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| Our home for 4 days... |
After many hours of research and advice
from fellow travellers we decided to do the 4 day 3 night boat trip from Flores
to Lombok. It fell nicely in place as our Christmas Stop the Gili Islands are
only a short boat journey from Lombok.
We booked a cheap flight with Sky Aviation for £30 each to Flores from
Bali. This meant we didn’t have the 3 days of island hopping on a bus – thank
goodness! We arrived into Labuan Bajo Airport otherwise know as a shack in a
field and headed into the port to find some accommodation. Labuan Bajo is a
little port thriving on boat trips and diving schools. It has one main little
street with a few restaurants hotels and bars. After dumping our stuff we
headed out to find a tour company and find somewhere with wifi so we could do
some research. We found a little place called the Treetop bar, which is really
cool, it looks out over the sea and you can see all the islands and even better
the view of the sunset was awesome. It just so happened that in the bar was a
group of people who had just done the boat trip from Lombok to Flores. So after
a couple of hours we had a lot of information and advice we had booked our trip
for the next day. Thanks mainly to Liam and the guys.
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| Mealtimes with entertainment... |
We booked our trip with a company called “Wanua
Adventures”. When we booked they only had 6 names on the board including
ourselves, which was good news as the previous group had 25 squeezed in like
sardines. Early the next morning we headed down to the ferry port loaded up
with supplies for the journey. As the boat left the port everyone was in high
spirits with Christmas hats and songs being played. Sunny was our guide for the
trip and was a character, he was another one who loved his guitar (particularly
reggae)!!!
Our first couple of stops were tiny little
islands with coral reefs surrounding them. We had an hour or so at each place
to snorkel in crystal clear waters with hundreds of different types of fish.
Unfortunately no turtles though.
After some lunch (with Sunny providing the
soundtrack) we headed to Rinca Island, part of the Komodo National Park to
hopefully see some dragons. We got off the boat and were escorted to a
safety-briefing hut by our ranger, armed with only a stick to protect us. These
are some of the deadliest creatures on the planet so you are not allowed to
wander off by yourself and we where being defended by a stick!!!. Its ok though
only sixteen people have been bitten before.
We opted for the medium trek as a
group and were escorted round the island by a ranger. The first glimpse of the
dragons was quite scary and we kept our distance. We reached a stilted ranger
hut with 3 sleeping dragons below so we jumped up the stairs to get a closer
look. This was when the heavens opened but that wasn’t going to stop us. We
were there to see the dragons and a bit of rain wasn’t stopping us. We trudged
on through the mud, wind and rain hoping to see some wild dragons. After about
20 minutes we caught a glimpse of a baby dragon. Apparently quite a rare thing
as they are very shy when they are younger due to the number of predators they
have at that age. Very excited and pleased with ourselves we headed back to the
boat to continue our journey towards Lombok. We had one more snorkeling stop
before we reached Komodo Island itself and our mooring point for the evening.
As the sun set we had a few drinks, a game of Uno and our first evening meal.
The standard rules are Lights out at 10pm so we all headed to bed ready for an
early start for even more dragons.
The dragons of Komodo are slightly bigger
than those on Rinca because of the amount of prey available on Komodo. We were
really looking forward to finding some big wild dragons. The trek around the
island takes about an hour and is through jungle and up onto hills. When we got
to the top of the hill we found a large wild female, its always better seeing
them in the wild.
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| The one on the left are definitely real... |
Our next stop was manta point. We had to
search for the Manta Rays and a soon as we saw one we had to jump off the boat.
Sunny spotted one and we all jumped off the boat to follow it. We had no idea
how big these things would be, they are huge animals about 3m wide. The first
one soon disappeared into the distance so we snorkeled around hoping to see
some more. All of a sudden two appeared out of nowhere and came within a few
meters of where we were. It was an amazing sight they are such graceful animals
the way they look like they are flying underwater.
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| Just a few meters away, amazing sight. |
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| The Barracuda (Plated up 20 minutes later) |
We had a few more stops on the way back
taking in West Nusa Tenggara to visit a salt-water lake, Sumbawa to visit a waterfall
and Pilau Moyo to change boats as we broke ours. We even had a school of
Dolphins swimming along side the boat for a while. After 3 day of trying to
catch a fish off the boat the crew finally caught a huge barracuda which was
delicious. Sunny looked so proud. We had an amazing sunset on the last night
with Mt Rinjani (The Volcano on Lombok) in the distance. It was a fantastic
trip and highly recommended. You get to see so much wildlife, some fantastic
scenery and even though all you eat for 4 days is rice and vegetables it is a
fantastic experience.
 |
| We caught a flying lizard... |
 |
| Susi swimming in the volcanic lake... |
After the boat trip we headed to Sengiggi
in Lombok to chill out for a few days before our Christmas party on the Gili
Islands. We found a place to stay pretty easily, slightly above our £10 budget
but it was Christmas after all! We had a lovely place with a garden leading to
the beach. There isn’t much to do in Sengiggi so we took the opportunity to do
a bit of research, plan our next few excursions, I shaved my head whilst Susi
got a pedicure and we did a bit of washing. After 3 days it was time to head
over to the Gili’s so we took the ferry over which only took about 2 hours in
total. We got dropped off right on the beach front and headed off into the
backstreets to see if we could find our pre-booked accommodation. We were
staying in a place called Kidi’s Family Bungalows. It is a really nice place
with self contained rooms and if it’s not Christmas it is quite cheap. You get
a little terrace with a garden out the front where you sit and have your breakfast
in the mornings. It is quite a relaxed place but you do get the odd noisy day
when the local mosque sparks up. Once we where settled in we went out for a
walk to see what Gili T had to offer and we had only walked 10m when we heard
someone shouting “oi you two” It was Liam the guy we had met in Flores. We went
into the place he was staying and joined him for a Coffee. Gili Backpackers is
a bit of a meeting place and a great place for meeting people. We had a good
few nights in here and joined in with some if the games they placed. It was
really nice meeting lots of new people, particularly Liam of course who
introduced us to everyone and showed us some of the best places in Gili T,
Michael, Fanny and Nick (The management), Michelle (see you in Japan) and Mark,
Victoria, Paul the Northern lad, two girls from Hull Megan and Elli and Jonno
the mentalist cyclist who has pretty much cycled the globe over the past 8
years. He has a cool blog too. www.homeless-but-not-hopeless.blogspot.com
 |
| Christmas party time... |
 |
| Sunset Point overlooking the volcano on Bali... |
We had one particular night out and
couldn’t believe it when we bumped into our friend Bev (From Laos) again!!! The
rest of the time we spent on the beach when the weather allowed. We had a
fantastic Christmas Lunch at a place called the Roast House. We found a nice
restaurant called le Petit Gili in the night market with 1 foot long kebabs. We met 2 lovely couples from Ireland now
living in Australia. (hopefully we will see you in Oz) We had a nice walk
around the island it takes about an hour was really nice. We took a snorkeling
trip around the 3 islands, had lunch on Gili Air and finally we got to snorkel
with the turtles. We saw 3 really close up, it felt good to see big adult
turtles after seeing the baby ones in Africa. Gili T is a fantastic little
island, it has an amazing atmosphere, fantastic restaurants, lovely people, and
you can party or just as easy get away from it all.
After 3 weeks it was time to leave amazing
Indonesia, we have seen and done so much in this place but there is so much
more to see and do. It is definitely up as our favorite country so far However
the Philippines awaits us and our New Year destination of Boracay.
After many hours of research and advice
from fellow travellers we decided to do the 4 day 3 night boat trip from Flores
to Lombok. It fell nicely in place as our Christmas Stop the Gili Islands are
only a short boat journey from Lombok.
We booked a cheap flight with Sky Aviation for £30 each to Flores from
Bali. This meant we didn’t have the 3 days of island hopping on a bus – thank
goodness! We arrived into Labuan Bajo Airport otherwise know as a shack in a
field and headed into the port to find some accommodation. Labuan Bajo is a
little port thriving on boat trips and diving schools. It has one main little
street with a few restaurants hotels and bars. After dumping our stuff we
headed out to find a tour company and find somewhere with wifi so we could do
some research. We found a little place called the Treetop bar, which is really
cool, it looks out over the sea and you can see all the islands and even better
the view of the sunset was awesome. It just so happened that in the bar was a
group of people who had just done the boat trip from Lombok to Flores. So after
a couple of hours we had a lot of information and advice we had booked our trip
for the next day. Thanks mainly to Liam and the guys.
Our first couple of stops were tiny little
islands with coral reefs surrounding them. We had an hour or so at each place
to snorkel in crystal clear waters with hundreds of different types of fish.
Unfortunately no turtles though. 
We opted for the medium trek as a
group and were escorted round the island by a ranger. The first glimpse of the
dragons was quite scary and we kept our distance. We reached a stilted ranger
hut with 3 sleeping dragons below so we jumped up the stairs to get a closer
look. This was when the heavens opened but that wasn’t going to stop us. We
were there to see the dragons and a bit of rain wasn’t stopping us. We trudged
on through the mud, wind and rain hoping to see some wild dragons. After about
20 minutes we caught a glimpse of a baby dragon. Apparently quite a rare thing
as they are very shy when they are younger due to the number of predators they
have at that age. Very excited and pleased with ourselves we headed back to the
boat to continue our journey towards Lombok. We had one more snorkeling stop
before we reached Komodo Island itself and our mooring point for the evening.
As the sun set we had a few drinks, a game of Uno and our first evening meal.
The standard rules are Lights out at 10pm so we all headed to bed ready for an
early start for even more dragons.
We had a few more stops on the way back
taking in West Nusa Tenggara to visit a salt-water lake, Sumbawa to visit a waterfall
and Pilau Moyo to change boats as we broke ours. We even had a school of
Dolphins swimming along side the boat for a while. After 3 day of trying to
catch a fish off the boat the crew finally caught a huge barracuda which was
delicious. Sunny looked so proud. We had an amazing sunset on the last night
with Mt Rinjani (The Volcano on Lombok) in the distance. It was a fantastic
trip and highly recommended. You get to see so much wildlife, some fantastic
scenery and even though all you eat for 4 days is rice and vegetables it is a
fantastic experience. 
After the boat trip we headed to Sengiggi
in Lombok to chill out for a few days before our Christmas party on the Gili
Islands. We found a place to stay pretty easily, slightly above our £10 budget
but it was Christmas after all! We had a lovely place with a garden leading to
the beach. There isn’t much to do in Sengiggi so we took the opportunity to do
a bit of research, plan our next few excursions, I shaved my head whilst Susi
got a pedicure and we did a bit of washing. After 3 days it was time to head
over to the Gili’s so we took the ferry over which only took about 2 hours in
total. We got dropped off right on the beach front and headed off into the
backstreets to see if we could find our pre-booked accommodation. We were
staying in a place called Kidi’s Family Bungalows. It is a really nice place
with self contained rooms and if it’s not Christmas it is quite cheap. You get
a little terrace with a garden out the front where you sit and have your breakfast
in the mornings. It is quite a relaxed place but you do get the odd noisy day
when the local mosque sparks up. Once we where settled in we went out for a
walk to see what Gili T had to offer and we had only walked 10m when we heard
someone shouting “oi you two” It was Liam the guy we had met in Flores. We went
into the place he was staying and joined him for a Coffee. Gili Backpackers is
a bit of a meeting place and a great place for meeting people. We had a good
few nights in here and joined in with some if the games they placed. It was
really nice meeting lots of new people, particularly Liam of course who
introduced us to everyone and showed us some of the best places in Gili T,
Michael, Fanny and Nick (The management), Michelle (see you in Japan) and Mark,
Victoria, Paul the Northern lad, two girls from Hull Megan and Elli and Jonno
the mentalist cyclist who has pretty much cycled the globe over the past 8
years. He has a cool blog too. www.homeless-but-not-hopeless.blogspot.com
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