From Yogya to Maumere, Flores

September 23, 2009 at 6:30 am

The last post was written in Yogyakarta and it has been quite a long time ago, many happened since!

In Yogya, we have been lazy, really lazy but sometimes, it is good, really enjoyable So we don’t have much to say about Yogya except that it is a pleasant city. We did not really visit anything even if the Sultan’s palace is a must see place because you can’t be curious and full of energy everyday so we may have to go back there to visit what was left behind.

We rather used Yogya as a base for visiting Prambanan and Borobudur Temples. These places are really nice even if the previous earthquakes that shook the country made a lot of damages. There are stones laying down on the ground everywhere whilst the main towers remain upright still. You can guess how the place looked like before, a beautiful architecture that remains impressive.

Then, we went to the Gunung Bromo, highest volcano of Java Island. That was really interesting because woken up at 4am, we went to the top of a mountain overlooking the crater where the bushes were on fire. We couldn’t decide what to watch, the sunset or the fire getting closer and closer to us. When the sun rose, it was spectacular as you can see kilometers away and the crater takes brownish colours with beautiful contrasts and all the scooters make like a necklace of light around the volcano.

It was particularly interesting this day because there was a full moon ceremony where locals were climbing to the top of the crater to make gifts (vegetables, coins, red fish, etc..) at the volcano so that it doesn’t erupt. Meanwhile, Other people (thieves in another word) inside the volcano were trying to catch these gifts for themselves… Locals even threw an alive goat on a lace to pull it back later on as the gesture is meaningful enough to satisfy the volcano’s hunger.

Our next stop was Lovina. Bali is a lovely island with beautiful landscapes and coral reefs we enjoyed exploring whilst snorkeling. the next day, We rented a scooter got lost in small villages and were pleased to hit the road on our own and go/stop anywhere we wanted. Then we decided to move to Ames, on the North East part of Bali. It was just great, laid back, another paradise on earth. Nothing like a touristic trap, it was all about relaxing, snorkeling and having good time.

Once we felt like filled by Balinese vibes, we decided to head to Lombok. We started by Senguigui where guess what, we also rented a scooter. The landscaped on the road where very dry and 10 kilometers can take you up to 2 hours… I still don’t understand how distances are counted… Then we went Kuta for few days. Nice little village which is still very authentic (rubbish everywhere on the ground is the local trademark for non-touristic places) but will certainly boom in the coming years…

Even a week after, we still feel our bumps hurting after the 30 hours bus trip to come to Labuan Bajo (Flores Island) from Lombok which was our base to visit the national park of Komodo. These gigantic lizards are really nasty and impressive. We had a 2 hours trek on Rinca Island where you can see the famous dragons, buffalos and hopefully not spotted, dangerous snakes.

Because we had chartered a boat with fellow travellers, we had then the afternoon for snorkelling on abandoned islands and finished this perfect day by having a nice dinner in Labuan bajo with the same group of people (pizza and pasta are considered as real “cuisine” when backpacking).

We wanted to go to Kelimutu volcano/lakes so we suffered the 16 hours drive for a distance of 300 km (that’s the way it goes here and the car was good, guess how many hours with a crap minibus) so we stayed a night in a bungalow in the village of Moni to go up to the crater the next morning at 5am. We observed the 3 lakes (usually one is green, one is red and the other is chocolate) which were green for two of them this day and the chocolate remained brownish… We met a hollandese father and son which whom we shared the morning talking about Brigitte Bardot and waiting for the clouds to clear up the view.

The way back and its 13 km was an experience as when a scooter passes by you have the usual Indonesian “hello misterrr” so we tried to answer all of them and god knows they were many!
At the end of the day, not only our legs but also our throat were hurting but we had a great laugh.

It’s been now too days we are in Maumere and are awaiting the 3pm boat that will take us back to Surabaya, Java. Yesterday night was a real experience as a local guide invited us to the annual communion party in his friends’ family. We danced on local sounds (Reggae is the national music here), took millions of pictures of kids as per request and shared with the parents and guests locals drinks (kind of vodka made of palm trees called “moke”) in the middle a street transformed into a dance floor for the occasion.

We packed our stuff and have tickets in hands, in two days, the ferry will drop us in Java in order to take our flight on the 29 (day where our visa expires) to Kuching, Malaysia.

Note. In two days, that will be a month that we left Ireland. Time is flying and the sun shining everyday above our heads gave us the tan we dreamt of for two years when living in Ireland.