What, a whole week off starting now ?

As a followup to my recent mention of Capt. Bligh arriving in Kupang in 1789, I was interested to read in today's Irish Times (available online free of charge at 8 a.m. here or 1 a.m. Irish time, what a service !) that the Bounty (not the original one, but the schooner built for the 1960 Marlon Brando/Trevor Howard) is in Irish waters at the moment. Read more HERE.

Indonesia is a very religious country and I have written before about how religion is very much a part of daily life rather than just being something you do on a Sunday morning. In Flores of course, the predominant religion is Christian (of the Roman Catholic variety) but it seems to sit quite happily alongside many animist traditions, such as making offerings to your ancestors before important events. For the last month however, it has been Ramadan and although Maumere does not have an enormous Muslim population, this has meant that one of my regular restaurants has been closed for the month while the family who run it are fasting every day. This weekend is Idul Fitri, which marks the end of Ramadan, and the calendar in our house had two holidays marked on it - Monday & Tuesday. I was rather surprised, therefore, to hear yesterday that in fact we finish work today (Thursday) and "masuk lagi" (come back) next Thursday. In my experience, it's not often that you find out at a day's notice that you have a whole week's holiday ahead of you and I guess that this highlights yet another difference between people here and in the more affluent West. My immediate reaction was, of course, "Wow, a week's holiday- let's go away somewhere". Going away somewhere of course requires money and so is not an option that even gets considered for most people.

However, at times like this I look on myself as a tourist and think that in my limited time here I should try and see as much of the country as I can so I'm now busy planning a trip somewhere - maybe to Lembata, one of the Lesser Sunda Islands to the east of Flores - this will mean going back to Larantuka yet again !

Lembata is known for the village of Lamalera, famous for its whaling. As the number of whales caught here in this subsistence hunting operation each year is so small and no endangered species are hunted, this community has been granted an exemption from the international bans on whaling.