I've spent the past month island hopping through the archipelago of Nusa
Tenggara in south eastern Indonesia. While travel there is a little tough and
often unreliable, the diversity of the landscapes and culture made it all
worthwhile.
Getting to Nusa Tenggara from Borneo took some time, and started with a nine
hour bus ride from Kuching in Malaysia to the Indonesian city of Pontianak in
the province of Kalimantan. While Pontianak does not have a lot to offer to the
tourist, its position on the equator made it fun to get my picture taken with
one leg standing in each hemisphere.
On our second evening in Pontianak, we learned that although the political
unrest has calmed down, Indonesia is still a volatile place. We headed out for
dinner around 8pm, only to find that the early rising Indonesians had already
gone to bed and everything seemed to be closed. We finally found an open
restaurant, but despite the fact that a sign indicated it was open until 10, the
owner told us that it was closed. When I asked why, the owner simply replied
"ribut" which from my limited Indonesian, I understood meant
"chaos" or "noise".
I didn't quite understand what he was referring to, although shortly afterwards,
the previously dead streats started to fill with cars that seemed anxious to get
somewhere in a hurry. We then noticed people closing and locking up their houses
and shops while peeking around the corner as if something was about to happen.
We started feeling a little nervous at this point, and continued on tentatively
down the street. Our caution turned to fear when a group of locals appeared
running at full speed while yelling "Berbahaya ... lari, lari" which
means "danger ... run". Figuring that they knew something we didn't,
we followed their advice and started sprinting at full speed back to our hotel.
Whenever we would stop for a break, the locals continued with their insistance
to run. When we made it back to the hotel, the language barrier made it
difficult to figure out what was going on outside, but the hotel owner did hop
on a motor bike and procure some take-out fried rice for us to dine on.
Our only clue as to what happened was the next day when we walked past a disco
in the area where the chaos took place, and there was a store under it with
blown out windows, police tape all around and a half dozen soldiers with machine
guns keeping guard. I later learned that "ribut" also means
"disturbance", and my guess is that there was a robbery or rioting of
some sort.
We were quite happy to leave Pontianak behind, although the 23 hour ferry ride
to Jakarta had the AC cranked so high that even with long underwear and a
fleece, I was barely able to keep warm.
Jakarta's warm and muggy air soon thawed us out, and as I didn't fancy staying
in Indonesia's overcrowded and uninspiring capital for too long, I set about
buying plane tickets to the island of Timor. I was told that the flights were
all full, and that the only plane from Jakarta to Kupang was sold out in economy
for two weeks, and even in business class for the next few days. Several travel
agencies and even the airline office itself assured me that this was the case. I
finally asked one travel agency if they had looked into the possibility of
flying to Bali (half way between Java and Timor) and changing planes there. They
quickly replied that this would be no problem, and there were economy seats
available for the flight the next day.
Kupang is a large yet sleepy coastal town that sees a lot of tourists due to
cheap flights between it and Darwin, Australia. While the Darwinites seemed to
come for the discos and cheap beer, I was more interested in the traditional
cultures in the mountainous interior, and hopped on a run down and horrendously
overcrowded bus headed for the town of Soe.
Outside of Soe is a little village called Boti that is still ruled by a
"king" and according to its own traditional laws. The king didn't want
his culture ruined by western influences, and shuns all outside intrusions
including electricity. The one exception to this rule is that tourists are
welcomed to stay at their guesthouse and provide the residents with a little bit
of extra income.
Getting to Boti involves a three hour walk from where the bus drops you off
through some brown and dusty mountains that were reminiscent of southern Italy
or Greece. All that was missing were a few olive trees. Unlike much of the rest
of Indonesia which is wet and lush, Timor is almost desert like during the dry
season and has the shortest wet season in Indonesia.
When we arrived in Boti, we were shown to our rooms after which we were to head
to the reception area for our audience with the king. We had some brief
conversations with the king through our interpreter (the only language the king
speaks is Timorese), and then a big feast was laid out before us. The
entertainment for the evening involved a dance performance that was put on by
the villagers. They emerged wearing outfits of their traditional weaving with
feathers in the hair and around the feet, and to the tune of chanting and
yelling, they brandished large daggers and hopped around in front of us in
almost a trance like state. Later, the dance was accompanied by some enchanting
metal drum playing and the king even got into the act playing an instrument that
looked like a banjo. The dancing continued after the foreigners went to bed, and
I drifted off to sleep with their singing in the background.
My travel plans through Timor were to slowly work my way across into East Timor
where I would then hop on a ferry and travel through the islands between Timor
and Bali. However, East Timor has been a bit of a hot spot, and I kept getting
mixed reports about its safety. The news reports talked about how new President
Habibie's promise for increased autonomy had quietened things down, so I was
optimistic that there would be no problems traveling there now. Unfortunately,
as my travels through West Timor progressed, locals and ex-pats alike seemed to
unanimously agree that the trip was a bad idea and managed to convince me to
change my plans.
Instead, I headed back to Kupang where I was able to catch a ferry to the island
of Flores. Given my experience riding on the meat locker between Pontianak and
Jakarta, I made sure that my fleece and long underwear were ready. However, this
time the 14 hour overnight trip was a sauna and it was so unbearably hot that it
was difficult to sleep.
The highlight of Flores was the dormant Kelimutu volcano with three different
crater lakes. Interestingly, the three lakes are of different colours, and even
more interestingly, the colours change from year to year. Past colours have
included brown, white, and red lakes, while the colours during my visit were a
milky white turquoise, a dark olive green, and black. Getting to the top of the
volcano for sunrise was quite easy as a large truck picked you up at your hotel
at 4am,
We made it up while it was still dark, and then shivered together while hoping
that the clouds would disappear before sunrise. Unfortunately, they didn't, but
once the sun was up it burnt the fog layer away revealing stunning views of the
three crater lakes.
Another highlight while working across Flores was the hill station Bajawa with
its traditional villages and air that was cool enough to enjoy some of the best
hot springs I have ever been to. There was one creek that had lukewarm water,
into which flowed a large waterfall at about the temperature of a hot bath. If
one stream was too hot or cold, you only needed to shift around a bit to find a
spot that was just right. The colours in the springs were also incredible as the
bright orange mineral deposits contrasted nicely with the almost fluorescent
green algae.
From Flores, the most popular travel route involves taking a four day boat
cruise to Lombok that stops off at the island Komodo as well as at many
snorkeling stops along the island of Sumbawa. However, we had heard many horror
stories about the boat trips running out of food or running aground while
sailing at night. Instead, a group of us decided to charter a boat and make our
own 2-day itinerary that simply dropped us off at Sumbawa.
The trip started out with a snorkeling stop at some nice reefs at an island just
off Flores, and then continued to the island of Rinca which is part of the
Komodo national park. We were dropped off for a three hour dragon spotting hike,
and were not disappointed. Right as we stepped off the boat, there was a large
dragon sitting in the shade along the beach, seemingly indifferent to the humans
that walked by. As we were guided on a three hour hike around the island, we saw
several more dragons including a few young ones sprinting away from us and a
large mature female.
The next stop on the tour was a mangrove island where we could see flying foxes
(large fruit bats) take off for the evening. Unfortunately, we were beaten to
the island by some of the other boats which had used explosives to scare the
bats into action for their passengers. Even though we only saw a few of the
bats, we weren't disappointed as we were able to witness another show. About a
dozen dolphins were feeding as they circled around a frenzied school of fish
that were breaking the surface as they panicked from the onslaught of the
dolphins.
We were served a delicious dinner, and then slept on the deck of the boat while
anchored just off the island of Komodo. We awoke early the next morning to
prepare for some more dragon watching, this time on Komodo itself. We had a
really good guide who was quite happy to stop and point out interesting flora
and fauna including some beautiful orchids, deer and wild water buffaloes (the
dragons favourite prey), endemic birds and trees, and even some gecko eggs
nestled in a tree. When we arrived at a watering hole that the dragons
frequented, there were a few big ones sleeping under a tree. Just as we were
about to head back, an enormous mature male casually ambled on over to the
watering hole dragging its massive tail and checking out its surroundings while
flicking out its long forked tongue.
It was maybe three meters long, and I am not sure how heavy it was but it was
definitely a lot bigger than me. Our guide informed us it was probably over
thirty years old. It didn't seem too concerned about us and we were assured that
it was too well fed to attack, so our group took turns posing for our pictures
with a dragon.
After another brief snorkeling stop off Komodo, we continued straight through to
Sumbawa. The seas became quite rough after leaving the shelter of Komodo Island,
and things got even more nerve wracking when it got dark and we realized the
boat's only light was from a lantern that one of the crew held at the front of
the boat. We thought we were almost there when we saw some city lights off in
the distance, but this proved premature when we realized that the plethora of
lights was actually just a fleet of fishing boats using powerful spotlights to
attract squid and fish.
We eventually made it to Sape on the East coast of Sumbawa, and as Sumbawa
doesn't have anything especially interesting to see, the next day we hopped on a
night bus that would take us right through to the island of Lombok.
My main goal on Lombok was to make it up the 3700m volcano Mt Rinjani that
dominates the island. A group of four of us hired tents, sleeping bags, and four
porters, and at 5am we set off on a four day trek. When we were dropped off at
the trailhead, the lack of any distinctive features to give perspective made the
volcano look as if it was an easy day hike as opposed to a grueling 2900m climb.
However, as the hours ticked by and we climbed up and up, the volcano didn't
seem to be getting any closer. Thankfully, after our lunch break, the clouds
rolled in and provided us some relief from the scorching rays of the sun while
preventing us from seeing how slow our progress was.
By early afternoon, we reached the crater rim and then sat around and relaxed
while our porters set up camp and cooked dinner for us. While we had requested
vegetarian food, some of the 16 other trekkers hadn't and their meat came in the
form of live chickens strapped to the porter's bags.
The next morning was the toughest one as we woke up at 2:30 am, dined on some
biscuits and tea, and then commenced the slog up to the top of the mountain. The
worst part about the hike was the loose rocks we were hiking up as with every
step we seemed to slide down to the point we had just started from.
As we walked along the exposed ridge, we noticed a strange sight on the horizon.
There was an orangish glow off in the distance easing down a gentle slope ... it
seemed that we were seeing an eruption and lava flow in action. When we asked
the guide what volcano it was that was erupting, he just looked at us and said,
"you mean the moon?". It turns out that our discovery was simply the
rising sliver of the moon that was glowing orange due to being low to the
horizon, and it was partially obscured by clouds hiding its true shape.
We trudged on up the slope, and managed to make it to the summit about five
minutes before the sun broke the horizon. There were stunning views of Sumbawa
and even Flores to one side, and across the crater to the other side could be
seen the volcanoes of Bali. Beneath us was the turquoise blue crater lake along
with the smoking cone of a small volcano that had formed during an eruption four
years earlier.
Getting back down was much easier than the way up as the scree formed a cushion
allowing you to leap down in large steps, eventually sliding to a stop. Back at
the camp, we dined on some banana pancakes for breakfast before continuing down
into the crater for our next night's camp on the lake shore.
Just down from the crater lake was a hot river that was a perfect temperature
for soothing our aching muscles and to wash off the sweat and grime from the
previous two day's hiking. There were also some caves nearby with water flowing
out of the mouth that was almost at the boiling point, and sitting inside the
cave was like being in a sauna. The mineral deposits from the springs created
some beautiful stalactites and stalagmites as well as other interesting
formations.
The last two days hiking took us up to the crater rim on the other side, and
then down through a forest that provided very welcome shade for our decent.
I spent a few days relaxing and letting my legs recover from the previous four
days exertion, after which I hopped on a ferry to Bali where I will be spending
the last month of my trip.
It has been a long time since I have settled down anywhere for more than a few
days, so I am really looking forward to kicking back for a while and not having
to be constantly packing my bags.
My Indonesian visa runs out around the 20th of October, after which I will
probably be flying to Bangkok for a bit of Christms shopping, and then back to
California just in time for Halloween.
