Posts By Country




August 19th, 2011 | Asia

Ferry to Flores…

Before going to bed the previous evening, I had chatted to the hotel manager about the ferry to Flores…

“The ferry leaves at 8.30am, so you will need to leave the hotel at 6.00am to reach it in time…!!” he had said…

“But it’s only 50 odd kilometres to Sape…!! Why do I have to leave at 6.00 am…?” I asked…

“The road…” he had answered simply, shaking his head from side to side…

I asked for two cups of coffee with my breakfast, and got two complete breakfasts... A mistake I easily dealt with...!!

"Look how good I am am being, Babe...!! Yeah, yeah, I know it's only my first night out...!!

At that point my vision was a little blurred from not having slept for almost forty hours, and my only reply to him was a simple,

“Bugger that for a joke…!!”

It usually took at least forty five minutes from the time I woke up, to the time I swung myself into the saddle, which meant that I’d have to be up somewhere around 5.00am…!! Not bloody likely….!!

I knew that I had a few days spare, before I needed to take the ferry to Kupang on the 25th of August, and decided on the spot to award myself a day off…!! I figured I had earned it…!!

I spent the day sitting in the hotel’s meeting room, updating the website and replying to emails and later that same evening went out to find some dinner…

In keeping with my recent dietary changes, found myself ordering a bowl of thick vegetable soup…!! The fact that I did not understand anything else on the Indonesian menu, and the staff spoke no English at all, had nothing to do with it…!!

Lush green fields of rice paddies on the way to Sape...

Looking back from the same spot...

Fully rested, I was up at 5.00am the following morning, ate the usual meager breakfast supplied by hotels here in Sumbawa, loaded the bike and at 6.45 am, began the 50 km dash to Sape… A “dash” in this part of the world takes at least an hour…!!

The road climbed up and over a few mountain ranges, skirted some dormant volcanoes, swept through a few villages, and then ran down towards the coastline…

Farmer Brown was making his first delivery of the day...

We turned north then, glad to have the sun on my right shoulder, rather than in my eyes, and after a few minutes, were riding down the centre of the small harbour town…

The harbour itself sat on a narrow peninsula, reached by an arrow straight stretch of road that had been built through a salt flat…

Lining the road was a long series of drying racks, coated in cuttlefish… The last thing I wanted to smell that early in the morning…!!

At the harbour gate, a policeman came up to me, eager to help me with the formalities of ticket buying and getting the Big Fella safely onto the ferry…

I had to pay double the usual fee because the bike was in excess of 500 cc’s (Rp 250 000, about R210.00…) and when I eventually exited the ticket office, the policeman was on his own scooter, beckoning me to follow him onto the jetty…

“I have spoken to the captain, and he says you must bring your bike on first to get a good spot…!!”

We rode out onto the concrete jetty, and down the ramp onto the cargo deck, where a small crowd of uniformed crew, were waiting for us… I was warmly greeted by the senior crew members, who began snapping out commands to the other crew members…

My Policeman friend and the Captain and his1st Mate... The scruffy guy is the truck driver who lent me the rope...

Within minutes the Big Fella was hoisted up onto his centre stand, and with a rope borrowed from a truck driver, secured to stanchions welded on the walls of the ferry…

Snuggled in between a truck and the bulkhead, the Big Fella was ready for the trip to Flores...

I was then escorted upstairs, and told I could sit anywhere…

While buying my ticket, I had finally come across a few western faces on Sumbawa, the first I had seen since arriving on the Island two days before…!!

We sprawled out on the metal benches... Richard, the guy on the left, would join me on Rinca the following day...

A French couple, Nicolas and Audrey, were traveling with Simon, a young Swiss guy who they had just recently met in Besar… They had taken the 10 hour bus ride from Besar to Bima the day before, and then a local truck-taxi to Sape the evening before… They all looked a little jaded by the experience when I had met them…!!

Audrey, Nicolas and I at the railing on the ferry...

I settled down onto a bench close to them, and for the rest of the eight hour voyage, we chatted about our travels and plans for the immediate future…

Biscuits, crackers and colddrinks. but no chocolate...!!

Their plans to visit Komodo or Rinca, the two main island that had the healthiest Dragon populations, differed from mine, as they were not on as tight a schedule as I was… They were planning to relax the following day before visiting Ruteng to meet friends of theirs, and would only then be going to Komodo…

Simon, a Political Science student, was engrossed in writing an article for his local magazine and university, and lent me his Indonesian Travel Guide, which I used to make notes to fill in the gaps of my knowledge of the area we were traveling in…

Nicolas and I spent a long time leaning over the rail on the port side of the ferry, watching barren islands slide by as we made our way out into the Flores Sea… The boat chugged along at a sedate pace, even though conditions were perfect… The azure blue sea was calm and flat, with hardly a breath of wind to cool us down…

Nicolas worked for Total Oil, and had spent the last few years developing their website, and was now looking for a new challenge… He had decided to take a few weeks off to tour the lesser known parts of Indonesia… He had visited the Indian sub-continent on a few occasions and spoke fondly of his three visits to Nepal, where he had helped a trekking guide he had befriended there, start his own touring company…

Sunbaked and barren... A small island off Sape...

After a few hours at sea, we began to pass the northern shores of Komodo Island…

It rose starkly from the sea, sheer cliffs and barren, mountainous interior… I wondered how a species like the Komodo Dragon had managed to survive for centuries here… And why they were found on only four islands and nowhere else…!!

I was excited at the prospect of seeing them in their natural habitat, and smiled to myself as I watched the island pass by to starboard…

The bleak outline of Komodo Island...

As the sun set, we passed this, one of a number of schooners moored in the bay...

As the sun was going down, the ferry nosed its way into a narrow bay, passing many small islands on which the odd resort had been built, but for the most part, the islands seemed deserted…

Moored in the bay were an impressive collection of yachts and schooners, many of them from as far away as the U.S.A. …

At 5.30 pm, we docked in Lubuanbajo, and amid the usual mad scramble to get off the ferry, I managed to untie the bike, return the rope to the truck driver with my thanks, and then motor out into the early evening light…

While Nicolas and Audrey found place at the Gardena Hotel overlooking the bay, Simon and I decided to share a room in a hotel further down the road, where the bike would be secure behind a locked gate at night…

Although our room at the Wisata Hotel was comfy and clean, the bathroom left a lot to be desired… No flushing toilet here, and the shower did not work either… We ended up having to bathe using a jug and a bucket…!!

Sunset over Labuanbajo Bay...

Coming off the ferry in Flores... Simon prepares to follow me into town on foot...

Main Street, Labuanbajo... We searched for a hotel and found one near here...

I put my name down at a nearby travel shop, for a tour to Rinca the following morning, and then we went out to have dinner with Nicolas and Audrey…

The food at the Sea View restaurant was tasty enough, the service was appalling…!! Orders between tables were mixed up, Nicolas and I received our meals long after Audrey and Simon had finished theirs, and just as we were finishing up, another round of main courses arrived at our table…!!

Nicolas was advised that there was no more Tuna for the meal he had ordered, long after Audrey had received and eaten hers…!!

The management basically shrugged their shoulders when we complained…

“Zis iz not gud, we are not ‘appy…!!” he said to the manager… “Two free Bintang wheel solve ze problem…!!”

In response we received a plate of watermelon slices…!!

Better than a poke in the eye with I sharp stick, I guess…!!

Simon and I made our way back to the hotel, and sat outside our room chatting and swatting away mosquitoes… The ones here on Flores were more persistent and bigger than most…!! You not as much heard them as felt the draft from their wings as they buzzed by…!!

Which naturally brought us on to the subject of Malaria and Dengue Fever, two things that we fervently hoped to avoid while here in Indonesia…!!

I told him about my experiences with Malaria, while he related stories of people who had died after contracting Dengue…

And on that positive note, we went to bed, wishing that the hotel would had been thoughtful enough to provide mosquito nets…!!

©GBWT 2011

4 comments to Ferry to Flores…

  • Mark Behr

    Nice story – look forward to Komodo!

  • Charmz

    At least you had friendly company on the ferry ride, it definitely helps pass the time. Its unbelievable that places with such an immence population of mosquitoes do not provide nets in their hotel rooms for guests. You of all people cannot afford to get malaria again, your body has had it once too many times Mr. B.

  • martin breytenbach

    Eisch! You had me worried for a while! I was almost convinced that love erased the rest of your world-tour plans!? Happy for you and Patty, but glad to see you on the bike again! Keep up the good riding my friend!

  • It was close thing, Martin…!! Agonized for weeks…!! Hence the long stay in Bali…!! We finally agreed that I needed to complete what I had set out to do, and that is how I presently find myself in Dili, East Timor…!! In a few days, I will begin my ride on the fourth continent of my World Tour, so stay tuned…!! R.

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

  

  

  

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.