Komodo dragons ate my baby

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In the more remote places of Indonesia, there are no hotels so you have to rely on getting an invite to stay with someone. I usually would turn up somewhere, wander around, swim, talk to people about what what life is like here and answer questions about my life. Its just luck if you bump into someone nice or interesting. There are no "attractions" and the goal is just to try to get into the swing of life. But after Lembata I headed to Flores and the difference was depressingly obvious. People in the touristed parts of Flores are completely different. The attitude to tourists in parts of Flores is basically that we are just walking wallets. Every hotel and bus in Flores except one hotel tried to rip me off. Luckily I'm stubborn enough to ensure I payed a local price, or at least pissed off a local.

On Flores I had two goals: to see the three coloured Lake of Kelimutu, and to meet a Komodo dragon. Kelimutu is a unique place where 3 adjacent lakes are 3 different colours even though they are right next to each other. One is a radioactive looking turquoise, the second is dark green and one is dark brown. Even science canno't explain it and its really reallly beautiful. My guide told me that the locals believe their souls go into the different lakes depending on whther they were good or bad. But he told me it in an annoyingly proud way, in a way that implied that I should be amazed they came up with such an brilliant story. It seems like the writers of Scooby Doo came up wth something similar on a weekly basis.

It took 10 hours on bus to get to Kelimutu from the East side of Flores and another 12 from Moni to Ruteng. The bus journeys are brutal since the roads are comically curvey. The bus has zero suspension and your chucked around like in a Simulator, only after 10 hours its way less fun than a Simulator. When I arrived at Ruteng still pained from my journey I had my strangest encounter so far. It was 11:30pm I was waiting outside a hotel for someone to answer the door when a local man about 35, came up and said "How are you, Europa?", shook my hand and then shook my crotch. I decided this probably wasn't a local custom and gave him a mighty shove and some harsh words. Weirdo.

The morning after Crotchgate I went to labuanbajo just by the beautiful sea and Komodo dragons.
I didn't actually go to Komodo I went to the only other island with Komodo dragons: Rinca. Saw 8 dragons, for some reason in my head they were 3 metres long and would be fighting constantly so when I got there they were cool but didn't blow me away. You need to stay 3 metres away at all times but my guide taught me that you could go closer if you are a guide and want to poke the dragon with a stick. They are amazing creatures though, in a word: hardcore to the bone.

Coming back from Rinca the two men who I had hired to take me to Komodo decided to perform some creative haggling: by stopping the boat short of the harbour and telling me that instead of the agreed upon 300,000 Rupiah I would have to pay 400,000. They seemed adament that we couldn't go back to the harbour until I agreed the higher price. It was an interesting business strategy but I countered by getting really pissed off and shouted at them very fast in Indonesian. After about 5 minutes of my rant they realised I wasn't going to bend over and take it so they backed down. I was pissed off because I had been really nice to them and even given one of them one of my asthma inhalers because he said his dad had asthma. I had let down my guard on Alor and Solor and started to trust everyone, it was very unpleasant to have to change that.

I had the best scuba diving of my life on Labuanbajo. The currents are stupidly strong but we got really really lucky and saw sharks, rays and a huge eel. Did a morning dive and an afternoon dive and in the afternoon we went to a crazy place called the Cauldron. The most ecstatic moment was just after fighting a particularly strong current for long enough to grab on a sturdy rock, I heard the 'clink' 'clink' of my instructor hitting her tank and turned around to see a HUGE manta ray gliding gracefully just over my head. As it moved forward it was silhouetted against the shafts of sun light pouring into the sea. Was a magical moment that I hope I never forget.

I took a 40 odd hour bus journey from Labuanbajo to the cultural heart of Indonesia: Yogyakarta. I broke up the trip with a couple of days on a small island but the journey was still brutal and I doubt if my posterior will ever regain its once mighty strength. In Yogyakarta I had 2 days seeing the huge Temples of of Borobodur and Prambanam. Both beautiful and interesting (and many other things including old). Rather comically right next to Prambanan temple from the 8th Century was a massively tacky motorbike rally filled with motorbike obsessed teenagers and a big stage filled with raunchy half naked girls. As soon as I found about this I immediately left the temple and joined the teenagers. I walked around and started talking to one of the bikers who introduced me to his gang: the Thunder Innovation Community.

The "biker gang" was actually a group of nerdy students. In Indonesia all types of people are in a motorbike gang and they never fight just mess around with bikes and play football. I hung around with them and saw a show filled with the top celebrities of Indonesia. That night I slept in their student flat and it was like walking into my life in a parallel dimension as they played the same computer games as me. The guy drove me around on his bike the next day just cos he is a nice guy. Indonesia was cool like that and if you speak Indonesian you can rely on the kindness of strangers (except maybe some parts of Flores or touristy places). In Thailand or Cambodia you constantly need to question the motives of people who seem helpful. The few times I have trusted people I have regretted it and this puts a barrier between you and the locals and makes interacting with the people much harder.

After Yogya I took a bus to Jakarta where I met up with my mums friend who kindly let me stay with her. The place was a mansion as she is married to the ambassador of Finland. They have a swimming pool, sauna, a cook and a driver. It made such a drastic change to the floors and mudshacks I have been inhabiting I almost blew a gasket. Literally!!! I had given away, lost or sold all the clothes I came with except one pair of pants and 2 shorts so I bought a whole new load in Jakarta. While going shopping one day I was walking past the house of justice I saw an anti corruption rally. About a hundred students were holding petitions, making speeches, cheering and being filmed by TV stations. I had spent the whole of trip in Indonesia wondering why people dont do something about the corruption so it was cool to see people that actually do. After talking to someone about corruption in Indonesian I was asked to make a speech to everyone but I politely declined because just 10 metres away were armed police who might of killed me and my message of hope.

Jakarta is too big, too polluted and generally has all the problems of a big city. It was crazy to me that people were desperate to move there from all the more paradisical parts of Indonesia when I would have been doing exactly the opposite. I flew out of Indonesia on the last flight of the last day possible and I am sure that If I go back to South East Asia I wont go anywhere except Indonesia, not even for a day. But unfortunately my Visa had expired and so I reluctantly got on a plane to Malaysia.

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