Flores

Due to not doing blog for 3 weeks I've got a bit confused so the Flores entry is below this one. Enjoy!

Lombok to Sumbawa

We left Lombok on Nic's Birthday (12 April) and arrived in Sumbawa, which is conservative (Muslim) and very empty. Once again the locals were so friendly and shouted 'Hello Tourist' 'Hello Mr' 'Where are you going?' at us.

This is a typical view:


Gorgeous school children, we see hundreds of them when we're cycling and their smiles are so big.

This is us at the port in Labuhan Lombok just before we got on the ferry:

As usual the ferry was hilarious but we did have to passive smoke really strong cigarettes for 2 hours. We also had people staring and others trying to sell us the usual variety of items, including magic mushrooms!

We stayed the night in Alas, a small, poor, dirty, totally un-touristy city. The locals were amazed at the sight of us. Surprisingly, we managed to find a really nice place to stay but it was next to the mosque so we got woken up at 5am by a man wailing. I was still off my food but Nic ate at a very dodgy street stall and then we had some birthday cake. A very sweet nutty pancake sort of thing:

The people in the rural areas are so poor but it's a very beautiful place:

We had a wonderful easy cycle ride to Kanchana Beach near Sumbawa Besar. We stayed at an empty touristy hotel on the beach and my body was grateful for the safe western-style food.

We did a day ride to the large city of Sumbawa Besar to ask about the bus to the other end of Sumbawa and to use the ATM. We got the impression that they don't get alot of tourists here as some people ran away from us when we asked directions to the bank and others just gathered around to stare and ask questions. We did eventually find the ATM and then we went for lunch. At the restaurant all of the staff, including the manager, came our to meet us and when we left they all had their photos taken with us using the mobiles. They were so excited and it was hilarious.

The following day we left out bikes and some of our luggage at Kanchana Beach and got the bus to Bima. When we arrived at the bus station they tried to get us on a very dodgy looking purple bus then we found a slightly less scary one that was leaving 20 minutes later so we got on it. We were the only passengers but we had 2 drivers and a mechanic (tells you something!).

Nic looking rather apprehensive about the bus journey!

After about 10 minutes one of the 4 wheels at the back of the bus got a puncture so we stopped up the road at the Sumbawa version of Kwikfit and spent an hour getting the puncture repaired.

The bus journey was 10 hours long and we didn't stop for food or to use the loo. However, it was thoroughly entertaining. The bus was packed by the end of the trip and we discovered that the bus is used for the collection and delivery of goods, a school bus and a local bus. This is us collecting a ton of cabbages, chillis and tomatoes that we delivered to someone 3 hours later. We had tomatoes rolling around on the floor and out of the door (which was never closed during the journey).

The condition of the road was shocking. We had tarmaced parts but some of it was mud. You had to cling on for dear life.

We eventually got to Bima and went to the loo and then we got our own small rusty bus to take us to Sape. Another 2 hours of bone shaking fun!

We spent the night in Sape at a homestay and met Musinda and her parents (the owners). She was really sweet and we our now friends on facebook. She gave us both friendship bracelets and practiced her English.

The following morning we got on the ferry, which took 9 hours to get to Flores. We paid extra (about 1 pound) to go in 'First Class' mainly to get away from the cigarettes and so we didn't have to watch everyone throw their rubbish into the sea.

We got to the port at 6.30 as we'd been told the ferry left at 7am. Anyway, it left at 9am so we had 2 hours to meet the girls trying to sell us food and watch everyone else on the boat settle themselves in:

These ladies spent the whole journey on the car deck. They are obviously professional travellers:

Gili Air and Lombok

On the 4th April we left the party island of Gili Trawangan and got the shuttle to Gili Air, which is totally different. It was much quieter and there were more locals that tourists. This was the bungalow that we stayed in for 4 nights:

My cold cleared up and we got to do 5 dives. We saw loads of turtles, some sharks and lots of fish. Unfortunately the reef around the island has had so much damage, some natural and some man-made i.e dynamite fishing, but there was still lots of marine life.

The locals play beach volley ball each afternoon and Nic had a go at playing too. It was lovely to hang out with the friendly locals.

This is our great Dive Master. We also got to help with a clean up dive in front of the the dive centre to collect some of the rubbish that ends up in the sea from Lombok.

We got the shuttle back to Lombok and spent the night in Bangsal. We'd both come down with tummy troubles so we just had a rest day.

We went and sat at the cross roads and watched the world go by and took some photos:

Jiggy Jiggy Massage?

This is the smallest kitten I've ever seen. It's only other surviving sibling was twice as big.

This huge Gecko was on the wall in the homestay:

The following day we organised a bus to take us to Senaru as we still had our tummy problems. We were upset about not cycling but it was still a lot of fun.

This is the petrol station that we stopped at:

We had 2 nights in Senaru but didn't do any walking due to tummy problems and rain. We did see this wild monkey though and we had great views from our homestay:

We eventually got back on the bikes and cycled to Labu Pandan. The ride was tough as it was very hot and we had lots of crazily steep river crossings and a couple of long climbs. Also because I'd not eaten for days I felt very weak and I had to keep stopping to refuel myself with the fab Indonesian energy drink called Picari Sweat. The scenery however was fantastic - coastal views, green fields and big mountains. The locals were so friendly and whenever we stopped people came out of the woodwork to smile at us and stare. The following day we cycled a short distance to Labuhan Lombok to get the ferry over to Sumbawa.

Flores, Kanawa Island and Diving

We arrived in Labuanbajo, Flores after our 9 hour ferry ride and had a great night out with the three other tourists that had been on our boat. The following day we organised our dive trip, a trip to the tropical paradise, Kanawa Island, and had our hair cut by this lovely 'lady boy':

These are her feet:
This is the port in Labuanbajo. We stayed at the top of a hill and it was hard work trekking up there but we had great views.

This is the view of Kanawa Island. We had a wonderful time here relaxing and snorkelling. There are only 10 basic bungalows here and a small restaurant.


The sunsets have been amazing but this one was exceptional.

There were 2 very friendly deer on the island and at low tide they has a paddle and ate the sea grass.

This is us with our new Australian and Swiss friends that shared the island with us:


We then did a 5 day diving trip. We got a really great price to do a liveaboard with 4 Italians who'd chartered a boat and had agreed that we could join them. The diving was amazing and we saw pristine corals, Manta Rays, sharks, turtles, masses of fish and some very strange stuff too. At times the currents made you feel that you were in a washing machine and we had to cling onto the corals. Very scary but also a lot of fun!

However, the Dive Master had no organisational skills and spoke very little English and one of the Italians was a total nightmare in and out of the water. There were a lot of problems from the start and it ended with us leaving the boat early as the boat had run out of food and fresh water to shower with.

As part of the trip we went to see the Komodo Dragons on Rinca. We saw 8 of the beasts relaxing in the shade. We had to have 2 guides with us, both with sticks to attack them with if they decided to eat us.

Bali - Cycle from Ubud to Padangbai. Get ferry to Lembar, Lombok and cycle to Mataram. Cycle to Bangsal and get ferry to Gili Trawangan

Cycled for 3 hours to get to Pandangbai and it was mostly downhill. Once again we had lots of smiles and 'hellos' shouted at us by the locals. We stopped off at the Elephant Cave on the way and I can say that Nic looks lovely in a sarong! Here is the entrance to the cave:

We also saw this lovely elephant on the way:
We are not taking many photos because there is just sooo much stuff that blows your mind.

We had 2 nights in Padangai doing a bit of snorkelling and relaxing. Then we got the local ferry over to Lembar, Lombok, which is only 25km away but it can take upto 8 hours! Luckily we had a great crossing and it only took 3 1/2. Here is me on the ferry - lots of plastic on the seats! We had people trying to sell us everything from t-shirts to peanuts for about 45 minutes until the ferry actually left the harbour. Great entertainment. We are picking up a bit of the local language e.g. Tidak, which means no thanks


When we reached Lembar we cycled for about 20km to get to the capital Mataram. It's much greener on Lombok and the views of the mountains and paddie fields was lovely. We had lots of smiles and 'double takes' (not so used to western cyclists here) and even the police man shouted 'be careful' to us.

We loved Mataram and had 2 nights there in order to extend our visas by another 30 days (60 days in total). We'd heard that it was much easier to extend it here than in Bali and this turned out to be true. We met an Indonesian man sponsoring a girl from Belgium and he offered to help us for a very small fee. We got it all sorted out in a few minutes and picked up our visas the following morning. Awesome!

The traffic in Mataram was not as crazy as Bali as there are more horse-drawn carts and motorbikes than cars. There are very few tourists here and the people stared at us but as soon as you say 'hello' or smile they are really friendly and welcoming. We loved walking around the mall, which is so unlike any other mall at home. Below is me next to some sort of walking, singing animal that you can hire to put your child on when you're walking around the mall. Why do we not have these at home?


When we were in Mataram we contacted a chap called Axel who lives in Lombok and organises the Lombok Audax. Anyway, we ended up going to his house and meeting his lovely wife, Tenne, and her son Ekkie. Here I am in their lovely home:

We all got on really well and they even ended up cycling with us the 6km to Senggigi and bought us lunch. Such amazingly nice people.

We had a couple of nights in Senggigi at different hotels. At the second hotel we ate twice at a tiny Warung (cafe) and met the owners charming family. He was so kind and only charged us local prices and gave us free coffee.

Next we cycled to Bangsal harbour to catch the boat over to the Gili Islands and Axel and Tenne came to meet us. Axel cycled with us and Tenne was in the car and kept stopping to take lots of photos of us puffing and panting up the hills. Here I am with Axel and Tenne having a coconut at the top of one of the short steep hills:

It was a very hot day but the views were wonderful. Luckily I had my bags in Tenne's car so I got to cheat!


When we got he the harbour we had missed the last boat to Gili Air so we ended up getting a boat to the busier Gili Trawangan instead. Tenne's cousin and 3 of her friends were also on their way there so it was great to have some help getting the panniers and bikes on and off the boat.



This is the view of Gili T when we arrived - paradise!


We've been on Gili T for 2 nights and we're going to make our way to Gili Air later on today. I've had a cold so couldn't dive but I'm feeling OK now so hopefully we can get in the water tomorrow. There is supposed to be masses of marine life here and we can't wait to see some of it.