My second destination after Tangkoko was Bogani Nani Wartabone, formerly known by the more-easily remembered name of Dumoga-Bone. Nani Wartabone was a local hero who was an anti-Dutch guerilla. I'd read on the almighty internet that instead of staying at Kotamabagu as birders usually did, one could now stay at a guesthouse in Toraut about an hour further on from Kotamabagu (itself about three hours south from Manado) and right on the boundaries of the park so much more convenient. When I was at Tangkoko the first of my required guides was Samuel, regarded as the best there for birding but [View Full Entry]

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My plane into Manado in the north of Sulawesi went via Makassar in the south. I was told I would just stay on board because there was no change-over but in Makassar everyone had to get off, go to the transfer desk, get a new ticket and then reboard exactly the same plane with the same air-hostesses. It was very strange, I’ve never come across that particular way of doing it before. In Manado I stayed for the night at the Manado Bersehati Hotel because I arrived in town at about 11pm. It’s a nice hotel, quite cheap, has a tv [View Full Entry]

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So I finally left Flores, via a ferry to Sumbawa. After five hours we came up to Sumbawa and I thought "oh that was quicker than expected" but two hours later we were still chugging slowly along, gradually getting closer. I can only swim in one direction (straight down) but even I could have got to the island faster if I'd just jumped overboard. Once at Sape, the harbour town of eastern Sumbawa, there was a mini-bus waiting to take us to Bima from where the regular-sized buses left from. Seeing that the mini-bus was packed to the gunwales with locals [View Full Entry]

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There was only one thing for it now that I knew where both the hanging parrots and giant rats should be found - I went back to Tebedo the next evening (after yet another unsuccessful morning visit) and stayed the night in Frans’ house so I could be “on-site” as it were. There were still no parrots that afternoon (I wasn’t really surprised at all). I had taken my field guide to show Frans the birds. When he got to the page with the elegant pitta on it he exclaimed “oh, very expensive bird this one, 500,000 in the market. A [View Full Entry]

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For the fourth morning running I headed up Potawangka Road in search of the Wallace’s hanging parrot. Its interesting going through villages early in the dawn because it gets quite cool overnight, so you pass the villagers all squatting in blankets along the roadside, like snakes basking in the stored heat of the tar-seal. This time I had some information from a person in town that the place to go was all the way up to the village of Tebedo, twice as far as I’d been up before, and there I could see the parrots in the trees about 300 metres [View Full Entry]

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I guess I should start this entry by contradicting what I wrote in the last entry, about Labuanbajo being an unfriendly town. I’ve been here a number of days now and the locals have gotten used to me walking back and forth around the streets looking for food and water, and now they’re always smiling and saying hello and asking how I am. So I have decided that its not an unfriendly town but rather a town full of unfriendly tourists. That may sound weird, me being a tourist myself, but I’ve watched the way most of them interact with the [View Full Entry]

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The bus from Ruteng took an hour less to Labuanbajo than it had on the trip up. I’m not sure if it was better to get the ride over with faster so it would just be over, or if longer would have been better as it would have been somewhat less nauseating and we wouldn’t have almost been taken out by trucks on two of the blind hairpin bends. The chap in the seat in front of me threw up four times during the trip! In Labuanbajo I’m staying at the Gardena Hotel which is where most tourists stay - and [View Full Entry]

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On Timor I made my way up that island’s highest mountain, Gunung Mutis, and now I’ve also stood on top of Flores’ highest mountain, Gunung Ranaka. Its not really as great a feat as it may sound - there’s a paved road all the way to the top! Still it was a hard slog and took about five hours, including numerous birding stops as well as for second breakfast and elevenses. The entrance road isn't far from Ruteng, maybe eight kilometres or so, about four bends past where the road has obviously fairly recently been completely taken out by a landslide [View Full Entry]

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A long time ago when the world was young, there was an island. On the island there were many wonderful animals: a monstrously large lizard, a giant rat, a giant tortoise, and a pigmy elephant. And there was also a little man who walked among the animals and every so often stabbed them with his little spear and ate their flesh. Still, he was only a little man and his stomach wasn't very big so it all worked out all right. But then there arrived on the island a bigger man and he had a big appetite, and he ate all [View Full Entry]

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Something funny happened on the way to Flores - I discovered that the flight to Ruteng actually goes to Labuanbajo then they take you by bus to Ruteng. I wasn’t particularly impressed by this. The whole point of flying straight to Ruteng was to avoid the four hour bus trip there in the first place. You have to go with the flow when in Indonesia but sometimes they really do make it difficult. The first grueling forty minutes of the bus trip were through what appeared to be one continuous roadwork. And because it was largely being accomplished through the use [View Full Entry]

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