Indonesia: Laboan Bajo, Flores, Rinca & Komodo

After our epic journey from Gili T arriving in Laboan Bajo was a delight, it has an awesome shabby pirate bay feel about it with a half moon harbour filled with colourful fishing boats and big wooden white sailed boats moored beside craggy outcrops. There are some drop dead gorgeous sunsets and hip places to eat and drink. 

We stayed in Gardena Bungalows where the bamboo huts creep up the hill offering some great views across the harbour.

From Gardena we organised a 2 day 1 night cruise around Komodo and Rinca to see some Komodo dragons and stop off at a few snorkelling places along the way

Our boat was called Bees and was perfect, captained by Mr Captain with Marco his son cooking and helping out. We dined like kings and slept under the stars.

Our first stop was Rinca island which is part of the Komodo national park.

Trekking around Rinca on the hunt for the dragons.

I took about a million photos of these beasts trying to get a picture of their long forked blue tongues.

Check them out in action - they are massive!

Lunch on board Bees

We moored off the coast of Komodo for the night and hawkers appeared in canoes selling their wares

Giant flying foxes circling the mangroves

A wee guy called Kevin canoed over to us with a giant wooden Komodo for sale, I fell in love and we are now the proud owners of Kevin the Komodo.

The second day took us to Komodo Island for more trekking and dragon spotting.

Jo our guide on Komodo, he had a pretty keen eye for distant birds and flying lizards.

Thank you Captain and Marco, Bees was brilliant

Travelling overland from Lombok to Flores

After the brilliant Gili T we decided to make our way towards Flores and Komodo. This is an epic journey across Lombok, Sumbawa and the seas that separate. There are a couple of ways to get to Flores, you can fly from Bali or take a 4 day 3 day night cruise from Gili T which involves some snorkelling and visiting places along the way. We decided to go for the cheap option which was a bus and boat combination that was supposed to take 24 hours.

The journey: a boat from Gili T to Lombok where we would spend 1 night in Sengiggi then a bus to the eastern side of Lombok, a boat to Sumbawa, a bus across Sumbawa and then a final boat to Flores!

We bought our tickets from Sengiggi in Lombok for around 275,000 Rp and were told to be ready for 10.30am the next morning. We were picked up the following morning in a minibus and taken to Mataram where we were told that the bus would not be leaving until 3pm!? The minibus driver then tried to sell us a variety of medicines/flights/tat for a couple of hours before giving up.

There was a comedy fish carrying man to keep us entertained for a few minutes!

The first bus took around 2 hours to cross Lombok and we drove straight onto the ferry to Sumbawa.

Where we played lots of poker with some interested locals

The next bus journey was a test of nerve, the roads across Sumbawa are dire. Worse pot holes than Glasgow and thats saying something! About and hour into the 10 hour journey people started throwing up - it was contagious starting with little kids and ending up with massive blokes throwing up and then wiping their faces with the bus curtains. We were hemmed into our seats with sacks of rice in the aisles and a box of live crickets twittering away behind our seats!  

We then transferred onto a second smaller bus for the last part of our journey across Sumbawa. We arrived at the port at 8.30am to find that the ferry had left 30 minutes earlier - surely the only mode of transport to leave on time in Indonesia. We were told the next ferry would arrive at 5pm.

The ferry arrived at 6pm and set sail at around 10pm.

We slept on a carpeted stage thing and arrived into Labuan Bajo in Flores at 7am the following morning. The journey was epic but there was some fantastic scenery and it felt like we had battled to get there making it feel really satisfying and like we had done some 'proper' travelling :) 

I made sure we flew back to Bali 

Indonesia: Gili Trawangen

After a week in Ubud we took the fast boat from Padang Bai to Gili Trawangen. I was quite excited about getting to Gili T after reading this article comparing it to Ibiza in its 1960's and 1980's haydays. The boat took around an hour and a half from Bali and sailed towards the Gili islands, which sit just off the north eastern coast of Lombok. From the boat islands looked like three perfect white sand palm fringed droplets in the turquoise sea. We landed on the most popular Gilli T where there are no cars or motorbikes only push bikes and horse and carts to navigate the island.

We hired bikes to explore the island, you can cycle around it in an hour or so, mind you some pushing is required through the deep sand. 

The development is concentrated along one main strip and a stroll or short cycle north or south will take you to deserted beaches with views over to the volcanic silhouettes of western Lombok.

Dan admires his rasta paint job

We came across a cute little warung on the north side of the island and we all piled in desperate for some water or juice. We tried to order some big bottles of water as we hid in the shade. Sorry no water - only beer or magic mushroom shakes!! This is Gili T...

A pretty awesome dining arrangement

Coconut shells are used as charcoal with fresh fish BBQ's at every corner

Gili T has some fantastic snorkelling with a coral shelf around 70m from the beach, there are loads of turtles to find and follow

Massive speakers being transported on horse and cart

I want this bike!

Tim and I sampling some local Arak

Zul making bracelets on the beach

Happy 30th Sasha, what a birthday! Swimming with turtles, inventing 3D, finding Scarborough on Gili T....

One of the many rather swanky cafes. Gili T has a mix of shabby backpacker places, mushroom shacks guaranteed to send you to the moon, cafes that could be in Paris or Ile de Re with perfectly shabby chic interiors and really posh resorts. It feels like its at a tipping point towards polished package holiday - hopefully it will retain some of its haphazard and hedonistic vibe.