Maumere, Flores, Indonesia

Nearly a month since the last update in Yogyakarta, since then East Java, Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa and now the vast majority of Flores. Still to come in Indonesia, the remainder of Flores and then West Timor.

Indonesia has been a really welcoming place, lovely to tour through. the roads on Java weren't so good for cycling as the tended to be very rough surface, either from patching or just the way they surface was laid. All the vibrations from the road slow the bike and require effort to keep the speed up. Its particularly bad if you have bad knees - but the good news is that the other islands east of there aren't so bad. The roads as soon as I arrived on Bali were noticeably very different - but then I figured its the most tourist visited place... But since then the other isles have been a better too. Sure every island has it's nightmare road sections (Often where they are "fixing" up the road) but on the whole its been better than Java - and that was a relief when I got to Flores.

A new Fibre Optic cable going in - the length of Java (and beyond), The wooden levers push a pipe through soft soil boring a hole.

The greetings from the locals in western Bali were like all the other parts of Indonesia that I had visited so far. Hello Mister, as you rode past anybody, and very smiley and helpful friendly people. Beyond Denpasar to the east the greetings seemed to dry up and I got no reaction from anybody, it was only one day but the same held in Lombok the following day. Everybody silent. I guess they are just too used to tourists for it to be anything special. I'd sort of thought all of Bali & Lombok might have been like that and was surprised when Western Bali was like the previous islands.

Kuta Beach Bali

Denpasar - far more Indonesian

Lombok public transport - like stepping back in time

Lombok Mt.Rinjani - as seen from Sumbawa

Catching the ferry from Lombok to Sumbawa was like hitting a switch to turn the greetings back on. Sumbawa was far less populated so you didn't see so many, but the greeting and enthusiasm were always there and always nice. The last day of Sumbawa heading from the main town of Bima to the port of Sape - to catch the ferry to Flores - was like a training ground for Flores itself, up and down big hills with beautiful views from high passes.

A school pose for photos - and they get an A4 copy soon after

Sheltering from rain in a local village

Hills east of Bima Sumbawa preparing me for Flores.

The ferry to Flores, the bike and other goods in transit

Then it was to Flores. Flores is, in a word, hilly. It's a place I've been looking forward to and dreading all at the same time. I'd read blogs of other riders that had ridden the island that said you need a month or 3 weeks and I'd done my earlier Indonesian riding with that in mind. get through Indonesia to have time for Flores. (I had 2 days riding on Bali and a few nights in Denpasar and on Lombok I arrived at the western end one evening and departed the eastern end at lunch time the next day. My lightening tour of Bali and Lombok. I figure all the other Aussie tourists there make up for me not hanging around)

Just off the western end of Flores are a couple of Islands that are home to the Komodo Dragon, and its generally accepted that all tourist go to see them - so I did. I went down to the docks on the morning after I arrived to see if I could find a boat heading that way. (the only other way was to charter a boat just to take me - and that I deemed too expensive). My luck was in when I found a group of divers that had a couple of 45 minute dives planned and then half the group had chartered a boat to take them from the 2nd dive to Rinca Island and Komodo National Park. They'd then be dropped off elsewhere but the boat would ultimately return to my base in LabuanBajo. The day was 30th May 2008 - which happened to be my 46th Birthday, so the evening before I went shopping looking for something that might resemble a cake and candles. I ended up with 6 "cup cakes" and a box of eight 150mm candles. (with the wind blowing a gale out at the dive site where we ate lunch there was no way to light the candles, but they looked the part standing up between the cup cakes.

Happy 46th, cup cakes and candles on a dive boat heading to Rinca Island to see..

Komodo Dragon on Rinca Island

Me & Mr Dragon

Flores hills

Flores road above LabuanBajo, no traction here

Leaving LabuanBajo you head straight into the hills and yep they have hills here. This day from LabuanBajo is I think the worst day road & hill wise on Flores, so it set in my brain an expectation for things to be a bit worse than they turned out. This first day had very very long up hill (up mountain) sections which in places were extremely steep. (Steep enough that my arms muscles ached the following day - from pulling so hard on the handlebars whilst pushing with the legs). To make things worse there were places where the road had been dug up and/or rocks spread over the road. The worst of these were the places where you'd commence a really incredibly steep section on bitumen and then it would turn to gravel half way up. Spinning car, bus & truck tyres and Gravity would then ensure that large quantities of gravel would end up on top of the bitumen leaving no way to keep traction on two skinny bike tyres. In these places the aim was to pick the best line you could, go for it, and hope that you got your feet out of the pedals when the rear tyre suddenly decided to spin. It worked on most occasions, but I did kiss the ground once. Having spoken to people in the hotel in LabuanBajo I knew the next accommodation was in Lembor some 60km away, then beyond that another 60 to 70km to Ruteng. I knew that 120km + with these hills would be asking an awful lot of myself, so I had decided to stay in the one gust house that exists in Lembor. It was a good move as on arrival into Ruteng the next day I was pooped. - After a day two of lots of hills the final approach to Ruteng was an incredibly steep climb out of a river gorge to the town. The next day would have a significant downhill portion as I went from Ruteng at 1100m down to sea level, so I decided to try and reach Bajawa. Bajawa is back up at 1200metres, so after loosing 1000m you then have to re-climb it. I was just a little later than I'd have liked so with about an hour of light left I camped 13km away from my target of Bajawa. It seemed incredible that in one hour I couldn't do 13km but I could only bank on doing about 7km/hr on that one hill that had kept me busy from lunch time to dinner time - still without reaching the top. As it turned out I may have made it right on dark if I had continued. The last four km were down into the town and the up before it flattened off just a bit (or was it that my legs had rested overnight). From Bajawa another long day of 130km to Ende. Ende being the largest town on the island and at about the midpoint of the island ride (where did you expect it to be... the end...?). I was very pleased as I came into Ende along the coast (that continually forces you to do steep climbs and steep descents to go around the points between bays.) to find that the legs where very firm from that day - and the previous days - riding, but could still power..

First camp in Indonesia - in a village

More Flores volcanos

2 x Wolotopo village near Ende Flores

Road in Flores always hampered by landslides and rock falls, We had a quake and 2 aftershocks one night - which wouldn't help.

In Ende I had a rest day, before a shorter ride of only 50km, but up to altitude again, to Moni. Moni being the take off point for tourists visiting the Islands number one attraction Mt Kilimutu. A mountain of three differently coloured lakes and still classified as an active volcano.

Mt Kilimutu, 2 of the 3 crater lakes - the other is black

That brings me to yesterday when I left Moni and again descended to sea level, before climbing and descending to sea level on the other - north - side of the island in Maumere. From here its only a day or two to Larantuka and the departure point from Flores to Kupang, West Timor.

Maumere

The on-line copy of the Lonely Planet guide for Indonesia - when talking about Flores states "Cycling on volcanic Flores or mountainous Timor requires Tour de France levels of endurance though some riders do travel across both islands using buses to get their bikes up the steepest inclines and freewheeling downhill" What it doesn't mention - and maybe this too has Tour de France connections, is the local habit of Flores children to get overexcited with the passage of a tourist on a bicycle and running out on the road screaming and calling all the other children in the village, who also run onto the road. If you are on an uphill stage on a fully loaded touring bike you may only be doing 5km/hr, and this is walking pace for the children - so they stick with you, grabbing onto the bike and pestering you to the point that you are about to snap. If it only happened occasionally it wouldn't be so bad, but every few kilometres there's a new village and a new group of kids grabbing onto the bike when you are already tired and slogging up a very long steep hill. More recently they've also been shouting sentences in Indonesian that include the words "Pen" (pen) or "Gula" (sugar), and get quite agitated when you just keep riding without giving them what they want. The road quality in some places and the tendency of the kids here to do grab the bike whilst trying to ride through villages has ensured that Indonesia, which was looking at one stage like it may make it onto the favorites list with Serbia & Iran will not. Instead Indonesia will make it onto a list of honourable mentions only. If you are thinking of a cycling holiday in Indonesia, it's a great place to travel that way, I do thoroughly recommend it. Maybe give Flores a miss or do what the LP guide says and take a bus up the hills. (the kids don't even try to annoy you on flat or downhill because they know they cant catch you.) Of course if you are on a long cycling trip from one side of the world to the other, taking a bus is not an option.

Jeff

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