2020.02.21 – Tambolaka[Sumba Island] – Ende (Indonesia) – We stretched our morning breakfast time as our flight to Ende was scheduled for mid-afternoon. At 1:00pm, we took the hotel shuttle to the nearby airport. Not surprisingly the check-in counter for WingAir, a discount airline of LionAir, was not even opened when we arrived. Later when we managed to check-in, we were given seats in the first row of the plane. We experienced the first hand notorious reputation of WingAir for being late (or even sometimes canceling flights with few passengers). Thankfully our flight did take place with only one hour delay. In Ende, our hotel airport shuttle van had been waiting for us. We were pleasantly surprised by the new and modern hotel we booked. The staff were friendly and spoke good English – a big difference from our experience in Sumba. In the evening, we walked to the restaurant in the neighborhood for supper. It appeared the locals did not see too many tourists as we were frequently greeted on the streets by young and old with “Hello Mister”.
2020.02.22 – Ende – Moni (Indonesia) – We were woken up at 4:40am by some loud speakers from a nearby mosque. This was the first time we heard the morning call for prayer. It seemed like Kupang and Sumba were predominantly christian areas but not Ende. After our courtesy breakfast, the hotel staff drove us to the bus terminal some 5 kms away. As the public bus had already departed we were invited to take place in a bemo, a popular 10 passenger mini-bus/van transport, for the 1.5 hr scenic ride to Moni. We checked into our Moni homestay shortly after 9:30am. One half hour later, we were being driven on a 45mins motorcycle ride to the top of Kelimutu volcano. The plan was to walk down from volcano after our visit – an activity highlighted in our LP travel guide as “not overly strenuous”. The landscape and three colorful volcano lakes provided us with some great photo opportunities. After returning to the Kelimutu parking lot, we started our 10kms walk/hike along a narrow path often covered by vegetation. We managed to follow the downward trail for over 3 kms to the small village of Pemo. By then Jenny had developed blisters on her feet due to the constant downhill pressure on her hiking sandals. Although from Pemo, the trail followed a dirt road back to the main road, we still had quite a distance to cover. We opted to hire two motorcycles (ojeks) to return back to Moni. With some help from the locals in the village, we managed to negotiate a reasonable, given our tired look, cost for our transport. The road from Pemo proved to be quite challenging on a motorcycle. We were relieved to be back at our homestay – and even more so, after it started to rain shortly after our arrival in Moni. As it continued to rain till the evening, we headed out for our evening meal wearing our ponchos.
2020.02.23 – Moni – Ende (Indonesia) – We savored a nice breakfast of fruits and pancakes outside our homestay in company of our English-speaking owner. Later, the owner’s wife expertly flagged a bemo for our drive back to Ende. Once in town, the bemo dropped us off at our hotel – the same one we had stayed at upon our first arrival in Ende. After our check-in, we had a light lunch at the hotel’s bistro. Later, we visited an ATM for some funds and rested in our room for the remainder of the afternoon. As we climbed stairs in the hotel, we could feel our sore calves from yesterday’s demanding downhill hike. In the evening, we ventured out to a local eatery listed in our guide book. As we arrived at the eatery 30 mins before it opened, the English-speaking owner, Martin, allowed us in. He sat with us to describe in detail his short listed menu displayed on a whiteboard. To Jenny’s surprise, the owner spoke very good mandarin. We had a great meal at this popular local institution.
2020.02.24 – Ende – Labuan Bajo (Indonesia) – The 4:40am loud speakers of the nearby mosque reminded us that Ende was predominantly Muslin. One side benefit for Jenny was that there were essential no errant dogs on the streets. After our 7am breakfast , the hotel staff kindly drove us to the airport. The 40 min. flight to Labuan Bajo with TransNusa saved us a 12-15 hour bus ride. Our hotel in Labuan Bajo also offered us a free airport pick-up. After checking into our room shortly after 10am, we ventured out to review the 1-day boat tour to the Komodo National Park (KNP). Early in our trip planning, we had been excited reading about some rave reviews of traveler’s experience with multi-day boat excursion visiting several KNP islands. As these excursions, called liveaboard, involved living onboard of a boat for 2, 3, 4 or even 5 nights. The length of the stay was reflected in the cost. Ultimately, we did not pursue further a liveaboard experience due in part to the fact that the top quality operators appeared to be booked 8 weeks in advance. And many internet reviews cautioned about the safety and/or quality of the boats offered by local Labuan Bajo operators. It felt almost impossible for us, as first time visitor to Labuan Bajo to even select the most optimum 1-day boat excursion to KNP. After visiting a handful of agency and operators, it became obvious that the 1-day speed boat itinerary offered was the same across all companies. After a light lunch and another visit to an ATM, we committed ourselves for the next day to a 1-day 6 sites speed boat excursion with a re-seller recommended by our hotel. We had hope to drop off some clothes at a laundromat but in the end Jenny accepted to undertake the task herself. As our room offered a large balcony, we managed to setup a clothes line for drying. In the evening, we returned to the same nice restaurant that we had discovered at lunch.
2020.02.25 – Labuan Bajo – Labuan Bajo (Indonesia) – We woke up at 5am in order to prepare ourselves for our day trip. At 5:30am, we picked up our breakfast box from the hotel restaurant and met our tour reseller agent outside our hotel. He escorted us to the nearby harbor where we unwillingly waited until 6:30 for the speed boat crew to show up. We finally boarded our speed boat in company of six Russian tourists and two backpackers. Shortly after starting the excursion, we found the boat crew fairly disengaged – a clear difference with our 3D2N Ultimate Adventure tour in the Philippines. On the way to our first site, we noticed our camera was failing to access its SD card. We had to fall back on our phone´s camera for the rest of the day. As part of our six site itinerary, we hiked the Instagram-able island of Padar (1), snorkeled at Pink Beach (2), visited Komodo Island(3) in search of komodo dragons, snorkeled at near Taka Makassar beach(4), swam with Manta Rays at Manta Point(5) and relaxed at a beach front on Kanawa Island(6). The powerful speed boat provided fast transportation between each site and allowed us to return to the Labuan Bajo’s harbor before 4:30pm. Upon our return at our hotel room, Jenny still had energy to hand wash all our clothes we had used throughout our day excursion – a task of almost two hours. We returned to the same restaurant for our evening meal. We were eager to slip into bed before 9pm as we were tired by our early morning wake-up and the day’s activities.
2020.02.26 – Labuan Bajo – Labuan Bajo (Indonesia) – After our courtesy breakfast, we walked out of our hotel in search of an electronic store where we could buy a replacement SD card for our camera. It seemed like our camera’s SD card got corrupted after failing to unmount it properly from our laptop in Ende. We first stopped at a Telkomcel boutique but were told that they did not stock this type of memory card. We left the store without any recommendation of where we could buy a replacement SD card. Thankfully, a few 100 meters further, the small cell phone store had a wide range of SD card capacity. We promptly bought a 32 Gb SD card and inserted into a camera and voilà we were back with a functional travel camera. We still much preferred taking photos with our camera than with our mobile phones. We spent much of the day relaxing in our air conditioned room. Mid afternoon we visited an ATM (again) and bought some snack and beer. And for our last evening meal, we returned to the same restaurant as we really enjoyed the menu, the staff, the environment and the very reasonable prices.
2020.02.27 – Labuan Bajo – Gili Air (Indonesia) – After our 6:30am breakfast, we repacked our luggage and left our hotel in a taxi for the airport. Our WingAir’s flight to Lombok’s International Airport in Mataram departed on time and was uneventful. Outside the airport, we ended up sharing a 2h car ride to Bangal harbor with a backpacker from Kamloops, BC. At the chaotic harbor, we managed to buy our public ferry boat tickets without being scammed by the many touts. We had to step into water to enter and exit our ferry boat. After a 30 min. boat ride, we arrived at Gili Air island – a very touristy island, part of a three small islands archipelago (Gili T, Gili Meno and Gili Air). We walked 700m to our booked accommodation. After reviewing our accommodation, we were disappointed with our room and the facilities in general. The owner kindly agreed to have us leave their bungalow facility without any booking penalties. With our laptop, we promptly booked another accommodation with a very good rating. We were very pleased with this second bungalow accommodation although we were a bit concerned that we were the only guests at this facility of eight bungalows. We enjoyed swimming in the nice pool before going out for our evening meal. As we walked around part of the small island, we noticed that many restaurants had very few guests and some accommodations even appeared closed. It seemed that traveling during the low season (rainy season) had some benefit as we encountered a lot fewer tourists.
2020.02.28 – Gili Air – Gili Air (Indonesia) – It rained heavily during the night. After savoring our accommodation’s excellent courtesy breakfast, we walked to the harbor to purchase our speed boat tickets to Amed (Bali) for March 1st. We walked the remainder of the island’s perimeter before returning to our room for a rest. In the late afternoon, we went snorkeling over the reef of the nearby beach. We were hoping to see some turtles in the area but only got to see modest corals and fish as the water was fairly cloudy. In the evening, we had our meal at beach front restaurant. Before returning to our accommodation, we stopped by the harbor to review the public boat schedule to the Gili T. Unfortunately, the early schedule did not work for us. We were increasingly enjoying our outside washroom attached to our bungalow.
2020.02.29 – Gili Air – Gili Air (Indonesia) – We had another fabulous breakfast at our accommodation. The morning’s temperature was hotter than yesterday as we profusely perspired simply eating our breakfast in front of the pool. We relaxed most of the day nearby the pool. More guests finally showed up at our accommodation. As we headed out late afternoon for another snorkeling excursion, it started to rain heavily. We decided to turn around and return to our accommodation. Instead, we swam in the pool under the rain. In the evening, we visited a roast chicken restaurant.
