6 weeks

Another long gap between posts, no excuses except that there hasn't really been anything of note to write about and, as my father always advised "if you don't have anything to say, then say nothing" (and, of course, I always take his advice).

I'm really in the home straight now, it looks as if Saturday 5th June will be my last day at work and I'll probably leave Maumere on the following Tuesday or Wednesday. I will have my exit interview with VSO in Denpasar on Thursday and leave Indonesia on Friday night, arriving in London at about lunchtime on Saturday 12th June. Lots of things to finish off at work before then...

But before that.... my first visitors ! My sister and brother-in-law arrive in Denpasar next Saturday (some very nervous moments last week as we watched the news about flight chaos due to the ash cloud) and will then fly from Denpasar to Labuanbajo (western end of Flores) on Monday morning. I'll leave Maumere on Friday for the two day bus journey to Labuanbajo and we will then spend about a week on the trip back via all the tourist destinations in Flores. I'll write more about this later but we'll go via Ruteng (visiting two Dutch volunteers), Bajawa (lots of interesting village culture), maybe Riung (boat trip to the 17 islands), Moni & Kelimutu (coloured lakes), and finish up with a couple of days in Maumere before they fly back to Denpasar and then onwards to home.

It's hard to believe that in seven weeks' time, I won't be here anymore - it's been an extraordinary year and a half and I'll write more later after the dust has settled about the whole experience. At the moment, I'm recovering from an Indonesian special, the worst case of "having to stay close to the toilet" that I've had in a long time,all part of the experience I guess !

The good news for all you readers out here (yes, both of you) is that these ramblings will cease after I get home and post a final wrapup. I promise not to bore you anymore after I get home !         

Easter at the islands

Happy Easter everyone ! Easter is a very big deal here as Flores is a predominantly Roman Catholic island and Larantuka, at the eastern end of the island, is especially famous for its Holy Week and Easter weekend celebrations. This year is the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese arrivals here and so was a specially significant celebration and many people from Maumere and all over Flores made their way there for the weekend.

I, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction. West of Maumere along the north coast of Flores are the towns of Mbay and Riung. Mbay is home to two volunteers - Mikal from Ohio and Brenda from the Philipines. They were interested in travelling to Riung (a little further west than Mbay) and visiting the 17 Islands National Park so I decided to join them.

The trip from Maumere to Mbay is an eight to hour nine hour bus journey along the most appalling road imaginable. As with most Asian countries, public transport here is pretty basic and buses are usually massively overloaded.

 

As you can see, my bus was approved to carry 23 passengers, which  seems sensible as there were 23 seats. However, when the bus arrived at the pickup point all the seats were already full. However, that's never an obstacle so we all just piled in and set off with two or three to a seat, a few hanging out of the doors and about eight on the roof. Fifty four people in all, one goat, a number of chickens and too many sacks of rice to count...

After eight hours of this plunging up and down hills on mostly unsurfaced roads (with just one 30 minute stop) I made it to Mbay and met with Brenda and Mikal. The next day we travelled on to Riung on a motorbike (borrowed from the brother-in-law of a Maumere friend I met on the bus !) and found a small rather rundown hotel with a very friendly owner called Simeon.

Simeon arranged a boat for us for the following day and came us with on our trip to the islands. We left the harbour at about 8am and returned at about 4pm.We visited a few islands, one of which is home to the most enormous bat population I have ever seen.

   

 

Later we visited our own private desert island for a delicious lunch cooked on the beach by Simeon and stopped at about four separate locations for some great snorkelling.

 

Leo, our captain, cleaning the fish for lunch

Mikal & Brenda on our desert island

A house near the harbour at Riung

On Sunday we were invited to have lunch at the home of a friend (the guy who lent me his brother-in-law's motorbike) near Mbay. A very relaxing afternoon spent sitting under a mango tree chatting and being watched by lots of big eyes...

Then, on Monday morning it was back to the bus terminal for a 7am departure for Maumere, arriving home exactly nine hours later. Worth every minute of it....