TEN DAYS ON FLORES

LABUAN BAJO

We’d finally arrived on Flores, after the epic four day boat trip from Lombok and were glad to be able to set foot on dry land.

Our hotel – Blue Ocean hotel – was fortunately only a couple of minutes walk from the harbour and I checked in and had a well needed shower and a lie down in a comfortable bed.

There was a great roof terrace at the hotel, where you could get great views across the harbour and the surrounding town.

We had this hotel booked for 2 nights and I spent most of that time catching up on some of the photos and video from the boat trip and also getting familiar with the town.

As Labuan Bajo is probably the most well known town on Flores I expected that it would be quite a large town with a lot on offer, but it didn’t really fulfil these expectations.

There were a few decent restaurants and an incredible crepe place just next to the hotel, but the town was really quite small.

Walking around had the usual issue where pavements were at a premium:

Here’s a couple more snaps from wandering around the town:

Although there wasn’t too much to do in Labuan Bajo, we did stay for a third night at the other end of town at a place called Selini Hill Villas.

This place was beautiful. A wooden cabin, built into the hillside, overlooking the town and the bay area.

The views over the bay were incredible, but especially for sunset.

An idyllic setup, with one drawback. There are a number of mosques in Labuan Bajo, which bellow out their calls to prayer at all hours over huge speaker systems which is deafening. The sounds from all of the mosques overlap and it just sounds like an awful cacophony.

The first one started at 4.20 a.m. and went on for 45 minutes. Absolutely no chance of getting any sleep beyond this point, when you’re staying in a wooden cabin.

Horrendous and surprising for Flores, which is a largely Catholic island.

RUTENG

After three nights in Labuan Bajo, we headed onto the next major town – Ruteng.

We took a minibus, which took around four hours, winding up into the Flores hills. On the way we passed through lots of small villages and rice plantations where we could see the locals working the fields.

One of the most bizarre moments of the journey was that a live cockerel, with its legs tied together was loaded into the boot area along with our bags.

Whenever we stopped to let anyone off the minibus, the driver simply threw the cockerel to the curb.

We arrived in Ruteng and checked into the homestay that we’d booked. Owned by a lovely hospitable family, who cooked us dinner and talked to us about the way of life and history of Flores.

We were only staying here for one night and so we didn’t get to see too much, but again this town didn’t really seem to offer too much from a tourism perspective, but we utilised it just as a stop off on our way to the next town of Bajawa.

The two main things I remember from the town was that there was a large military school and a tourism school.

Local kids seemed to be really excited to see Westerners wandering around the town and couldn’t wait to come up and speak to us and find out why we were here and what we thought of the place. They would walk with us for ages and this felt a little intrusive, but they had the best of intentions.

They would then ask us to sign their notebooks. I thought this was a little strange, but they then explained that it was for a school assignment. They were studying at the local tourism school and had to get as many tourist’s signatures as possible. A few of them tried to convince me to visit their school (for which they would get extra merit), but having no time for this I politely declined.

After a while this started to get a bit annoying. I must have signed at least 20 notebooks.

Here’s a few more snaps from Ruteng.

Time to move on again. Onto Bajawa.

BAJAWA

The next stop in Flores was the town of Bajawa.

We took another minibus to get there, which was ridiculously rammed. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any busier, they loaded more people on and some ended up sitting on other’s laps.

At one point the minibus overheated and we had to pull over. Steam was pouring out everywhere and at first I thought it was smoke and that it was going to explode.

I was incredibly relieved once we finally arrived.

We were staying in a place called Lucas Lodge & Restaurant. The room was fine, but it did back on to the restaurant and there was no soundproofing, so it did sound like the customers were having dinner in the room with you.

At least there weren’t early morning calls to prayer though!

 

WALKING AROUND BAJAWA

The town itself was quite small and set within the backdrop of some beautiful forestry.

The locals here were really friendly and were happy to pose for photos:

We’d been told that there were some hot springs near to Bajawa, but we didn’t get time to go and visit them unfortunately, but we heard that they were worth checking out.

We did take a walk, a couple of miles out of town, to the market area though, where there was all manner of fresh produce available. It was a great walk too, with some great scenery to take in.

We stayed here for two nights, but didn’t get up to much else while we were in Bajawa, except for the usual eating and drinking.

Next stop. Onto Moni!

MONI

Without a doubt, the highlight of Flores and I highly recommend paying it a visit.

The journey there certainly wasn’t a highlight though. This time we were loaded into this:

Initially we were the only passengers on board and thought this might be quite a fun trip, but again this started to load up, beyond it’s capacity. There were even people riding on the roof by the end of the trip.

We picked up some nuns on the way.

The journey took 8 hours. Looking on the map it seemed as though it should only be a couple of hours drive, but I was quickly learning that getting around on Flores was not as easy as you’d expect.

The scenery on the way was great though. The majority of the way was alongside the coastline, which took the edge off the cramped conditions.

Once we finally arrived in Moni, we headed to a cafe called Mopi’s place that had been recommended to us by someone we’d met in Bajawa.

This place was run by an Australian lady and her partner who was the spitting image of Slash.

As we sat in the cafe, looking out over the main road and fields, the fog started to close in. Quite atmospheric!

 

GECKOS

After a bite to eat and a couple of drinks, we headed to our accommodation – Geckos:

When trying to book somewhere to stay in Moni it was really difficult.

It’s such a small town. There’s essentially one main road that runs for a mile or so, lined with rice fields.

Geckos was the only place we could find that had availability, but it was great!

The place is run and owned by a guy called Lopez, who we spent the night cooking dinner with, along with the other guests. All of the ingredients were sourced from his garden and we prepared them with the most simple of utensils and cooked the dishes over a fire. It was delicious and so interesting to see how some of these classic Indonesian dishes are prepared.

After dinner Lopez shared with us some details about his life. Schooling is expensive in Indonesia and his family were too poor to send him to school.

Having never left Moni before, he left when he was 13 years old to work in a club in Bali, to allow him to fund his schooling. That must have been quite a shock to the system.

After finishing school he then got a job on board a fishing boat. He didn’t set foot off the boat for 3 years!

After spending 4 days on the boat to Flores and the cabin fever that we encountered I can’t imagine what it would be like to spend 3 solid years on board without being able to leave the boat.

 

KELIMUTU

Kelimutu is a volcano, a few miles from Moni village and is the main reason for visiting the area.

The mountain features 3 large crater lakes, each of which gives off a different colour hue, based on the different composition of elements found within the lake’s waters.

The best time to experience the changing colours of these lakes is to be there for sunrise, but this meant we’d need to get up really early to catch this.

Lopez said he would get up early to see if it was a clear sky and, if so, wake us up and organise transport for us.

Sure enough, it was a clear sky and, at 4 a.m. we were up and ready.

We hopped into the back of a pick up truck, lined with matresses, which took us to Kelimutu. It was around an hours drive, looking up at the night sky as we made our way. The stars were incredibly bright here!

When we arrived at the Kelimutu national park entrance, we stopped to pay the entrance fee and our driver dropped us off at the parking area.

From here it was a fairly short hike up to the top of the mountain and it was well worth getting up for. The views were breathtaking and I’m not sure that photography can do it justice, but here’s a few shots I took.

We stayed up here, admiring the views for an hour or so and then it began to rain so we headed back down.

At this point, the nearby monkeys were waking up and came to greet us.

Rather than getting a lift back to Moni, we’d decided to hike back, which was a 3 hour hike through forestry and several small villages.

The fog was descending as we started the hike back and this added to the atmosphere of the trek.

Walking past the first village we stopped here and purchased a cup of coffee from this lady. Her daughter was making a sarong, which is one of the key trades of the area.

Apparently it takes several months to make one. Incredible dedication.

The trek took us through a few tiny villages and here’s a few more pics from the journey.

After several hours of trekking in the fog, we glimpsed Moni village on the horizon:

A few hundreds yards further and we stopped by this waterfall before joining back up with the village:

A short walk over this precarious bamboo bridge and we were back in Moni.

We stopped back at Mopi’s place for a quick bite to eat and then walked back to Geckos.

Here’s a few snaps of the walk back, taking in the sights of the rice fields that lined the main road.

We were only in Moni for one night, but it was certainly the highlight of Flores.

Onto the final stop in Flores, Maumere!

 

MAUMERE

Maumere is the second largest town in Flores and I expected great things, but sadly it didn’t seem to offer much.

The locals seemed surprised to see any Westerners here and that made sense as I can’t see any reason to visit the town.

We had a couple of nights booked here before jetting off, but fortunately we had a great hotel, with a view over the sea.

We spent a couple of days chilling out here, before flying off to our final stop in Indonesia – Bali.

HEADING TO BALI

We’d spent ten days on Flores in total.

Some of the scenery was amazing, but overall I found it an underwhelming experience, aside from Moni.

The island is no doubt a beautiful volcanic landscape and I think if we’d had our own transport it would have made the experience so much better.

So, if you’re heading to Flores I’d recommend renting scooters!

Flying to Bali was great though, as we got to see some of the views of Flores from the air, including Kelimutu!

Here’s a couple of snaps I took on my phone on the way:

Read on for Bali…..