Selamat Tahun Baru !! Happy New Year !!

It's New Year's Eve in Indonesia already so I'll be seeing in the New Year a little earlier than many of you - hope you have a good one !

There'll be more waffle on here next year - thanks for dropping by !

Roadside views

Just a short video clip taken from the bus window as we climbed and plunged along from Labuanbajo to Ruteng last Monday.

Back from the Dragons’ Den !

I hope you all had a great Christmas in whatever part of the world you are reading this. It's now Tuesday morning and I'm back in Maumere after a week away at the western end of Flores – I won't bore you with a blow by blow account but here's a quick rundown....

On Tuesday (22^nd) I travelled by bus to Ruteng, where I was just three weeks ago for Festus's party. This is a twelve hour journey with just one meal stop at about 2 pm and so I was very glad indeed to arrive and have a wash and something to eat. The next morning the journey resumed at 7 am, arriving in Labuanbajo, the port at the western end of Flores at about 11 am. I had already booked a room in the Golo Hilltop Hotel on the recommendation of Anouk in Ruteng so made my way there and found a very nice Dutch-run place with a great view of the bay slightly to the north of Labuanbajo.

Labuanbajo itself is very tourist oriented (I saw at least 8 different dive shops) and has more English language restaurants and bars than all the rest of Flores put together so is certainly the place to come if you are craving some kentang goreng (chips), sizzling hotplate dishes (local speciality) and menus in English.

On Thursday, I set off on a boat trip to Rinca (about two hours away) to visit the Komodo dragons. The boat journey was about two hours long and we passed some of the multitude of islands that dot the sea to the west of Flores, it is surprising to see how many of even the smallest of these are inhabited and it's hard to imagine what sort of existence is eked out here as most of these islands are volcanic with no fresh water.

There are about 1100 Komodo Dragons on Rinca, with more on Komodo Island itself. They normally live to about 50 years old and apparently their saliva contains about 50 different types of bacteria – if one catches up with you, you are more likely to die from septicaemia than from being eaten, especially as the nearest hospital is at least two hours away and is not up to much anyway. They can run at about 15 kms/hr but when I was there they were all snoozing in the midday sun, their most active times are early morning and late afternoon (outside visiting hours !). They are carnivorous creatures and a group of three or four komodos will make a buffalo last about four days.

However, they are also cannibalistic so their young very sensibly take to the trees as soon as they hatch from their eggs after nine months (I wonder if I got that right, that seems very long ?) until they are three or four years old. There are some safety precautions in place to prevent tourists being eaten : you can only wander around with a guide (who is armed with a long forked stick !), visitors are only allowed in the middle of the day when the dragons are laziest and - well, that's it really.

 

After my two hour very hot hike around the island it was time to board the boat and return to Labuanbajo - well, almost to Labuanbajo. A loud bang from the noisy engine, followed by total silence put paid to that plan but fortunately we were within mobile phone coverage and able to call for help so were towed in an hour or two later than planned. (And no, I didn't ask what we would have done if we had broken down thirty minutes earlier where there was no phone signal.)

 

The next day (Christmas Day) I boarded another boat to Pulau Seraya Kecil (Pulau = island, kecil = small or little) for two days of doing nothing. This is a fabulous place, a white sandy beach, about a dozen beachfront bungalows, a restaurant with a very limited menu (but plenty of cold beer), and a great coral reef for snorkelling. Electricity is provided by a generator which runs from about 6pm to 10pm every day and fresh water is brought to the island by tank and so is in very short supply and anyway is only available when the generator is running to power the pump. A very relaxing two days spent reading, swimming, snoozing and generally doing nothing .....

 

 

 

And then, THE BUS AGAIN..... Sunday started with the boat from Seraya to Labuanbajo, then the bus from LBJ to Ruteng.

Monday was another twelve hour marathon from Ruteng to Maumere, arriving home at 7 pm absolutely knackered. Today (Tuesday) I am relaxing at home, having just returned from the market with eggs, mangoes, bananas, a pineapple, tomatoes and cucumber so it will be French toast and pineapple for breakfast and tomato and cucumber salad for lunch. Tomorrow, back to work...

Christmas is coming..

But there isn't much sign of the geese (or anything else for that matter) getting fat here. Even though this won't be the first time I've spent Christmas in a hot country, it still feels really weird to hear Christmas carols in sweltering weather. Last night, I passed a house where a choir was rehearsing "Joy to the World" in good two part harmony (Indonesian men don't seem to be able to sing below tenor) and there are some Christmas decorations up in the shops, and a Christmas tree - with snow - in the hospital lobby.

There are two official "tanggal merah" (red days on the calendar) - 24th and 25th December - but I am assuming that nobody will turn up at work on Saturday 26th as every holiday I've experienced so far seems to gently and unofficially extend itself.

I've been asking about what happens at Christmas here - there is some special baking done (which is unusual in itself as baking generally does not feature largely here) and families will attend church, visit their neighbours and bring Christmas greetings. I asked "do you give gifts ?" and have been given different answers - one colleague answered me with "To whom ? Why ?" - apparently this was a rather weird notion ! Another told me that she will probably give her three children a small toy each but when I asked if she would be giving her husband a gift she thought this was hilarious ! It's certainly seen as a far less significant festival than Easter where everything closes up for a week or so - for instance, young people have no problem going away or visiting friends at Christmas but wouldn't dare be absent from home at Easter.

As for my own Christmas, I've more or less decided to take a bus trip (2 days travel) to Labuanbajo at the western end of Flores and from there visit Rinca Island. This is one of the places where the famous Komodo Dragons are to be found (but I'm not planning to get too close for reasons which will be become clear when you read the article I've linked to). As well as Rinca (which will be a day trip) I might visit one of the resort islands near Labuanbajo for a day or two chilling out without electricity before setting out for the two day trip back to Maumere. I haven't booked anything in advance but this is the low season for tourism here so I hope there won't be too many problems.I'll probably book my travel in advance though, as I expect many people will want to pulang kampung (return home to their village) for Christmas so buses may be busy.    

This will probably be my last post for a few days (I'm not sure what blogging chances I'll have during the holiday) so I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas wherever you may be. I've been rambling on here for just over one year now and it's extraordinary (to me anyway) to think that this waffle has been viewed over 10,000 times since I started posting. You can see the number of hits on the left hand side if you scroll down a bit. I thank you all for the comments you've left, the suggestions you've made and the support you've offered as I sweat quietly out here, so selamat natal, happy Christmas to you and yours and I wish you all every blessing !          

Seventeen years on..

Today (12th December) is the anniversary of the earthquake which hit Maumere and nearby islands such as Pulau Babi in 1992, resulting in the loss of more than 2,500 lives and the destruction of most of the buildings in the town, including the hospital. The current hospital was opened on a new site in 1998.

I have found it quite odd how little I have heard about this event given how recent it is (only 17 years ago) and how destructive it was. The little I have heard has been fragments of stories from colleagues at work and has had to be dragged out of them. I think that this lack of information is probably due to a number of factors :

• People here die young anyway. As I've already mentioned, life expectancy in Indonesia is much lower than in Ireland (68 years compared to 80, according to the WHO) so there are fewer people around who remember what happened and also the death of people at a young age is accepted as more commonplace than in developed countries. This situation has improved significantly recently so life expectancy in 1992 must have been even lower.
  

• There is generally a reluctance to talk about "bad things". This is connected to the strong animist traditions that sit by side with the Christian (mainly Roman Catholic) ethos in Flores. I've noticed that there is a great reluctance to talk about these bad things and I frequently hear "Satan" being mentioned !

• I find it hard to imagine what life in Maumere and the surrounding areas must have been like seventeen years ago. Internet access here even today is limited and unreliable, and there was certainly no internet access here at the time of the earthquake. Today, almost nobody here has a camera so there were probably no photographic records of what happened and also the heat means that dead bodies have to be dealt with extremely quickly so the whole business of dealing with funerals was probably over within a day or so. It's still possible to see where some of the town has been rebuilt (but never quite finished !).

Billy the Kid at the party

I'm now back at work on Wednesday morning, having returned from Ruteng yesterday. On Thursday last, we had more or less constant rain for about six hours so I decided to leave the motorbike at home and let someone else do the driving instead (and of course, it hasn't rained since..). There are a number of options for inter-town travel on Flores ranging from a truck to buses to what is called a Travel (a seat in a shared 8 seater car). I opted for the latter and was collected from the hospital at 7.30 am on Friday morning. I then sat in the car for four hours waiting until we had enough passengers on board to justify departing and eventually arrived in Bajawa at 7.30 pm, exactly twelve hours later (driving time 8 hours). I won't describe the rather hair-raising journey but I now know that an 8 seater car can fit 12 people (plus luggage) if you push hard enough.

On Saturday morning I continued to Ruteng (another four hours) in the luxury of a private jeep owned by a friend from Bajawa and then the party started !

Festus has been in Ruteng as a volunteer for two years and is now returning to Kenya to look for a job (he is a water engineer and has been working with a local NGO here helping villages to arrange secure clean water supplies). In his time in Ruteng he has obviously amassed a large circle of friends who all turned out on Saturday to wish him farewell. Unusually for Indonesia, there were no speeches (they were being saved for a lunch on Monday) so there was just music, dancing and drink. Oh, and of course the food !

The goat (see here) had been seen nibbling the grass outside the office where the party was to take place on Saturday morning but by the time I arrived had been despatched and was on the fire behind the office.

The party got underway with plenty of dancing and drinking and stage one of the meal (Billy the kid wasn't scheduled to appear until later on in the evening).

 

At last, the special guest made his appearance and was unceremoniously dumped on the table with a knife for self service snacking - and it was delicious !

As well as saying goodbye to Festus, the weekend was a great opportunity to catch up with Mark and Anouk, two Dutch volunteers based in Ruteng who were in the same intake group as me all the way back in February. Ruteng struck me as a nice place to be based, smaller than Maumere but a good bit cleaner and a lot cooler (long trousers and sweater required, plus a blanket at night).

   

 

My return journey to Maumere started on Monday morning when I left Ruteng by bus and travelled to Ende (uneventfully except for a puncture and a dead dog). I spent the night in Ende and travelled on to Maumere on Tuesday, arriving at about 12.30 pm. The total distance from Maumere to Ruteng is about 400 kms.

Arriving back in Maumere, I was struck (literally) by the heat - there is a massive difference and I found it very difficult to sleep last night,even with my electric fan strategically aimed. Today it is very very humid (unusually so) and, to maker matters worse, a  team of auditors will be occupying the (air conditioned) office that I normally use for the next two weeks ! 

So, goodbye Festus and good luck with whatever comes next !

Pesta in Ruteng !

As the number of VSO volunteers in Indonesia continues to dwindle (see earlier posts about the long running saga of visa negotiations that has led to the suspension of VSO's health programme), this weekend sees another departure as Festus, a Kenyan water engineer, comes to the end of his two year placement and heads home to seek paid employment in Africa. Of course, no departure would be complete without a pesta (you can guess the translation !) so I'm heading westwards on Friday to bid farewell and also visit two Dutch friends who were in the same intake group as me all the way back in February.

Mark & Anouk (and also Festus) live in Ruteng which is about 400 kms west of Maumere. I plan to make this marathon journey by motorbike with an overnight stay in Bajawa about 280 kms from here en route (that 280kms should take about 10 hours to accomplish). This will be my first time travelling past Ende (which is about 150km from Maumere) so I'm very much looking forward to the opportunity to see more of Flores and hoping that the rain will hold off.

Bajawa is near the site of the 2003 discovery of the Flores "Hobbit" which still divides the scientific community as to whether it is really a separate species or not.

I've been told that the party preparations are well underway and that 40 litres of moke (as the local hooch arrack is known here) have been prepared and that a suitable goat has been identified for our dining pleasure.

On the return journey,leaving on Monday morning, I'll try to make it from Ruteng to Ende on the first day, and then the final 150km from Ende to Maumere on Tuesday.