Flores is 8,000 miles from home and over 6 degrees south of the equator. It is a volcanic island with lush verdant, jungle covered hills, very like St Lucia in the Caribbean. Judging from the ethnicity of the islanders they are more australasian than oriental.The island was the home of the Flores Hobbit named Homo Floresiensis. Bones of several of these creatures were recently discovered. They date back only 18,000 years. The Flores hobbits were only 1m tall, no DNA has yet been extracted so it is unclear whether they were descended from Homo Erectus or Homo Sapiens.
We arrived by plane using Sri Wijawa airlines - who? Maumere was a bit of an edgy place, the bus terminal was full of dodgy looking characters. We loaded our bags onto the top of a pimped up mini bus. We stood in the shade as the bus wasn't due to leave Maumere for another couple of hours. After about 30 minutes the bus driver maneouvered the bus round and started edging towards the bus station exit, then it was gone, with our bags on top! Oops, fingers crossed it was just circling the town to pick up other passengers. One of the characters standing nearby gestured that it would come back, phew. The bus set off practically on time for our 5 hours journey to Moni. What a ride! Booming ear blasting music, the three interchangeable drivers chain-smoked the whole journey and I was sat next to a woman holding a live chicken. The chicken was balding quite badly, it kept pretty quiet for the journey only occasionally flapping about. Paul spotted our hotel Daniel's lodge at the start of the town of Moni at our journey's end. Nice room with large bed, mosquito net, cold shower and flushing toilet. A bit expensive at £18 per night but there was a lovely view of the hills from our porch seating area. Cool breezes ran through the hills from the south coast.
Moni is just one road lined with B&Bs, a market place and some shack shops. It has sprung up as a tourist resort because of its proximity to a nearby volcano called Kelimutu, known for its colourful crater lakes. We hired a scooter from our hotel (100,000RP) and drove to Kelimutu the next day. It was a 30 minute drive up to a carpark, then a 20 minute walk up a path to the first viewing platform - grimly done in concrete. The view was of the two lower lakes, one black, tinged with orange and the other was a bright torquoise. The lakes have been known to change colour with the changing chemical composition caused by volcanic gases. Another walk up concrete steps took us to the upper viewing platform at 1600m above sea level. This gave us views of all three lakes, the third being a dark bluey-green colour. In the afternoon light the colours of the lakes were startling. Back in Moni, Paul got some photos of the May Day parade. Flores is predominantly Christian, but unlike other places where the missionaries have totally wiped out all indigenous cultural identity and heritage; the people of Flores still retain their rituals of animal sacrifice and certain aspects of animism. The next day, we got up at 5am to see Kelimutu at sunrise. Most visitors to Moni come here for this only. We were a bit late getting up there, the sun rose soon after 5am. We still caught some nice views of it on the drive up. As the lakes were in shadow, we thought that they were not nearly as impressive as in the afternoon - the tourists were missing out. It is always nice to see the starlit-sky overcome by a beautiful sunrise though. After a little rest back at Daniel's, we drove out to the next big town Detusoko to see if we should stay here, the views on the way were beautiful, misty rice field plateaus set in the valleys of tall hills and volcanoes. On the way back we followed a sign for Wolondopo a tribal village. It was a bumpy ride up a stone path. We were greeted by around 10 village children. Clearly not many tourists visit. The tribes people would not let us take photos of their thatched huts so we settled for photos of the raggedy children. Everyone was very friendly though.
Moni also has a 10m high waterfall opposite the Rainbow cafe so we took some photos there too.
Next we travelled to Ende - a grim little port town, thankfully we were only there for one night to break up the journey to our next place. The bus ride there involved more passive smoking and deafening music. The hotel we stayed in was recommended by Daniel as better than others in Ende. Oh boy, it was poor! Surly staff who clearly hated tourists. The receptionist gave Paul a look of utter contempt. We were shown one room, the walls were full of bullet-type holes, the toilet seat was on the floor, no flushing toilet (very common in Flores, you have to swill it with a bucket). I asked to see another room with a toilet seat - this one had no shower, but did have a tap and scoop (known as a mandi). We chose this one for £15 a night. However, the toilet seat I later discovered, was beyond filthy with footprints. Ende was a bit rough, elsewhere kids will shout "Hello mister, where are you from?" but here we got this phrase plus others such as "F*cky f*cky" and "Give me some money to kiss my mother". We found one lovely restaurant Istana Bambu a chinese with cheap, tasty food. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the Strawberry cafe and bakery and had air conditioned luxury while we ate cakes and drank tea. Paul shocked me by ordering in Bahasa Indonesia "Permisi, dua teh panas" usually he will walk into a place and absently shout "Terima Kasih" which he thinks means hello, but actually means Thank-you.
It was Bajawa next. At Ende's Ndo bemo terminal there was a scramble for our business, about 6 guys bid themselves down to 75,000 Rupiah each for us to take a taxi to Bajawa, no need for Paul's negotiation skills. The winner got 20,000 for his trouble off the driver. We headed out in our private taxi. After 10 minutes, we suddenly turned in to Ende's ferry terminal. The driver spoke hardly any English so we were concerned that he wanted us to get out and get on the ferry, not so...he was just waiting for other passengers. 30 minutes later, the ferry had emptied and all passengers appeared to have left. We headed out to the road to Bajawa again without any further passengers and picked a guy up from the roadside. After receiving a phonecall the driver then headed back to the ferry terminal, apparently some guys he was negotiating with were now ready to do a deal. This still took a further 20 minutes before we finally got another four passengers. 7 passengers, 1 driver including 3 smokers - it was just the same as the bus really!
We had researched that Elizabeth's Hotel was the cheapest in Bajawa and were dropped off there. I had to stop Paul mid negotiation as he was inadvertently getting insultingly low. Elizabeth sounded like the hispanic maid on Family Guy, repeating "Oh no" to Paul's not so generous offers. Paul realised that 150,000 Rp (£8 ish) including breakfast was a pretty good deal. Another basic room with no flushing toilet and cold shower. The bedroom was nice a clean though. We hired a 125cc scooter for 100,000 Rp per day from Jeremis who hangs out at Eidelweis hotel. Here's Paul with his little solitary adventure...
I dropped Jeremis at his family home, some 250m up the road. He urged us to join him and his family at noon to celebrate his sister's engagement. I politely said we would be exploring - so he introduced me to his family when we reached his house. A mix of friendly Indonesian folk - strict catholics one and all. I was offered a seat by his dad and accepted - then they plied me with some pig blood 'breakfast'. It was tasty - rather like black pudding - I chatted then made my excuses and left for our exploring of Ruteng - with dad blessing my Bike to keep us safe for our journey. Around 5pm I dropped Sheryl at our hotel and the bike back at Jeremis' place and once more was invited in.. I met all his folks - mad uncle, joking dad, polite mum, quiet sister, Fiona, who was getting engaged. I sat cross-legged on the floor of the parents' family home - a simple wooden house with 3 rooms and no real furniture, adorned with Catholic Icons - Blond Jesus, White Mary etc.. There were 20 of us sat when the Tribe Elder (another uncle) joined and said a prayer. They all bowed and closed their eyes. Formalities complete - and Jeremis assisting with the food I chatted with them, in English, of course.. Then mad uncle appeared with a friend - armed with a huge bowl of 'Pig's bits!'and the obligatory boiled white rice. I realised I would have to eat what we would, in the UK, bin or feed to animals! Each of us got a Banana leaf bowl filled with rice, then Mad uncle groped a large handful of 'bits' and sploshed it on top! I chatted nonchalantly while identifying the 3 or 4 pieces or REAL meat in the 30 or so offal parts that I COULD eat and started.. They were OK - covered and cooked, again in pig's blood. I slowly ate and added some home-made chili sauce and rice to assist me. After 45mins I made my excuses and left, so pleased Sheryl hadn't joined me - the sight of those bits may have been all too much!!
Bajawa was within easy reach of some traditional Ngada villages, Luba, Bena, Nage and Wogo. We took the scooter down a valley which stretched towards the sea to discover some of these villages. We saw a sign for Luba village and an old lady directed us to a stepped courtyard, which was her village. There were wooden, thatched houses surrounding the courtyard. The old lady pointed at various things in the courtyard, we didn't understand a word, but later discovered that the megaliths formations are for animal sacrifices. There were also thatched umbrella type totems, which were shrines to male ancestors and miniature thatched houses that were shrines to female ancestors. This village was so picturesque. It was neatly constructed and set against the backdrop of Guning Inerie, the nearby conical shaped volcano. We toured the village and watched a woman hand-weaving some local patterned cloth called Ikat. We signed the visitor book and gave a donation and set off for the next village. We next came to Bena, a larger settlement with the same set up. Houses were decorated with buffalo skulls representing sacrifices that the family have made in their rituals - the number of skulls are a sort of symbol for wealth. Calendars depicting the blue eyed, blond-haired Jesus also took pride of place in homes. Bena also had a viewpoint at the top of the village with a Virgin Mary shrine. There were far reaching views of Gunung Inerie and the sea beyond the valley. Our last village was Nage, this was quiet, with no visitor book signing or donation sought. Paul took a photo of a woman chopping the flesh of a palm tree. She had been chewing betel quids. Heavy users of betel quids reveal their addiction when they smile. Their teeth are stained a reddish-black, dyed from years of chewing potent parcels of areca nuts and tobacco, wrapped in a lime-coated betel leaf. It is known to cause oral cancer and is very common in the villages.
The next day, We climbed Wawo Mudha a relatively new volcano, which last erupted in 2003 and has orange coloured crater lakes, all but dried up in May, but the views of the plateaus and landscape beyond were amazing. Following behind Paul on the way down I noticed a wood cutter smiling in Paul's direction. Despite the fact that he didn't speak a word of English, he was determined to have a conversation with Paul. He would say a word like Sapi, which means cow and then would explain what he meant by using 10 other words that we didn't understand. Paul's shoulder shrugging and laughing did not put him off. He then pointed at a passing barking dog and gave Paul an explanation of where he might get bitten by a dog. This just seemed like a weird rouse to touch Paul and very soon he had grabbed Paul's manhood. Paul shouted at him and pushed him away, we picked up our pace to escape. He was carrying a huge bundle of wood, so it was possible to out run him.
Our final village to visit was Wogo, the biggest Ngada village in the area, it was a Sunday and the village had gathered into three groups. One group were organising a female volleyball contest, another group crowded round a woman reading from a book and a third group chatting together. This town was a bit more developed, it had electricity and each house had a TV. This mixture of modern and traditional was a bit strange. A woman stopped to chat to me and informed me that she liked my body - Paul's not the only one to attract some same sex attention!!
The next stop on our 10 day tour was Ruteng, we got a bus from Bajawa with a Polish couple. As we were the only passengers, the drivers agreed to do a little tourist stop for us on the way. The bus regularly stopped for us to take photos and made a longer stop at Lake Ranamese. This was a dark blue lake lined with trees and paths which took you up to a ridge to view the rice fields. We followed the path but it was wet and overgrown with grasses, so we turned back to reboard the bus. The bus boys kindly dropped us off at our hotel - Kongregasi Santa Maria Berdukacita, which turned out to be a working convent. It was a bit of luxury, our first hot shower in 5 weeks and a great room with views across the Ruteng countryside for 280,000 RP per night £15.15, including breakfast. Those catholics know how to run a business - no babies for sale here though. Paul found a leech on the floor, which I traced to a bleeding hole in my leg - I must have picked it up from the wet undergrowth at Ranamese. While we were touring the town a young guy called Harry stopped us and offered to rent us his scooter the next day. Ruteng is quite a big town and administrative centre, where you can pretty much buy anything. Tourists stay here to visit the spiderweb rice fields and take in the other stunning scenery in the area. We took the scooter towards a town called Cancar, soon a local fellow rider struck up a conversation with us and kindly took us to a house in the town which had a pathway at the side of it. The pathway led to a ridge with great views of the spiderweb rice fields, we were soon joined by an Australian couple we had met in Bajawa. The couple had a tour guide, which must have cost them quite a bit, so it was great that we had seen the same things they had but for free! Traditionally, a water buffallo is sacrificed when a new field system is started - the community divide the fields up between the different community families - the ranking and status of the family determine the size of the plot. See Paul's photos, they are an amazing sight. Just outside of this village, we stopped to buy a bottle of water at a roadside shack, this prompted the owner to bring out three generations of his family and have them shake our hands - even buying water is an experience! We then drove to the north of Ruteng to view the extensive rice fields and countryside. Flores is a very beautiful island - everyone shouted hello to us wherever we drove. Our last stop in Flores would be Labuan Bajo, a seaside town from where the Komodo dragon tours depart. Our hotel, CF Komodo, was on a hillside overlooking the bay and islands beyond. Lovely to sit there transfixed by the bobbing boats anchored in the bay. We popped into town to sort out a boat trip back to Lombok via Rinca (pronounced Rincha) Island to see the Komodos. We dropped off our laundry and Paul got a haircut. As I was going to be spending a couple of days with a boat load of strangers, I thought a trip to the hairdressers was in order. I popped into one on the strip, a very camp looking hairdresser said he could cut my hair but not colour it. I sat down feeling confident that I was in safe hands. Oh God! He just started chopping, it was obvious that he hadn't the slightest idea how to cut short hair. What could I do? The damage was already done. The final insult was my fringe. He pulled it above my head and cut straight across, it fell onto my forhead and I gasped. It was three different lengths. "O.K?" he asked, I said it wasn't and asked him to stop cutting. I brushed it across to the side and it hid the worst. Thankfully I had just bought a hat. Hopefully we wouldn't meet anyone we knew on the boat!? Thanks for reading this particularly long blog, we had a great time in Flores! Exciting Komodo Dragon Boat trip next.. do we get to see this rare and pre-historic living relic ... see our next blog!