Today begins the second half of our time at home in SE Asia: 6 ½ weeks have passed and we have 6 ½ more weeks of adventure and learning. Time has slowed. Three weeks ago it seemed as if time was zipping by, and the last three have seemed long, as we have been traveling in Borneo, Bali, and now LaBuan Bajo, at the northwest tip of Flores Island, Indonesia. This stop is for Bob’s Komodo National Park Komodo Dragon viewing and snorkel day. We fly back to Kuala Lumpur October 16th.
The prop-plane flight here from Bali was crowded. With so many people seeking adventure, Labuan Bajo is under construction and currently full of litter, in part due to a drought, with the Wet Season already six weeks late. The trash reminded of the way folks in North America used to throw fast food bags out the car window not that long ago. We also used to burn plastic. The litter in SE Asia seems to be a recurrent public topic, so it should get further action soon. We wish we could use our metal refillable bottles, but were told repeatedly not to drink water unless it is in sealed plastic bottles – so, our drinking several bottles a day is not helping the problem, as there does not seem to be a plastics recycling program. There is a beautiful, modern new airport and new asphalt roads and industrious people working long hours to complete their lodging (homestays, bungalows, hotels), and then there is the non-biodegradable trash. A possible solution is for SE Asia needs to ship barges of plastic to places that can recycle all the bottles and packaging – a charge/refund on a plastic bottle of water would have a massive impact within a very short time, and the charge would be a non-obvious tourist user fee. Within a few years, there will likely be a shift to a no littering approach, but for now children and adults alike are dropping litter in the sea and in the road-side water troughs, and bags of garbage are tossed in the river near the towns.
We walked the dusty 15min from the airport to our Bonne Nuit home-for-two-nights, as the East Cruise person was not there to meet us. Our hill home has four adjoining guest rooms, each with w/c and separate entrance. It is under construction, but the very nice marble patio is complete, so there is a place to sit and take in the tree canopy and workers, as they chip away at things bit by bit by hand.
The heat and humidity is greater than we have experienced, and the current drought is making it tough for the locals. The heat is also warming up the water and we are told the reefs are dying – this has been a critical concern locally for about two years.
We were up at 5am for Bob’s pick-up and Yolanda decided to stay up and get showered and ready for the day. Breakfast was at 7am, so she wrote a bit and then tidied the bed - in doing so she found a large spider clinging to the bed netting, on the inside. There are also numerous large spider webs in the ceiling corners and a bug trap – no lizards here!
Yolanda headed out to walk the “short-cut” to the harbour to look for a library and a craft shop she had read about. Along the route, she passed a mosque, which did not make sense, as it had been high on the hill above the harbour – well, maybe there were two mosques. At the next intersection, she saw that the airport was a ways away to the left, so she turned right, as the airport had been to the left the night before.
After a long, hilly walk along a new road with traffic lights (not yet functioning) and cross-walks (absolutely not functioning – it was a wait and dash situation, with motorbikes honking their disapproval at the interruption), Yolanda passed a high school with uniformed girls chatting in groups and greeting others as they arrived, and then went a distance further to a toy store. One of the four women in the toy store understood a bit of English. After a nice selamat pagi, and lots of smiles from the store clerks, Yolanda asked the direction to the “harbour”. The one girl who spoke some English said “left” and then pointed right. After giggles and confirming the direction was “right”, the girl said to turn “right” at the first traffic light and then go along and the harbour was right there. Super, smiled Yolanda to herself, that sounded easy – terima kasih! After passing some familiar landmarks beyond the traffic light, including a merry-go-round (could there be two?), Yolanda soon realized that the girl had thought Yolanda was seeking the airport.
An airport person said the harbour was more than 5km away across the big bridge, and he pointed completely the other way then expected – could there be two harbours nearby? At that point it made sense to walk the 15min to our accommodation and look on the internet for a map, or ask around for a map. Neither was available, so Yolanda showered away the hot, humid and dusty walk and took a brief contemplative break with plans to try to find the harbour on a second outing in an hour, which would be about 11am, so the daily burning piles of raked-up garbage might be complete – the acrid scent of burning plastic in the early morning had reminded Yolanda of the ochre sky up through the atmosphere our plane had passed through the evening before and of Deli air (March 2017).
Success! At the end of the second road at 7:45am this morning Yolanda had taken a photo of a hyperbaric chamber banner with the Labuan Bajo harbour in the background and then turned left, up the hill. On the 11:00am approach, she carried straight forward and quickly arrived down at the harbour through the community shortcut Maya from East Cruise had shown us. It was gorgeous and breezy on the dock, a great escape from the non-working a/c back at the room. Yolanda made a videotape of tour boats, a trawler, a ferry and an over-200ft double-mast sailboat and then headed back to the sweltering shore walks with taxis and tour operators calling their offerings to her.
The 10.5 hr Komodo fast-boat tour took Bob to 6 stops that the slow boat covers in three days. The 40-capacity, 4-motor boat, had 20 international guests including Germans, French, Dutch, British and one Canadian. They hiked to Padar Island vistas, snorkeled to see a trio of 4-meter Reef Manta Ray, went ashore to see a 4-meter Komodo Dragon at the Unesco Komodo site, and disembarked to stand on a pink sand island just emerging from the sea. [Taka Maksar Manta Point Kanawa Island]
Just as Bob was getting on his flippers and snorkel gear (which he kept a hold on for the whole trip, rather than tossing it back into the general bin to retrieve again), one of the guides called to him: “Manata Ray – jump in!” Three large Reef Manta Ray were feeding in 7-meter deep water, and Bob swam to them to take photos. They were huge – about 4-meter from wing tip to wing tip, and they maneuvered by rotating their wings. This plankton and small fish eating species is at risk due to bi-catch mortality in unrelated fisheries
Komodo National Park, a Unesco site, has a population of 1,500 Komodo Dragon, but they are rare to be seen, so the guides “call them in” with a very stinky smelling rotting log. One juvenile was seen prior to this lure about .5km away. There were two sightings for Bob’s group, and the three guides stood guard while the ashore boatload took photos. Overall, Bob found it to be an exciting boat journey that was to one of the farthest reaches of the earth so far for him.
Funny - we arrived before the airport in Labuan Bajo opened, so saw the
motorbikes zip up, uniformed terminal staff jump off and run in to stamp
their time-cards, and then leisurely return to park their bike and have
a smoke.
Flying home to K.L. from Flores Island via Bali Airport, we contemplated the next 6 ½ weeks in SE Asia and thought about an approach for Jan-Apr 2019 somewhere on planet earth.
