The Motorcycle Diaries Ctd: Roadtrippin Flores, Part 2

DAY 6

We set out late morning and head in the direction of Riung, a village on the north coast of the island. We want to have a look at the view from the top of a volcano on the way so we start asking the betel nut chewing, scarlet mouthed passers-by for directions. Maybe it’s our command of Bahasa Indonesia (surely not?) or their lack of teeth or the distracting amount of spittle being sprayed, but we find most of the responses frustratingly incomprehensible. When we end up back where we started an hour later we concede defeat on the volcano and make straight for Riung instead.

We peruse the guidebook for places to stay and feel optimistic on reading of a ‘clean as a whistle’ missionary-run place and a ‘well-constructed new set of bungalows’ jointly owned by a Swiss woman and her ‘somewhat self-obsessed local partner’. The missionary-run place sadly turns out to be too expensive (what kind of Christians are they trying to charge 2 weary travellers an arm and a leg for a room?) so we go in search of the Swiss woman. Amusingly, it transpires that she got a divorce and did a runner sometime ago leaving the self-obsessed local ex-partner with the bungalows. Maybe the shame of having that written about her husband in an internationally read guidebook was just too much…… Anyway, we meet the guy himself when we arrive and he seems pleasant enough in a long-haired playboy kind of way. He even invites us to a wedding in the village that night but we are not in the mood for an evening in the spotlight so politely decline.

DAY 7

Riung has a forlorn feeling about it, like a place tourism has forgotten. There are only 2 other Westerners in town, a German couple who are also staying at our bungalows. The mainly Muslim community here lives in crooked stilt houses by the water or in concrete dwellings which look plusher from the outside but which are apparently mould-infested and stinking inside. That’s according to the Germans who were offered lodgings in one such house when they first arrived.

The four of us decide to club together and share the cost of a day’s boat trip and off we go, first to an island with a huge colony of sleeping bats then to another with good snorkelling. The bats are quite a sight- they are enormous and, when we wake them up, they circle above the boat, darkening the sky and filling the air with screeching like something out of a horror movie. The island where we go to snorkel is the most perfect slice of paradise we have come across so far on our travels. The sand is so pale and unblemished and the sea, as warm as bathwater, is a crystal clear turquoise, almost green in the fierce sunlight.

The Germans want to spend the night on this island but are put off by muttered warnings of pirates/dodgy characters who cruise the neighbouring seas when dark falls looking for trouble. So they join us instead for a rather tamer evening at the sole surviving restaurant in Riung. Judging by the rather limited and squid-heavy menu (squid with noodles, squid with rice, fried squid, squid with sauce etc etc) and general food quality, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if eating out in Riung soon becomes a distant memory.

DAY 8

It is about 9am when we say goodbye to our self-obsessed host and get ourselves on the road back to Bajawa. We wanted to return to Labuanbajo via the north coast road but it is apparently in a deplorable state so we are having to retrace our steps instead. We arrive in Bajawa in time for lunch and for variety check into the other hotel in town. It has a lobby thick with dust and serves up a highly unpalatable breakfast of bread with chocolate chips (no butter), a cold boiled egg and a black banana, but our original hotel had blood stained sheets and smelly pillows so we are undecided as to which is worse.

In the afternoon I want to go and soak in a nearby hot springs and manage to persuade Chris into steering the bike down the worst road we’ve found yet. It’s literally one long heap of loose rubble in places and I keep having to get off to try and save the back tyre. Thanks to a few locals pointing us in the right direction (and a group of young kids who all stood up like a row of traffic policemen and signalled us down a turn-off without even needing to ask where we were going), we eventually arrive at the hot springs.

An emerald-green river of hot water flowing through the forest joins with a cold water stream and right at the meeting point there’s a waterfall/power shower. It’s tranquil, picturesque and the water is scalding hot. In fact it is so hot that we can’t get in! We have driven all that way and we’ve only dipped our big toes! To add insult to injury a local woman then shows up, wades in without so much as blinking and then proceeds to get her soap out and commence scrubbing away. We have all but given up when a guy appears, on his way to a cooler spot further downstream where we join him for a delicious wallowing session. It is dusk by the time we leave and the rubble road is no better in the dark. Chris rises to the challenge though and gets us home in admirable fashion, albeit with some swearing and cursing along the way.

DAY 9

Today is the last day of our roadtrip and there’s not really a great deal to say about it. We set the alarm for an unpleasantly early hour and, after 2 breakfasts (the choc chip/bread/egg/banana offering followed by something more tasty at our favourite restaurant) we are off with 8 hours on the bike ahead of us. Did I mention that riding on the back of a scooter is not comfortable? After an hour or two my bum feels bruised, my tailbone aches and bracing with my legs against the footpegs everytime we go downhill is starting to hurt my knees. Chris’s rear end is suffering too and we stop for a quick break to stretch our legs. It is then that I manage to burn myself on the bike exhaust. I had been warned about this by Chris who, as a veteran biker, has done it himself (in his own words) “more times than I’ve had hot dinners”. It only takes a moment of carelessness when about to get back on the bike and I am squealing, leaping back and looking down at a patch on my leg where the skin has been taken right off. It is still a red oozing mess now.

We roll into Labuanbajo just in time for sunset, tired from a full day driving (Chris) and waving (me) and exceedingly dirty. It has been an awesome trip. On reflection we decide that it merits a place in our Indonesia Top 3. For now anyway. Who knows what is to come……

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