Misadventures on the Road

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So, My Lucky Streak Ended...

I left off my last entry with a sense of foreboding that my streak of positive travel experiences was about to end. Well, it did.

As you may recall, I decided to plan out the remainder of my time in Flores after hearing negative stories about accommodation from westbound travelers. My intended next stop from Bajawa was Moni, where I had planned to stay two nights - the plan was arrive and stay the night, to go to Keli Mutu for sunrise, hike back down, and stay another night. After that, I had booked a beach resort in Maumere as a special treat to myself after staying in budget places and traveling rough(ish). I also booked a ticket out of Maumere to Bali on August 9. I was wary about planning that far ahead and focusing on the destination rather than the journey. Both my lack of planning and my advance planning have now come to bite me in the behind. But first, let's talk about the journey to Moni.

Moni is the hopping off point for Keli Mutu's crater lakes. All the accommodations there are budget, and almost none are bookable online. In fact, only a handful have email addresses. I contacted those with email addresses and they all told me they were full except for one. Let's call this place Homestay D. So, I reserved a room for two nights. I was ecstatic to find a place, but that came to an abrupt end when other travelers told me that this same homestay had confirmed rooms for them and then not had any when they arrived. Seems as if it was first come first served. I was therefore anxious to get to Moni as quickly as possible to snag a decent available room.

I checked with the staff at Hotel Silverin, where I was staying in Bajawa, and they advised me to be on the highway at 6am and to flag down buses headed that way. I had to take the public bus as the shared ride vans originate westwards and don't roll in until noon. The wonderful staff there even arranged for an early breakfast for me at 5.30am.

After breakfast, when I walked out of the hotel I saw a shared ride van outside with a man washing it. I hopefully enquired with the man if he was headed to Moni. He said he wasn't, but he made a call and before long a public bus came along, at which point he came and took my bag, loaded it on the bus and bid me farewell. In other places, the fixer would ask for a tip. No such expectation here. I was pleased as I would get into Moni before 1pm at this rate. I was the first passenger on board and I got the choice seat by the door. Even though I was alone on the bus, the aisles and the spaces under the seats were already stacked full of stuff - sacks of rice, cans of cooking oil, etc. The bus then set off towards Ende, which is en route to Moni, blaring dangdut music (at 6am?!?). Along the way, we picked up two other passengers, one of whom was an English-speaking nun on her way to Larantuka. Both passengers had lots of stuff (boxes of food and drinks) and they crammed the aisles even more full with their cargo. All was fine and dandy. Along the way, I was enjoying the spectacular scenery as it was lit up by the early morning light.

Four hours or so later at Ende, the driver made several rounds around the city but only got one additional passenger. I'm used to Indonesian buses doing this so I wasn't unduly fazed. We stopped briefly to eat before heading out to Moni. A few miles out of town, the bus developed a mechanical problem. For about 45 minutes, the driver and his assistant replaced a part and tried to get it to work. I was getting increasingly anxious. In the meantime, the homestay had emailed me to ask where I was. I told them I was in Ende and to hold the room. I took this to be a good sign. Nevertheless, I resolved to flag down the next bus heading to Moni. But, none came. I could hear traffic on the other side of the farmhouses, so I guessed we weren't on the main road but on a parallel road. The nun confirmed this. At this point, she told the bus driver he needed to take care of the visitor. So, the driver's assistant took me to the next road after I waved my cheerful goodbyes to the nun and the other passengers. A passerby made a call. They both waited with me and they flagged down the bus for me.

I was relieved to be on my way again. But, this was shortlived. A few hundred yards after picking me up, the bus stopped at what appeared to be a transfer point, and the driver got out. I knew we were waiting for more passengers.

One key rule in traveling is Asia is to never display anger or impatience. I often have to suppress my inner Singaporean/American. After about 20 minutes, I approached the driver and had this conversation with him:

In Indonesian:

Me: Tunggu lagi orang?
Driver: Yes. Tunggu sepuluh minit. Dari mana, tuan?
Me: Amerika.
Driver: Obama.
Me: Obama habis President. Obama bagus.
Driver: President sekarang Donald Trump.




In English:
Me: Are we waiting for more people? *
Driver: Yes. Waiting another ten minutes. Where are you from, sir?
Me: America. **
Driver: Obama.
Me: Obama's Presidency has ended. Obama is good.
Driver: President is now Donald Trump.

I make a gagging sound. Everyone within earshot bursts out.

The ice is now broken. I'll be looked after. I think this conversation may also have incentivized the driver to depart at the time he said he would. While waiting to depart, I bought and ate a couple of tangerines. I placed the peel in a plastic bag instead of throwing it away at random, eliciting praise from a fellow passenger.



* Asking if we are waiting for more people as opposed to tunggu apa? (What are we waiting for?) is less confrontational. The driver even volunteers that he plans to wait for ten more minutes. I suspect he may not have divulged that if I had been more confrontational.

** Identifying myself as coming from the United States pays better dividends in Indonesia as they love Obama here. In addition, it keeps them guessing what my ethnicity is. Identifying myself as Singaporean can be problematic because they would immediately guess that I am Chinese, and indigenous Indonesians have a complicated relationship with Chinese Indonesians.

Disclaimer: I'm not fluent in Indonesian/Malay, but I can string adjectives together and make myself understood.

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Moni

I rolled in to Moni at 3.45pm. Moni is a collection of homes and tourist lodgings flanking the Trans-Flores Highway. Coming in from the west, one goes downslope. It is likely that anyone coming in from the west without a room would start from the top of the hill and work their way down.

The bus dropped me off at Homestay D. It is the last one at the bottom of the hill at the eastern end of town. Guess what? They didn't have a room. The guy I emailed is nowhere to be seen. I now knew I was in deep s**t. Just up the road, I am accosted by a very pushy woman from Homestay J who shows me the worst lodging I have ever seen. She then tells me that all the earlier arrivals have taken all the rooms uphill from us and this is the last available. This is of course entirely plausible. I tell her I will look elsewhere. She drops the price. I still say no. I start walking up the hill. The first four accommodations I check are full. A driver coming down the hill with his charge inside his car then pulls up to me and asks if the homestay I just emerged from is full. I reply to the affirmative. His response is: "oh shit". Now, when a driver who plies this route says "oh shit", you know it is bad. So, I make a run for the worst lodging I have ever seen to find that a German guy has taken it. He agrees to share it with me. His name is Jonas.

So, here I am, in the worst accommodation I have ever stayed in (and that bar is already set very low). The toilet has no seat and it doesn't flush (you pour water into the toilet bowl instead. I've been in such places, it doesn't faze me). There is no hot water. No wifi. The tap in the sink has no handle. No towels, toilet paper, or soap provided (luckily I packed the former two as I have been I this situation before). I take a cold bath before it gets too cold (we are at high altitude). I won't share pictures here for fear of grossing you all out. I also learn that entry to the park is almost doubled on Sundays - I'll be paying almost $20. The price for locals is around $2.

I dislike the lady proprietor of a Homestay J. She is pushy. She demanded immediate payment. She berated me when she learned I already booked my ride to Keli Mutu in the morning ("book only through me, I get you best price") and she reacted negatively when I told her price I paid. But then all is fine when she learns that the driver I hired is her uncle. She goads me into eating at the restaurant she owns, and tries to make me order too much. She claims to not have change when I pay her and tries to get me to buy stuff to make up for the change she says she doesn't have. Disgusted, I fish out exact change. Jonas rolls his eyes. She then reminds me to sleep early because of my 4am wake up call to see the sunrise. Like I don't already know that. She's desperate, but also a control freak. Bad combination.

Roger, a Spaniard staying in the same homestay, put things into perspective. He says that these people are poor, and that Homestay J probably doesn't have the principal to upgrade the accommodation. So, it remains the least desirable accommodation on the strip, and she only has a three month window during high season to make as much money as possible. It explains the desperation but it doesn't excuse the control freak behavior. He's been here a couple of days because his girlfriend is sick. He tells me that they don't change the sheets when guests check out.

This town has a bad vibe. At one highly rated restaurant with wifi advertised, the waiter just shakes his head without looking up when I ask him about wifi. He then motions me to a table that has occupants. I leave. I decide to not stay another night and instead book a third night in Maumere. I'll be splurging - one night at a nice resort for a little under US$100, and another two nights at a less fancy place for US$50/night. Budget blown, although I have been very frugal all week (my accommodations have ranged from $11 to $32). God knows what I am going to do for 2.5 days in Maumere, but I am stuck because I decided to plan ahead instead of going with the flow, and I am committed to an August 9 flight out of Maumere. I'm not the only one booking it out of here. My roomate for tonight is going to leave immediately after we come down from Keli Mutu (he has a rental motorbike). I'm sharing a car with Roger and his girlfriend to Maumere tomorrow. An American-Nepalese couple I met on the shared ride van two days earlier isn't enchanted by this town either.

Now, to add insult to injury, in the evening I receive an email from a Homestay D asking me where I am staying in Moni. I delete the email.

I'm not whining. This is intended to be a factual account of what can happen when you try to enjoy the journey and not plan ahead, and how you can get stuck when you plan ahead and things don't work out. This journey of mine is about letting go and finding new joy, and there is still joy to be had, like listening to a nun reminisce about her trip to Chicago and St. Louis, and having silly ice breaking conversations with people who don't speak your language. I'm going to try to sleep now despite the fact that the sheets reek of tobacco, and despite the noise from the street and from people yakking away outside my window.

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Keli Mutu

I slept surprisingly well in the worst accommodation I have ever stayed in. We have to meet our driver at 4.30am, but both Jonas and I are ready to go at 4.15am. The drive up to the park entrance is long and winding. After paying our insane entry fee, we walk up to the lookout point and get there around 5.30am. We're not optimistic. There are too many clouds. According to the GPS, this lookout point is between two of the three lakes.

The sun rises just after 6am. It is spectacular, but the clouds fail to dissipate. The clouds dissipate for like 30 seconds over one lake. The water is pale blue. It is beautiful. The second lake remains covered with clouds. Around 6.50am, we leave dejected because we went through a lot of hassle and paid a lot of money for this experience. Walking back to the parking lot, we see a second lookout point over the third lake. There are few people there. We go up to see that the third lake - a darker shade of blue than the first one - is clearly visible with few clouds. Wow. The first lake is also visible. It's breathtaking. We never found out what color the second lake was (they change colors periodically due to mineral content and other factors; I later found out it was green).

Jonas and I head back to Moni after seeing the second lake. Back at Homestay J, Jonas packs up and leaves, while Roger, Carol, and I await our transport. All of a sudden, the tap in the sink that didn't work earlier starts dispensing water.

Roger had negotiated a 100,000 rupiah fare to the airport. It is a great fare. I plan to take local transport to Coconut Garden Beach Resort from the airport. When our transport arrives, we find two other Spaniards seated in the back. They are headed to the same resort where I am booked to stay, and they are being charged 250,000 rupiah to be driven 15 minutes further. In a moment of carelessness, I told Control Freak Homestay J Lady I am also going to Coconut Garden. She tries to charge me 250,000 rupiah. I momentarily lose it - she's behaving as if Coconut Garden is halfway to Larantuka. I start "are you insane? It's just up the road"... Roger senses the tension and he jumps in and says that I should stick to my original plan. The two other Spaniards in the car are fuming.

As the car rolls out of Moni, I turn around and stick my middle finger. The Spaniards laugh and join me.

Puta Moni.

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Washing Moni Off Me

I am in Coconut Garden Beach Resort east of Maumere as I write this. When we dropped Roger and Carol off at Maumere airport, I just stayed in the car. The driver doesn't catch on that I had only paid to be driven to the airport. The two remaining Spaniards and I giggle as he drives us to Coconut Garden.

Do I feel bad about scamming someone less fortunate than I am? Yes. Do I feel bad about scamming the scammer? Absolutely not.

Coconut Garden is beautiful. There are a few people here recovering from Moni, all with similar experiences. After checking in, I change into my swim gear, put on some sunscreen, and jump into the sea. I feel as if I am washing Moni off me.

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Notes:
Pardon the varying tenses in this entry. I wrote this in real time over two days, trying to process my raw emotions at the same time.

US$1 = ~13,000 rupiah.

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Photos

Bajawa
Taken while waiting for my bus. Mt Inerie finally showed itself just as I left Bajawa; it was covered in clouds practically the whole time I stayed in Bajawa.

Ende
Goat on top of vehicle next to us while waiting at a gas station...

Ende
... and she pees right after. I tried to yell out a warning to the people in the bemo, but my Indonesian failed me at that precise moment. I yelled: "kambing... um.. er... pee pee".

Bus Breakdown
Classy mud flaps.

Keli Mutu
Sunrise through the clouds.

Keli Mutu
Taken from a signboard. This is how the three lakes are laid out, and what I was hoping to see. The color of the lakes changes over time. We saw the two lakes that were adjacent to each other. The third remained covered in clouds.

Keli Mutu
At the first viewpoint. Everybody was wishing the clouds would clear...

Keli Mutu
... and they did, for like 30 seconds.

Keli Mutu
The second viewpoint. Much better.

Keli Mutu
First viewpoint.

Keli Mutu
Scenes from the walk down.

Keli Mutu
During the drive down.

Keli Mutu
Rice terraces.

Comments

[RENanDREW]

Those eyes...
I normally love monkeys, but I have to admit that this macaque looks decidedly evil :)

[RENanDREW]

Wow!
Those lakes are truly stunning! No need to apologise for saying how bad the Moni experience was, it sounded like a real dive. Roger sounds like a middle child (the traditional peacemakers), but sometimes...what needs to be said, needs to be said (especially to a scamming control freak) ;)