continued...
Next day I left Dibs to rest while I teamed up with a couple in the hotel – An English lad and German girl – and we chartered a fisherman for the day to take us out to Komodo. The price for the whole day was 65000 Rps, which was good. The boat was a simple wooden vessel and the captain and his one-man crew, were a couple of nice, funny local blokes. The day was sunny and the seas were incredibly still – it felt like we were on a pond at times. We weaved our way through small islands, some of which were uninhabited and others had small settlements on the waters edge, for about five hours. It was a fascinating voyage. We saw lots of dolphins and a couple of huge Manta Rays.
On arrival at Komodo Island we paid the "official" for boat mooring and took a guide between us for a walking tour of the island. Komodo is a fairly small island and is the main island (of three) which has the huge Komodo Dragon, as it’s key inhabitant. In fact, the reason people visit Komodo is to get a look at these huge beasts in the wild.
Our guide led us through thick forest en-route to a dry riverbed where he ensured us there would be lots of dragons. On the way we saw some deer, wild pigs and some brightly coloured birds as well as snakes – lots of them. Apparently Komodo is snake-central and after an hour I could believe it. Not only had we seen lots of tree snakes and smaller snakes, but at one stage a King Cobra – at least seven feet long – passed across the path only a few feet in front of us! We all froze, except for our guide who trapped the snake with the v-shaped end of his stick! He then proceeded to let us examine the snake while at the same time telling us how deadly it was, and how if it bit us we’d be dead in a few minutes, and that no anti-venom existed on the island! The snake was getting upset and I didn’t fancy dying on Komodo, so we persuaded him to let it go.
When we arrived at the clearing there were lots of Dragons. At first I didn’t notice them as they blended in with the dirt. Each one was huge and fearsome looking – between two and three meters in length with large jaws and claws. Luckily these huge beasts, the largest lizard in the world which has been known to eat humans, seemed quite lazy. Our guide explained that they spent most afternoons basking in the sun and would only hunt early or late in the day. He then proceeded to start jabbing them (this bloke was mental!). Luckily they seemed oblivious and just sat watching us.
We walked back to the guest lodge and bumped into the Australia couple we’d met the other day on the bus along with some other travellers. We saw more dragons walking around the lodge and buildings surrounding it (looking for scraps of food apparently) and a funny scene of two stags sitting on the beach watching the sea.
We left the lodge and took the boat around the island to "Red Beach" – a deserted spot on the other side of Komodo. We moored to a buoy about 30 meters off shore where we donned our snorkelling gear and dived in. This was my first tropical water snorkelling experience and I just couldn’t believe how good it was. The sea was so clear and I couldn’t believe how many fish and corals were under there. It totally blew me away and I felt like I was in an aquarium. I saw parrot fish, flute fish, huge schools of Barracuda, bright blue starfish and perfect coral. I was hooked on snorkelling and couldn’t wait to get back to tell Dibs about it, and hopefully introduce her to this wonderful experience when she had recovered.
We got back to Labuhanbajo quite late and I found Dibs had improved slightly, but still wasn’t well.
I decided it was time to take action and got the hotel to book me two seats on the next flight to Mataram, in Lombok, From there it would be easy to get to Denpasar and fly out to Australia a bit early. Unfortunately the plane was full for the next day, we didn’t have enough money to get a flight to Denpasar, and the banks were closed for a couple of days. Hopefully we’d wait around another day and then get a seat the next day. It seemed like a flight to Lombok was all that we could afford and would be our only chance of getting out of Flores in the next few days.
The next morning Dibs had got worse again so I took her to the local Doctors. He’d been ill himself for a few days, but was now ready to see people. When we arrived we found some other travellers there – all ill with Malaria. When Dibs finally got to see the Doctor our worst thoughts were confirmed – she was diagnosed with Malaria. The Doctor was a nice man and gave us all the necessary pills and potions to treat it. Luckily the strain she had was "not too bad" and quite common in these parts. He gave us a receipt to claim on our insurance and we went back to the hotel. Dibs loaded up with the pills and was almost immediately asleep. She was shivering cold yet red hot to touch. I was glad we’d got the treatment but wished we’d acted earlier. The Doctor kindly gave us a "false" receipt to cover our insurance excess 9with an extra cut for himself) – great.
In the evening I packed our stuff and settled the bill with the hotel owners. They wouldn’t accept a US$50 bill as it had writing on it (this is typical in Asia). This potentially put me in the shit, but an English lad changed it for me – we had just enough money to get us to Bali.
In the morning, before boarding the taxi to the airstrip, I had an idea. I took my emergency £10 note which I'’ had all trip to a local store and they changed it into Rps for me (at a rate favourable to them!). It was a long shot as the tenner had writing on it, but they swapped it. This gave me just enough money to extend our flight all the way to Denpasar! I knew that note would come in handy one day.
My excitement was short lived. We waited for an hour at the airport to eventually be told that the plane had broken down at Bima and would not be arriving today. Bugger! Dibs was in a bad way – really weak and being sick, so we cashed in the air tickets and took a bemo back down to the Bajo Beach, were we booked into a quiet room. I was beginning to think that I wasn’t handling this situation properly and should have just left Dibs to rest for a few more days rather than all this attempted travel, but after thinking about it I thought that moving from Flores – which was pretty unclean and extremely hot, to Bali (which was cooler and cleaner) was the best ting for someone very ill with malaria.
Dibs collapsed into sleep and I went out to figure other options out.
As I was chatting with one of the locals I found out that a ship called Pelni AWU would be passing though Labuhanbajo in a couple of days. He told me where to find the agent for this ship to see if I could get a berth back to Bali. I wandered around for hours until I found the place where this "agent" was; I then waited for hours until he appeared. When he did, he just said, "come back at 2:00 tomorrow afternoon". I was pissed off, but retreated to a local café to calm down and think about it. I sunk a large Bintang beer and ate some crap food and decided I’d try to get on the ship if the flights were still suspended.
By the middle of the next day I was getting bored. The food in this town was sparse, it was hot, and the mosquitoes were driving me mad. At the same time though I’d made many friends and was becoming a bit of a local, plus Dibs was getting plenty of rest. Here’s an extract from my diary, written at the time.
"Sunday 16th April 11:10 a.m.
Still here – bored shitless as usual – the usual crappy food and bloody flies and mosquitoes. What a disaster Indonesia has been. Our trip to Sumatra should have been warning enough! But Oh no, we didn’t think and I really though this four week island thing would have been good. I suppose it would have if Dibs hadn’t been ill – but I can’t see us visiting Indonesia again – no chance!"
When I look back at things, I really enjoyed myself and apart from Dibs getting malaria we both had a great time and have some very fond memories. Funny though how things can seem worse than they are.
Dibs was definitely improving and the Doctor popped in and said all was looking good and she was on the road to a full recovery. I wandered down to the ship agent at 2:00 and finally saw him at about 3:00. He said he "might" be able to get us a bunk on the boat. I explained that Dibs was ill and he seemed to see I was desperate. A rude German lady tried to bribe him into letting her have first choice of a room – but he ignored her. I liked his style – he was cool. He told me to report to his office at 6:00 the following morning and that he would do his best to get us on board.
The next morning we arrived early and the man stood by his word and got us a cabin. We were given a first class cabin for 115,000 Rps each – all the way to Bali (two days). Fantastic. The ship arrived in the harbour at around 8:00 – the agent had been calling "Pelni AWU..... AWU Pelni" on his radio for an hour before they responded – I think he was worried they had forgotten to stop!
Getting onto the ship was good fun (for me) but hard work for Dibs. We had to board small local boats to take us out to the ship with loads of other Indonesians and one or two tourists – where they all came from / where they were going I didn’t know, but they all pushed and shoved and became very rude. Dibs was sick – which helped most people to back off and luckily a Canadian guy helped us to get on board. It was pandemonium, but once on board we found our cabin, which was fantastic. Probably the cleanest and best-equipped room we’d stayed in since leaving home, with air conditioning, a hot shower and even a TV! The ship itself was also very nice and consisted of a few restaurants and cafes, 1st and 2nd class rooms, and then 3rd class down below. Basically the bottom few decks of the ship were open non-reserved areas packed full of Indonesians and the odd bunch of travellers. It was horrible down there – no natural light – and the mixed smell of Indonesian food and puke (they don’t seem to take to travel very well). It was cheap down there, but on this occasion I was glad we’d splashed out on a room. I had an evil thought that maybe the rude German women was down there, but later on I saw her in a 2nd class cabin. She seemed to have realised what a bitch she had been and was asking how Dibs was.
The restaurant for 1st and 2nd class (food was included in the price) was fantastic and as I sat for meals with well to do Indonesians while the resident band would play music! All quite posh. I managed to get a waiter to take a tray of food into our room for Dibs to pick at. She hadn’t eaten properly for a week and she managed to at least eat some food. I befriended the Canadian (who was in his 40’s, very skinny and very gay) and found he was a really nice, if not a little mixed up. He was going to Bali too and we decided to go to Ubud together.
Dibs improved throughout the voyage. The seas were calm and she ate more each day. We stopped at some ports on the way and passed some amazing coastline – getting a good view of some volcanoes on Bali
We arrived in Bali and shared a bemo with the Canadian for 10k each. We decided to take another recommendation and stayed at the Sarasina bungalows in Ubud for 15,000 Rps each. We got a lovely little cottage with a comfy bed and fan and a nice veranda – all in a very quiet pleasant area. Dibs perked up even more and in the afternoon I knew she was on the mend again after sending me out to get her a Strawberry Cornetto and a bag of crisps! Although the food was OK in Indonesia – and usually always fresh, it was sometimes good to get familiar food – especially when ill. Ubud certainly was a good place for this. I collected a good haul of mail from the Poste Restante – which cheered Dibs up even more and managed to change our flights to the 21st April - three days time. It was now exactly six months since we’d left England.
The next day I went for a four hour walk with Steven (the Canadian) around the local countryside. We visited some temples and small villages and passed through rice fields and forest. It was a good walk but very tiring due to the heat and high humidity. When we returned Dibs was dressed and ready for a steady venture out. She was looking much better and was getting much stronger – strong enough even to do some shopping in Ubud and eat almost an entire meal.
On our last day in Asia we took it very easy and looked back at all the experiences we’d had. Ok – we had a few upsets here and there (especially it seemed in Indonesia) but we’d both learned a lot about different parts of the world, different cultures and ourselves.
We checked out at midday and Steven allowed us to share his room until we had to leave for the airport at 6:00 p.m. – which was very kind of him. We did a last bit of shopping and a final check of poste restante before heading off in a bemo for Denpasar airport.