Padar Island. This is one of those photos I look back on and I cannot believe I was really there and that I took this photo!
My entire Indonesian itinerary was inspired by my new friend Richard who I met in Singapore. I told him about my plans to travel around Asia. They did not originally include Indonesia. He only had to show me the pictures of the Komodo National Park to convince me to alter my plans. Richard sold it! The national park area covers the Komodo Dragon tour, manta ray snorkeling and some hiking. I don't snorkel, it makes me sick. I do love hiking and animals though. Flores is the gateway to Komodo. To get there, you fly from Bali to Labuanbajo, the capital of Flores. I found a hostel with beautiful views of nearby islands and figured I would plan it all out upon my arrival.
Labuanbajo is a small fishing town. The Komodo National Park tourism industry is in full swing as well as the local fish market. My flight was super delayed but I was not upset. I've come to really enjoy spending time in airports doing nothing (or catching up on my writing). I arrived in the hostel quite a few hours later than I had hoped, just in time for dinner. The fabulous girl at the tour desk asked me if I like fish. My eyes lit up. I love fish. She said, "Good. My shift is over in 20 minutes. I'll take you to the fish market." I was certainly excited but I did not realize that the fish market in Labuanbajo is straight up on a large patch of dirt and the fish is just BAM right out there.
She tried to let me pick out the fish but I literally don't know what the fuck I'm doing in a fish market. I love all fish. I don't know the difference. I don't know how big of a fish two people need to share because I can eat an entire fish by myself and still want more. She ordered the fish and the squid prepared ikan bakar style. It was amazing!! They did some caramelization with the sauce and the garlic and onions and oy... I was in heaven. I knew right away that I would be eating there every night. A whole grilled fish is no more than $5. I also ordered a dragonfruit juice. It was a perfect compliment to the fish because dragonfruit is just sweet enough. Was I falling in love with a fish market on top of dirt?
Yes. I was. I still think about Labuanbajo. It's a transient town. The hostel workers come from other eastern islands of Indonesia. Travelers visit for 3-5 days max. There is a bar where they have a band a few times a week, Le Pirate. It's not just any band though. It's an Indonesian Rastafarian band. Yes, that's right. They exist. Some of them have dreds made of beautiful Indonesian hair. It's in places like this where religion, ethnicity, nationality, skin color and language all disappear. The fabulous British girls I was with insisted that the guys in the band were from the Caribbean. Well, they were wrong. I love moments that prove that you cannot tell where someone is from based on how they look. You might think someone looks Jewish, Chinese, Mexican, Jamaican, etc. and you might be right sometimes! But the times that you are wrong prove that there is no way to really tell where someone comes from or what someone's cultural background is based on what they look like. I love this. I love this because people often say "you don't look Jewish" to me. I do not love that. Who knows what that really means. What about the times when people say to me "Oh, I could tell you were a Jew." Well, what the hell does that mean? I know some of my mannerisms and tone might seem Seinfeld-ian, but I think some people confuse "Jew" with "New Yorker". You'll meet a ton of people from all skin colors and faces that sound like Seinfeld in New York.
Indonesian Rastafarian (source)
Anyway, the reason I'm explaining all of this is because this is the last place I expected to come to all of these conclusions and experience all of this. This is the joy of travel. I thought I was going to go hiking and see Komodo Dragons, which I did. I should probably get to that part of the story.
My lady friend Party K from Mexico warned me that the boats in Komodo always break in the middle of the ocean. Her boat lost steering control when the steering wheel literally fell off back in 2016. When I arrived at the hostel, there was another guy at the travel desk complaining about how he almost lost his life because the boat was stuck at sea. The trip starts at 5am and it was 7pm... he was gone for a long ass time. The converted fishing boats that they take tourists on are really not maintained at all. Maintenance happens while you are on the boat. Our boat had a deckand/engine room boy who mostly stayed underneath the main cabin seemingly holding pipes together. When he would come back up for air, he was covered in tar and black soot. Sometimes he would swim under the boat. We do not know what he was doing. Our boat did break down about 30 minutes into the ride. We were relieved that it happened so early rather than in the middle of the day under the glaring sun.
We got to our first stop, Padar Island, in 4 hours. It is supposed to take 2. Now we all seemed to understand why these tours take so long. Padar Island is just a simple hike where you can get these outstanding views and photos for your Instagram account:
Panorama from Komodo Island.
One of the other unexpected highlights of the boat trip was the camaraderie on the boat. We had a guest on the boat who had been living in Indonesia for over a year working for UNICEF and who spoke fluent Indonesian. She was so chill and amazing and inspirational. We all lined up behind her. She was our de facto leader. When the boat was all fucked up and we were drifting at sea later on in the afternoon, we kept our cool because we had such a good group of people on the boat. We did eventually make it to Rinca Island and we saw Komodo Dragons but we did not do the manta ray snorkeling. No one was that upset. We had a beautiful sunset on the boat instead.
After the sunset, a rescue boat came to pick us up and take us back to the port. If it had not, we might not have gotten back until 8pm.
The next day, I just wanted to sit at a pool and do nothing. Two other girls from the boat were also in the same hostel and they wanted to do the same thing. We decided to share a taxi together and go hotel hopping to find a pool that had an affordable day pass. We had a lovely day sharing stories, eating lunch and drinking smoothies reminiscing about our adventure the previous day. Boy, were we happy to not be on a boat. These lovely ladies had also already visited Bali and had some recommendations for me!
From all of our talking on the boat and in the pool, we knew each other's travel styles quite well. She recommended the small islands next to Bali, Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Penida. She said I would love them because they are all about just seeing beautiful nature. You'll get that remote feeling and no cars are allowed.She was right. My next stop was Nusa Lembongan, as my base, and I stayed there for 5 days.