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Published: October 20th 2006
The Usual Suspects
Dodgy Travelling Quartet
Lucy, Becky, Mart and RickWe expect that some of you will have figured out by now that we are back safe and sound (and cold) in dear old Blighty. It has taken us over a week to recover from the shock, hence the tardiness of this, our final destination blog entry (you may be very lucky and get one last summary from Wotton/Llandudno)!
We are actually getting a taste of our own medicine with this entry, as it is making us as sick to write it as you fellas must have been to read all year. Our zen-like travel calm is fading as fast as our tans and reality has well and truly kicked in. I reckon this entry should be called paradise lost, as the likelihood of us ever going anywhere as idyllic as the islands we visited in our last three weeks of travelling, at least anytime soon, is pretty slim! Here is what we did....
One Last Sojourn. Meeting Up With Luscious Lucy & Mart in Bali
Soooo then, having tired of China, we decided to leave early and hotfoot it to Indonesia a week early to go Komodo dragon hunting with the lovely Miss Lucy Whitehead and Mart (friends from
Flying to Flores
In a little fokker (fnar fnar). Active Lombok volcano in distance back home). We stayed in Kuta (the main drag of Bali) for one night, then hotfooted it to Flores, the nearest island to Komodo, the next morning. We were all pretty glad to leave Kuta as a) it is a bit crap and b) this is quite a dodgy time of year in Bali, as suicide bombers seem to favour October - blasts in Kuta last year on October 2nd and the first Bali bombing was on the 12 October in 2002. So we didn’t hang out anywhere too busy, just in case.
Quick Fokker Flight to Flores
We were all a bit scared of flying on an Indonesian airline that we had never heard of, to an island in the middle of nowhere, and with tickets that were little more than a slip of handwritten paper, however, the flight was fine and kind of kitsch as the plane was a 1950s original. It was a bit flash splashing out on a flight but as Indonesia is of course just a whole line of islands, travelling to each of them takes ages as the roads are rubbish and then you have to do torturous ferry rides which take hours. Flores
Sumbawa Coastline
Large Indonesian Island is like the 6th island along from Bali and about 4 days' journey if you don't fly.
The place we stayed in Flores was on the west coast, and called Labuanbajo. Comedy name, but that's about all that can be said for the place, being as it is just a stopping off place for people to organise their trips to Komodo with the dodgy blokes hanging around outside little sheds called "tourist information offices".
Our original plan had been to spend a few days exploring Flores, which has an amazing volcano that you can hike up and watch the sunset from, however, after some torturous conversations with the local blokes in their sheds it transpired that transport around the island was impossible and you had to hire an overpriced car and driver who insisted on taking you the long way round on a 4-day journey just to get there, so we decided against it.
To get back to Bali, we'd originally planned to do as the rest of the travellers do, and board a boat in Flores for a 4-day, 3-night trip back, visiting Komodo on the way. It's supposed to be great fun but very basic
1st View of Paradise
Seraya Island 45 min boat trip from Flores as you just sleep up on deck with about 15 other people. The boat only runs once a week and, as bad luck would have it, left the next day. We ummed and ahhed and booked it, a bit reluctantly as it was a shame to just sack off Flores having only stayed there for less than 24 hours.
Luckily, we all had a late night crisis of confidence in our decision making, which resulted in Rick taking the initiative and legging it down to the blokes in the shed at like midnight to try to postpone our trip till the next sailing. Luckily our boys were OK with it (as they already had our money and wanted a bit more!). Instead and we decided to spend a few days at some bungalows that were advertised on the wall of our hotel, a one-hour boat trip away, and to get the sailing in a few days' time. And what an inspired decision that turned out to be. Yeee haaaaaa!
Paradise Found. Seraya Island - Best Place in the World Ever. Fact.
We boarded the boat the next morning with no idea where we were off to, and after an
On Tropical Paradise Beach
So happy to be there. What an amazingly lush place hour rounded the corner of an island to see the most perfect beach you ever laid eyes on; turquoise, emerald and sapphire sea; golden sand and just 10 huts right on the beach. Needless to say, we didn't leave after our planned two days' stay, and had to go back to the mainland to plead with the blokes in the hut for another postponement of our boat trip. By this time we were famous in Labuanbajo as the crazy travellers who couldn't make up their minds!
Our huts were made of bamboo, with a bed and a mossie net, and a concrete bathroom interestingly called a 'mandi' stuck onto the side, with no roof, a loo with no flush (we had to get sea water to flush it - "the walk of shame") and a tap where we could get fresh water for 3 hours a night when they put the generators on. That was it. We went to sleep every night to the sound of the sea and woke up to it and the assorted wildlife, stepping out onto our balcony very morning and see the best beach ever is one of the best memories of our travels.
Our Beach Hut
with own private mandi! Which is outdoor bathroom of a no flush outdoor toilet(seawater only) and a freshwater tap for evening splashings There was also amazing snorkelling just off the beach, where we saw turtles, sharks and sea snakes (see pics) and a hill where we watched endless sunsets with our lovely Bintang beers. We spent the rest of the days in the water, sunbathing and snoozing and thinking of what to have for dinner. This didn't take long cos it had to be freshly caught fish on a hot skillet every night beause none of us had the heart to get them to kill a island chicken for us to eat. There was also phosphorescence in the sea every night so we did some midnight beer-fuelled dips to enjoy it. We had 8 nights there and it was bliss.
Island Hopping To Hunt Some Dragons - Rinca Island
In the meantime, we came upon a shocker as our repeated postponing of our sailing back to Bali backfired when the sailing we wanted to get wasn't running cos of Ramadan. So, it was tough but we used our dosh to book a private boat for the four of us, to take us to Komodo and Rinca (where dragons also live) and back to our home on paradise beach. We sailed off
in our private charter just for the 4 of us feeling like rock stars! Rinca was our first stop, where we found loads of dragons before we even got off the boat, even more than Komodo! There was a next of them on the path just where we were trying to get onto the land, so our boatman had to come with a big stick and move them on.
Komodo dragons are SCARY. They have no natural predators on the islands, number in the thousands, grow up to 3.5 metres long and look across between lizards and crocodiles. They don't kill you with their bite but with the skanky spectic bacteria that grow in their fetid mouths, and after being bitten you are almost guaranteed to die within a week, from infection. They eat their own young if they feel like it, and often go for humans. The latest victim was a park ranger - quite worrying since I thought they were supposed to be protecting us - in March this year. One of the evil little blighters climbed up the steps into the rangers' hut on stilts and bit him whilst he was sleeping. The guy was in
intensive care for seven months but just about made it. The dragons run at 15 kms an hour and can also swim for up to 5 kilometres around the island and so you are pretty much scuppered if they take a shine to you.
Komodo Island
As we dropped anchor near Komodo, as the sun was setting thousands of massive fruit bats and a pod of dolphins appeared and started doing acrobatics right off the bow of the boat. Honestly, it couldn't have been more idyllic! We slept out on deck for the night and it was amazing (apart from Becky waking everyone up in the middle of the night convinced that Komodo dragons were on the boat).
We arrived on Komodo really early at 7 in the morning, when the dragons are more active so we saw them walking around. Pretty scary stuff. We also saw a huge water buffalo, which had been bitten by a dragon. It had loads of flesh hanging off the wound and it was sad to think that it had a 100%!c(MISSING)ertainty of dying within a week.
The landscape on the both these islands are spectacular, it was a sort of
Our Boat
Only link to mainland - with all those people, yuk very dry savannah (until the rainy season starts soon), with strange spiky palm trees that made the horizon look like something from Jurassic Park. Actually, given the presence of these strange, vicious, pre-historic looking killers, it felt like that too.
Paradise Lost. Boo hoo. Sob.
Arriving back in paradise, we had to have more nights there, then dejectedly flew back to Bali and got freaked out by all the people compared to our own Seraya and yet strangley allured to the franshised fast food outlets as it wasn't fish skillet! We had a last night out with Lucy and Mart, our paradise companions, and arranged to set off for the Gili islands. These are a group of three tiny islands off the coast of Lombok (the next island to Bali). Again travelling any way but by air was impossible as it would have taken 24 hours off our precious last four days of travelling. Had a comedy cock up when the extortionate flight - private car transfer - speedboat package we had booked all fell through as the flight was cancelled. We just got a note from the "travel agent" at our hotel when we returned from a last
Heron
Seraya beach fauna farewell boozy dinner with Lucy and Mart, telling us we were scuppered. Loads of phone calls later and a 6am dash to the airport just 20 minutes after being told we could get on the early flight and we made it to the Gillis.
Gilli Trawangan
Everyone we're spoken to who has been to the Gillis said they were lush. We stayed on Gilli T, the liveliest island. It was a nice quiet small island with no traffic apart from horse-drawn carts. The beaches were fine (and partly volcanic black), the seas pretty rough and snorkelling ok, so obviously compared to paradise we left a bit under-whelmed! We also splashed out on a nice hotel with satellite TV for our last few days to help us re-integrate back into western society, which backfired as we just spent the evenings watching footy and movies rather than being romantic and enjoying our last few days of travelling. So re-intergrating well then!
It's All Over Bar the Shopping
Our last night was in Kuta, Bali before our flight. We were really scared of bombings so had quite a quiet one just picking up some last minute bargains and psyching ourselves up
Mummy&Baby Deer
Seraya beach fauna for the 25-hour journey home and for the delights of real life that awaited us back in the UK.
Then we came home.
The End For Now
Epilogue
What an amazing year we had. We're so glad we stayed for the whole 12 months, even though in December we (Becky) were really tempted to pop home for Christmas! This was a once in a lifetime trip which we will never forget.
It was great to see our parents in arrivals at Heathrow at 5am. Becky's mum had come down from Wales the day before on the train, and stayed at Rick's parents. Unfortunately her overnight bag was stolen by a gyppo on the train. We take this as proof that Britain is going to the dogs, we had absolutely nothing stolen in the whole year we were away. And we had one hour in Colombia!
It was great to get back to our best friends', Steve and Shona, stag/hen dos the day after we landed in England. This was followed up with the actual wedding the week afterwards, it was so good to see so many of our friends all in one place at
Feeding Deer
Seraya beach fauna the same time and was such an memorable homecoming. Congratulations Mr and Mrs Davison.
A high five and big up to all our intrepid travelling companions over the last year. We've met some wicked folks and made some great friends, so look out for some pale-ish dejected looking folks in a town near you soon!
The Drago Doggers - 2 months all the way through South America. Keep on truckin' you ace bunch of truckers.
Tim and Abi - New Zealand wine-tasting and sugar rimming New Year companions - shame about the skydive!
Angela and Adrian - fellow S.A. truckers and New Zealand travellers plus thanks for sharing your lovely condo in Nelson.
Kev and Emma - New Zealand emigrators and soaking Queen Charlotteers
Gordon and Christie - wicked Tasmania hosts and thanks for all typical oz bbqs.
Anna and Adam - put us up in the coolest suburb of Sydney for a week and introduced us to snorkelling and the blue groper!
Ollie, Roy and Emma - for boozy nights in Sydney
Solway Lass crew sailing The Whitsundays on Rick's birthday weekend. We'll always remember the homo-erotic whipping!
Gorm and Mrs Gorm (sorry Katie!) and now little
Feeding Goats
Seraya beach fauna soon-to-be-baby Gorm - Alice Springs rocks!
Karin&Michael in Borneo and Perhentians. Hope you got your insurance through from those nasty perhentian thieves.
Dave and Danielle - Solway Lass, Ko Phi Phi&Krabi (also Stu and Vera), and Phagn Ngan beach bummers
Lucy and Mart - Bangkok tigers and snakes, England's world cup exit and a bucket of whiskey
Lil sis Belinda and Ben - Intrepid Thailand and Cambodia visitors - mung beans and big changs rule!
Our bro Duncan and Claire - full mooners on Ko Phagn Ngan. Glad you liked Sipadan and Uncle Changs too.
The Irish, Swedish, German, etc contingent - drunken disaster-ridden boat trip in Halong Bay and overnight train fun. Vietnam sucks
Kumuka China gang - winter melon is lush
Chris - Dali wanderings!
And lastly, Lucy and Mart again for being our partners in paradise. At least you guys have seen it for yourselves so know just how amazing it was! Fish skillet, fish skillet, fish skillet. Enjoy the rest of your travels, you lucky, lucky bastards!
Finally, thanks everyone for reading our blogs. Your messages/comments have been lovely to read when we were in the middle of nowhere and feeling lonely. Hopefully
Seasnake (Banded Krait Very Poisonous)
Scared the bejebers out of me. Seraya beach fauna we'll be able to go away again some day and repeat all of this!
Over and Out Captains Spawn Blog ver.26
Rick & Becky
PLEASE NOTE
This web site has changed the way it displays the photos when there is no more text, which is a bit rubbish, due to overloading of image servers blah, blah blah.
So for best results to view ALL the enlarged photos WITH the headings and captions please click "browse the photo pages" and hit "Next" to view the next group of photos.
OR alternatively click the "PRINT VERSION" icon (next to where you leave comments and the flag) at the bottom of the this entry.
And sorry about all these sunsets and sunrises but we just couldn't help ourselves when we've got so little to do in Paradise!!!!
Cheers
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Roy
non-member comment
amazing picts the best yet! cant believe your back home. How do you feel? a bit weird i expect (nothing new there) what are your plans regarding work??