Indonesia

We have been in Indonesia for nearly 2 weeks now, and I have to admit the travel has been pretty hard work. We’ve crossed the islands of West Timor, Flores and Sumbawa, using mainly local buses and ferries. On one hand it’s been interesting doing what the locals do, but on the other hand… sitting on a bus for 10 hrs a day with chickens, pigs, bags of rice, chain-smoking locals on all sides, and pressed 4 to a seat that is only meant to hold 2 is definitely an experience, but not a pleasant one. Plus the roads here are so windy and twisty through the mountainous terrain that our average traveling speed was slowed down to about 30km per hour (giving me plenty of time to consider exactly where and when my motion sickness will crystallize). Looking at the map I am actually amazed at how little distance we managed to cover in all this time, but it’s no good measuring distance in terms of kilometers here – only in terms of hours.

On the bright side, on those rare occasions we were released from our busage captivity, we had fun:

We visited traditional villages. The people in this one don’t have electricity or running water (although the “leader” does own a private generator), and they weave their own clothing from scratch. It takes them a week to finish a piece of embroidery (an ikat), which they try to sell to tourists for the princely sum of $2.50.



Climbed to the top of an active volcano:




(not this one, too hard :)


And best of all, saw Komodo dragons, the biggest lizards in the world! These animals give me the chills just like crocodiles do. They are pure predators, and have killed both locals and tourists (all they ever found left of a Swiss backpacker was his camera and sunglasses). The guides here don’t go anywhere without big long sticks, and seem to both admire and fear these animals equally. A full grown Komodo (the biggest are 3.5 meters) will take on anything – buffalo, deer, pig, human.