enough pace to make the various road blocks that happen and could otherwise leave us stranded on winding mountain roads all night long!
August introduced us to a boating friend of his who was able to help us with our Komodo Island tour. While we weren’t necessarily looking for a private tour, by doing so meant we could trek on Rinca Island and also meant we could take our own pace and ‘hang out’ with the really quite vicious (and man eating!) Komodo dragons as long as we wanted to and given that we were only going to ever do this once in our lives, 40GBP each wasn’t a huge price to pay. So that was decided, we would be picked up at 7am in the morning and taken to our own private boat by August and Buddy and then would be off on our way to Rinca Island firstly, and then would take some lunch and snorkel at various spots on our way back to shore. Perfect.
We measured up for our fins and paid for our week with August before leaving him to confirm the various accommodation bookings for the upcoming nights and took a little walk around the town. There were no westerners. We were the westerners. Apparently it rains everyday around 4pm….and sure enough, it rained at 4pm.
We bought some snacks at the local shop and sauntered back through the town to our home stay to chill out. We both read for a few hours before packing our bag for the morning and taking an early night. The day of travelling had clearly taken it out of both of us!
Sunday 21st February
We were up bright and early for our 7am pick up. We met Augusts sailor friend and Buddy down on the road where they were waiting wearing their best smiles. It was a very short drive to the pier, we stopped at the shop so that the boat chap could buy us some water for the boat and then he darted off (to collect our lunch) and we made our way towards the boat. Buddy told us that he would be back later to collect us and wished us a good time on our trip.
The boat chap introduced us to the captain of the boat, his mate and then the general front of house type person who would be looking after us today. He then showed us to our boat. Oh dear god, what had we done. It was huge. It was easily big enough for 40 people….there was an upper deck with lounge and chill out sunbathing space, a bathroom with shower, a dining area, lounge and then all the functional areas needed for the boat. It was utterly ridiculous. No wonder they were all treating us like royalty. We both just laughed and hopped onto the highly inconspicuous yellow and white boat.
We made ourselves comfy at the dining room area, it was at the front of the boat, had good sunshine and an amazing panoramic view of the ocean. The front of house guy brought us out tea, coffee, sugar etc….a full tea set! He then took our shoes and put them away somewhere for us so that they wouldn’t get wet and hung up our snorkels and fins at the front of the boat. He was so smiley, so genuinely happy and liked to try and make a bit of conversation with us. We offered coffee round to the captain and his mate knowing there was far too much for just the two of us!
We were sailing for quite some time before we reached Rinca. Enough time to pass beautiful hobbit like landscapes and plenty of other couples / small groups of more appropriately sized ocean vehicles! How embarrassing. Once we reached Rinca and moored up, I was relieved to see that there were three other boats the same size as ours. Phew. The front of house guy returned our shoes and helped us off the boat, he then walked us to the park rangers at the end of the pier and accompanied us into the park where we were invited to pay our park entrance fee and were assigned a guide. Terribly, I don’t remember his name either. He was very chatty though and liked to tell us stories and facts that he thought / hoped would wow us.
There were three different treks to choose from, one was round the block, one was a good distance and took you up much higher so you had a good view over the island and the third was an absolute mammoth trek. We took the middle option. It was already getting seriously hot which decreased our chances of seeing Komodos out in their own habitat. I had read and we weren’t disappointed to find a group of Komodos under the keepers huts. We learnt that keepers work ten days on, ten days off. The Komodos have learnt this too….there is always food on the island, park keeper flavour food, so they camp under the huts at night! They also like the heat. They’ve been known to attack in the past but its not very often. There’s plenty on the island to keep them alive so it’s not really necessary to eat humans. Great! We were lucky enough to see one Komodo who wasn’t anywhere near the hut, he was under a tree catching some shade taking a drink in a little pool that had formed. Although they look heavy and absolutely solid they are rapid. The keeper stealthed closer so I followed, Ben was a little more hesitant. He didn’t trust these fellas one little bit. 
Once we had asked a million questions about them eating us / chasing us / hunting us / killing us (you get the picture) we moved on…Ben keeping one eye behind us at all times. Oh, I forgot to mention that our keeper had a very helpful and ever so lethal (honest) stick that had a little fork on the end designed for keeping Komodos away. Yeah right! But it was there as a prop to make us feel a little better. We were instructed to just listen to what the guy said, follow him and all would be well. Ben happily obliged. I followed along too – Ben now protected by food either side of him, he had this sussed. We approached the keepers hut where there were ten more Komodos! Women, men and children….even they were huge. They were mean looking machines that you just knew would tear a chunk out of your thigh as if it were a soft loaf of bread given half a chance! I don’t know whether it was the fear factor, or what really, but they fascinated me. Just knowing at any moment they could flip and how deadly hey were gave me a bit of an adrenaline rush!
So anyway, we asked loads more questions about there every waking moment of the day, oh and then about every sleeping moment, their reproduction, their living etc and then we began our hike. Now we were hoping to find some more just out and about, or some other creatures too. We went out thinking we would see nothing…it was already super hot and likely that any animals would too be taking refuge from the persistent sun. The walk kept Ben on his toes, engaging his usual snake scaring away stomp, every flickering leaf making him flinch. There were some amazing birds and butterflies but unfortunately for us even heading down to the now dried out river bed that would otherwise entice some of mother natures treats we weren’t in luck. That said, the walk was gorgeous and there was an element of excitement thinking we might see something….still not really sure what something would have been but hey! After we walked through the forest we had to hike up quite a steep hill. This would give us a view over the island and also saved us walking back on ourselves. It was not fun to walk up in the now baking sun, but wow the view at the top was certainly worth it. We could see from here just how far we had walked…we aren’t as lazy as we felt! Ben got some king of the world (looked more like a hairy shepherd) photos, and then we posed on a rock for the man to take some fabulous couple photos…more like us beating our chests like cavemen and pretending we conquered the land, before heading back down towards the camp for a final little spectate of the scaly angry dragons! 
Our front of house buddy was waiting for us at the camp, we said our goodbye to our guide and wished him well for his now ten days off…he virtually ran away from us so he could pack his bag and get on his boat home. Bless him! As we walked back to the boats, the very same boats I’d been so happy to see when we arrived I was all of a sudden feeling embarrassed again….there was only one left, and on board, at least 14 people. And there we were…still…just the two of us. We didn’t leave immediately, so just sat there awkwardly next to this slightly smaller, yet much busier boat. Please can we go now?!
We were both starving by now so were glad to be presented with our lunch, it was rice, chicken, vegetables and some spicy sauce. I don’t know whether it’s because I was so hungry but the food was delicious. The slightly charred BBQ’d chicken was perfect with the spicy sauce. It was inhaled by both of us and washed down with litres of water that we had forgotten to take onto the baking hike with us. We were going to make various snorkelling stops on the way back, we said we were happy for the guys to take us wherever they thought was best. The front of house guy had again taken our shoes away somewhere dry and had now prepared our snorkels and fins next to the stair case on the side of the boat ready for our dip. 
Our first stop looked to be quite far out at sea, but it soon got very shallow…hence them having to stop so far out. We rigged up and jumped into the cold current before heading towards land. They told us that on the island were some goats and other animals. We had no intention of getting close enough to land to find out, we were there to snorkel, and snorkel we would. As soon as we were out of the strong currents the water was so lovely and warm, and crystal clear. Salty and a little blurry in the stronger currents. There were all sorts of fish, some really quite big aswell…they tended to lurk a little deeper while the prettier smaller fish played in the shallow corals and seaweed with us. We swam around for about twenty minutes before heading back to the boat where our very helpful chap was waiting to help us back on and took our fins from us the moment they were off our feet – he was very attentive to the both of us.
The next stop was going to be in the sea, in a place where the water was so clear that even from the boat you could see the fish. The captain stopped the boat and looked at us and smiled so we hopped on in again, here the current was much stronger, not to the point where I felt out of my depth but by swimming against it I was literally just stationery for the duration! Sometimes I would let it push me and then swim like crazy against it. For me this was exhausting so I headed back to the boat after about ten minutes, Ben wasn’t far behind.
Our third (and unbeknown at this point, final stop – see above) was a place that was again a little further out at sea but was a less strong current allowing us to make it to the island that we weren’t too far away from. It was derelict. Our own private snorkelling spot. We jumped on in, there was very little salt here it was crystal clear, it was amazing. The sea was alive. The closer we got to shore the less fish and plants there were but the warmer it became. When we reached the shore it was like bath water, amazingly warm. We’d had our heads down the whole time so by the time we did reach the shore some 20 minutes later we hadn’t noticed that our boat had in fact sailed slightly further round the island where it was deeper and safer for them to get closer and had been joined by two other boats, one full of Chinese tourists wearing speedos and life jackets but not getting in the water.
I’d managed to fill my mask with water so sat on the shore to address the sprung leak. I’d not been sat down for three seconds when I squaked and leapt up…do you know how hard it is to leap in fins with a snorkel mask mangled in your hair trying not to take your own legs out on the anchor ropes? Very. I managed it, very ungracefully. Something had bitten or stung me! But what?! Ben was in front of me and looked in the water, we could see something moving under the sand, it was no more than 15cm’s deep, one of the guys from the other boat came over and he and Ben proceeded to move the sand / prod around with their snorkels and with that there was a flash of red, almost like a phoenix opening it’s flames. A very tiny phoenix, like 10cm tall. Something was a browny colour like the sand and had flashed red before scurrying away. No one spoke English so we had no idea what was going on, but it had certainly caused a cafaffle. I stood up and bent over telling Ben to look at my bum, which of course caused hysterics amongst everyone else. The Chinese took photos of Ben checking out my bum. I can’t see a thing so I’ve got Ben telling me it looks like two sort of bite marks, and meanwhile my leg and butt has gone a sort of numb. Like a dead leg, and with it came that pain when you’re leg has decided it will reinject some life. There was nothing we could do about it and the guys on our boat just kept repeating the words ‘fish’and ‘really’ which wasn’t really helpful so I suggested we had another little swim and see what else we could see. Ben wasn’t so keen on this idea and wanted us to get back on the boat in case it was something serious. I had to swim to the boat anyway, so my logic was we might aswell get a little more snorkelling in because well, if it was deadly, I was buggered anyway to put it politely, we were still far too far away yet to save my life! Ha!
Back on the boat the crew all inspected my injury…perverts and according to them it wasn’t dangerous so off we went. I just wanted to google it, good old google, that would do the trick. My leg and bum kept going numb and coming back again and again, was more annoying than anything, that sort of dull crampy pain.
About an hour and a half later I was still alive (bonus) and we arrived back at the pier. We thanked the crew and gave them a tip to share amongtst themselves…we weren’t sure what we should give but it was enough for a couple of beers each to say thank you. Buddy and August were waiting and drove us back to the boat shop where we pointed out the fish we think we saw on their chart…a flamboyant cuttlefish! Horrible little thing. August assured me that it wasn’t deadly. Of course I didn’t believe him and would have to google it anyway. We agreed to meet at 8am in the morning and made our way to a restaurant just up the hill where we could watch the days boats come in before the sun went down. They had wifi too – turns out the fish isn’t deadly, but there is a version of it that is!!
We watched the days rain come in, todays rain was closer to 5pm though. Thankfully as we had only just got to the restaurant when the sky turned. We hung out at the restaurant long enough for the rain to pass and the sun to try setting behind the dirty clouds. We stopped and grabbed some water and snacks at the shop…we had no idea what breaks we might get in the car and whether we might need a little something to keep us going. We walked up the path to our room where a dog came out of nowhere and started rather angrily barking at us and then following us and then getting a little too close for comfort while still barking like he was. Of course this encouraged us to up our pace, which he matched before we broke into a sort of run. This just made him bark more angrily. For the first time ever around dogs Ben and I didn’t feel 100% safe, we could both tell from the other that we wanted to just run away and get away from him ASAP. He started getting angrier but we finally made it to our hostel with a little squeal from me. Or so we thought. We had kept our eyes so fixed on the dog that we had turned into a house one early so would now have to go back out onto the path and into the next property. Three. Two. One. GOOOOO! We ran, squealed, and slammed the gate as fast as we could. We both agreed that he was a viscious little thing that we didn’t trust. Just something about him. As far as we were concerned that night, he was rabid.
And that, was the end of our rather viscious day…. Komodo, Cuttledfish, Canine! Tomorrow we start our tour of Flores.
A man made his way up the beach with his buffalo, carrying some lightly chilled coconuts. We all bought one, whilst he was taking the top off mine Christina was taking buffalo selfies….which she was then told she had to pay for!! He can get stuffed. She paid him and we waited for him to be on his way. Tuned in to tourism somewhat. The rest fo the day was spent, sunbathing, swimming, reading and snoozing. I’d picked up a book this morning from reception (they dont want anymore books left so ask you not to exchange and to just take!) it was about sex trafficking of women in Russia, its a true story in which theres thankfully a happy ending. The woman found refuge in the UK where she was given protection, shelter, education and theyre fighting to get her children back. It was such a good read…. and made me feel happy that the UK system is helping people when quite often all you hear are comments about immigrants ‘stealing our jobs’ and remarks such as ‘get back to your own country’….well, you idiots….if she did that, then her husband would keep letting his friends rape her, and she would probably be dead by now, oh, and likely that her daughter would go through the same torture from her own father as he despised her. I couldnt let go of the book for very long, so whizzed my way from cover to cover just in time to watch the sunset over the ocean. Beautiful.
Only thing that they got wrong per say was after reassuring Christina numerous times that there would be a veggie option / things for her to eat, they ballsed up….she had rice and cucumber. Yes it ticked the boxes for being vegan and edible, but if she had known that she would have prepared her own food. Whilst we were here we also got to have a little explore, we found an empty spot where there was the most gorgeous view over the ocean perfectly framed by some rocks….so Christina taught me how to headstand there! I’m yet to get the photos from the (also dead) GoPro, but for now the cover photo of this post is Chrstina beautifully executing it….for those who skim read you may think this is me…I won’t correct you.
We got to chill on the beach for a while before being ushered back to the boat. What a mission. The current was opposing us making it bloody hard work, what with having the dodge various other swimmers, whilse wearing a life jackets and trying to avoid being smashed in the head by any one of the many boats….we all got there, eventually, exhausted.
After freshening up we headed straight to a beach bar to watch the sunset over a frozen mango daquiri before grabbing some food and then going back to the beach to another of the bars where there was a band playing, they were a kind of reggae band (surprise surprise!).
A tuktuk ride away, up another monster hill that was a real slug and we arrived. It was one of those that once you touch the brow of the hill you just dont know where to look as its all sooooo beautiful and you dont want to miss a thing!
We walked the length of the beach to find a nice quiet spot, the water was ankle deep for miles (ok not literally, but a very far distance!), the sand was like powder, Ben had his perfect pitch under a tree and a tiny restaurant was nearby for a deliscious seafood lunch. This beach had a sand walkway to another island about 500m away which when the tide came in disappeared.
We were tight on time, like seriously tight, and wouldnt fit into one tuktuk with our backpacks so had to then holler down a second tuktuk to bundle Ben and his bag into and vamos to the bus station. We made it, of course. The minibus was jam packed, and people kept gettig on. Some New Yorkers in front of us had decided to had a bottle of wine to help them nod off…but failed to account for the necessity of toilet breaks and well, the lack of them available. We had one stop on the way back down to Puerto Princesa, in a journey that seemed to take forever. We were very quickly a world away from the stunning beaches of the north and that oh so wonderful lifestyle. We headed back to the same hostel, this time in a cheap double room as we had to leave super early. Dumped our bags, showered the mornings sand away, set our alarms, and passed out.
You literally couldnt make this up….possibly the worst tour we have ever done but we had to laugh about it. As a little consoldation once showered we decided it was acceptable to go get some more deliscious spring rolls….a little bit of happiness in this otherwise crappy town. That was pretty much the night done once we had mooched home.
I went for the soup Id had a couple of days before as it was so good. For the rest of the afternoon we wandered around the town which was bizarelly DEAD, along the promenade which was very pleasant and I can imagine quite a nice place once it comes to life but for now there was nothing going on….not even a kiosk to buy water from.
Heaven – though they took so long to make, I probably was close to being in heaven! A couple of drinks later the bar started to think out, so we bailed too, making our way back up the street and stopping at a little stall a few doors down from our hostel for some chocolate! One of the girls stayed at the bar as she had bumped into someone from her hometown and they had friends in common – she wasn’t a chocolate fan anyway. Between us we tried then all – Devils!
(spitting image of Ben!). There was a guy who was able to take us on his brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins boat whenever we wanted for less than the official tourist boat. Winner. We had already booked a place to stay in Siquijor aswell, so to not turn up would have been even more expensive.
We stopped for a little breather outside a ladies house, she was selling cocacola so we had a little sugar hit, she kindly fetched us two of her best glassesd and even dug out some ice for us. Luck was with us, a collectivo drove past and for 10 pesos (15p) he would take us to Siquijor town where we could get a moto taxi from. Perfect. We sat in the back with his wife and baby and within 10 minutes were at the main (tourist) ferry port where there were plenty of taxis waiting.
have missed them. The lady who took my order thought I said potched eggs and when I explained that I was wanting boiled eggs but out of the shells she looked absolutely horrified. Two minutes later she came back out of the kitchen laughing at herself and misunderstanding confirming she knew exactly what I meant.
We ordered far too many springs rolls, noodles, greens, sweet and sout chicken and a caboodle of sauces. With full bellies we retraced our steps back through the town and into the darkness – on our way we saw where all the locals hangout of an evening….outside the local dodgy DVD mans pitch where a TV had been rigged up (a tiny portable one) and everyone watched a movie together. It was like the ultimate cinema….so much choice!
We hired a motorbike from the hoste and filled her up….a whopping two pounds! We had a map, but it was a little make shift (being polite) but we knew we needed to head south, and then east, sort of. The next town was much busier than where we were staying, so busy so that we got caught up in alot of traffic. I quite like that, being a passenger, as I can have a good nose and oogle at daily life. They also, like to have a good oogle at us and forever shout ‘Hello My Friend’.
Apparently tourists rarely venture to this area. It’s nice enough but at night is considered to be the red light district. Wen set to ordering right away. We were going to have Clay Pot Frog Porridge two different ways; one with spring onions and one with red chilli. In addition to the frog pots we had a seperate pot of porridge, some people know it as rice soup or congee. Rather than putting rice into a huge pot of boiling water to boil and then drain, or by mxing oats with water (!) this is made by essentially drowing the rice at a much lower temperature so that it becomes quite starchy in texture and very watery (you can change this depending on how you like your porridge). It was deliscious and probably the way I will eat rice forever more as we never usualy eat rice as it bloats us. This fills you up but because there is so much water doesnt have chance to bloat you. It’s really good. And can easily be flavoured. Anyway, enough about the rice – the frogs.
eat drink travel smile 