Days 181 – 182: Lombok to Flores

We rose early the following morning, and after a quick breakfast of backpacker-staple banana pancakes, we caught a bemo from Senaru to Lombok's main coastal road; from there we waited for a couple hours and then caught another bemo to Labuhan Lombok, the eastern port town that had ferries to Sumbawa.

The ferry from Lombok to Sumbawa was painless; a boat left every 45 minutes, and the journey took only two hours. We arrived in the town of Tano, on Sumbawa's western coast, around 1:30pm. Unfortunately, we were still nowhere close to our next destination: Sumbawa is virtually devoid of points of interest, so we still had to bus all the way across the (long) island and then ferry from Sumbawa to Flores before the painful journey would come to an end.

At Tano harbor we found a bus headed east to Sumbawa Besar, but before getting on we were subjected to the uniquely-Indonesian ritual of bargaining for our bus tickets. Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and even in other parts of Indonesia, a bus costs what it costs-- you get on and pay what everyone else is paying. But not here. Here, and for the rest of our time in Indonesia, we constantly had to bargain for buses, and the most frustrating thing was that when I asked (in Indonesian, mind you) locals on the bus how much the ticket was supposed to cost, they wouldn't tell me. Apparently everyone is in on the rip-off-the-Westerners scam.

We finally boarded the bus after paying a fare that was almost assuredly too high, and a few hours later we were in Sumbawa Besar, the main town in central Sumbawa. At this point we had a decision to make: we could either stay in Sumbawa Besar for the night and continue on to east Sumbawa the following morning, or we could take a night bus to Bima and hope to catch a bemo from Bima to Sape, on Sumbawa's east coast, that would get us to the port town in time for the 8am ferry from Sape to Labuanbajo, Flores. Making the ferry was a long shot, it seemed, but the thought of wasting another day in Sumbawa was enough to convince us to give it a shot. We bought tickets for the night bus from Sumbawa Besar to Bima and headed into town on the backs of motorbikes to get cash and food before the long journey.

Surprisingly enough, the ATM in Sumbawa Besar was in working order, and we refilled our money belts without a problem. We attempted to eat dinner at a Chinese place that was listed in our Lonely Planet, but it was nowhere to be found, and was most likely closed years ago. I'd love to know the last time that a Lonely Planet writer actually visited Sumbawa.

We hunted around for another restaurant and ended up in what was possibly the nicest restaurant in the entire city: chicken hotplate, our entree of choice, cost a whopping three dollars, but it was worth every penny. Our bellies satisfied, we hopped on motorbikes and headed back to the bus station.

When the bus arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was a luxury coach with comfortable seats and air conditioning. Perfect, we thought; we'll actually be able to get a decent night's sleep. Think again: the bus driver stuck us in the very back of the bus, which was miles from any air conditioning vent (but very close to the smelly toilet), and then three Indonesian men lay down in the floor space just in front of us, cutting off all possibility of leg room. By the time we reached Bima the following morning at 4am, we were dripping with sweat, our knees were locked from being unable to extend our legs, and we had clocked only a few hours of sleep among the three of us. I guess it's ironic that the bus that had the potential to be the most comfortable mode of transportation we'd seen in days turned out to be totally uncomfortable; somehow, we failed to see the humor.

We alighted in the Bima bus station, which was more like a big parking lot, and were relieved to find a bemo labelled "Sape" only a few meters away. We climbed aboard, thinking that we'd now make our 8am ferry without problem: the journey to Sape was a mere two hours, and at present it was 4am.

But nothing is quite as easy as it seems in eastern Indonesia: two hours later, at 6am, we were still sitting in the Bima parking lot, waiting for more passengers. At this point all three of us should have been checking our watches and wondering if we were going to make our ferry, but instead we were nearly unconscious catching up on all the sleep we didn't get on the overnight bus.

Another bus arrived from Sumbawa Besar just after 6am, and we finally had enough passengers to depart. Just over two hours later we arrived at Sape harbor; it was now nearly 8:15, but we learned aboard the bemo that the Flores ferry rarely left precisely at 8am. Indeed, we were in luck: we bought our ferry tickets and boarded the boat without problem, and at 9am we pulled away from the pier, Flores bound.

This ferry ride was not quite as painless as the ones between Bali and Lombok and Lombok and Sumbawa: the journey took a full seven hours, and the boat itself provided little shelter from the equatorial sun; or, rather, it did provide shelter from the sun, but only if you were willing to sit on the part of the deck that received no breeze. So it was either death by flaming sun or by sweltering, stagnant air: take your pick.

We opted for the sun and took seats on the top deck. A few minutes later, Jay discovered an air-conditioned sleeping room on the deck just below ours; we immediately planted ourselves in it, eternally grateful for a respite from the mid-morning heat. But, predictably, only a few minutes later we were expelled from the room by ferry officials; I'm not sure who the room was for, but it certainly wasn't for us. We returned to our places on the top deck, and sunburn commenced.

The upside of the long journey was that the scenery was decent; we passed a few schools of dolphin and watched them swim along the bow of the boat for nearly a minute, and later we passed the islands of Komodo and Rinca, views of which provided us with a preview of the next two days of our trip.

We arrived in Labuanbajo at 4pm, and after dropping our bags at a guesthouse we immediately proceeded to the local Merpati Airlines ticket office. Jay still needed a ticket from Flores back to Bali, and Ian and I wanted to purchase tickets from Flores to Kupang, in West Timor. We assumed that the ticket office would be open until 5pm, but just to be safe I had called and confirmed the closing time before we left Sumbawa: 5pm it was.

True to form, the office was closed when we arrived just after 4pm. Clearly, Merpati is not too concerned with selling tickets for its flights. Annoyed, we returned to our guesthouse, took much-needed showers, and checked into trips to Komodo and Rinca. We elected to book a two day trip to the islands, convinced that the four hour boat ride from Flores to Komodo made a one day trip a waste of time.

That evening we checked out a bar that was located on the outskirts of town; apparently, it was the place in Labuanbajo for cold beer and live music. We had a bit of trouble finding the place-- getting there involved walking nearly a kilometer down a dirt road in complete darkness-- but upon arriving we found a surprisingly tidy bar filled with a strange combination of locals and Westerners (probably ex-pats), all of whom seemed to know each other. Feeling a bit out of place, we stayed long enough to drink a couple beers, listen to a couple horrible covers courtesy of a local band, and watch a cake fight that erupted between some of the locals and ex-pats. The whole thing was a surreal experience, far different than any bar scene I'd experienced elsewhere in Indonesia. Satisfied that we'd gotten a taste of local nightlife and not wanting to overstay our welcome, we stumbled through the darkness back to our guesthouse for some much needed sleep.