My month-long airbnb booking for Ubud cancelled on me forty eight hours before arriving so I've decided to island-hop east through Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores to Alor - hoping to witness some whale hunting in the Alors and check out the "Hobbit dig" (2003 Flores hominid find) on the way through.

The plane landed at ten, and what with bad weather, Coranaviras paperwork, temperatures being taken on arrival, immigration, transport to my guesthouse, food...it was two thirty before I got to bed. Then it was up at five for the six o'clock bus to the port of Padang Bai ready for adventures further east through the archipelago - let's get away from those pesky tourists.


The owner of these feet is a fifty five year-old Bavarian who is possibly certifiably insane - I'm having dinner with him tonight. He's ex KLM head of European logistics building a palatial home in the Kei islands in the dar east of Indo.


The woman above was disembarking the rather plush rooftop of a charter boat with bottled water in hand which made me consider my female friends, the majority of which, would have turned those lovely cheese-clothy furnishings a nice shade of pink with their sloppy red wine habits.


The monsoon was late this year and continues to hang around. This lone figure appeared fishing on the rocks as the rain and clouds lifted. It also became difficult to make out the line of the horizon giving the view a wash of complete grey for an hour of two from sky to sea.


I was standing on the edge of the sand as I watched this instructor drill his student. The woman (I think it's a woman) seemed quite nervous and I had to respect her courage if she did indeed have a fear of the water. Indonesia is a world class diving spot so I understand how one might include a PADI qualification in the trip.


I arrived early to Padang Bai to the point where my room wasn't available which saw me sitting on the foreshore watching dive charter operators giving their boats the once over. This guy spent about an hour duck-diving under his boat checking the hull, - he really could hold his breathe.


Still trying to perfect that portraiture thing. I just find faces so damn interesting.

I have just finished the excellent book Nathaniel's Nutmeg, which gives a very well written account of the beginning of the spice trade. What is now Eastern Indonesia is the main focus, particularly the Banda islands where cloves and nutmeg originate from. If you can get some internet and download a copy, I would imagine it would make a great accompanying read.

Both West and East Timor are fascinating, especially up in the mountains.
Wild.

Never got to see West Timor which I heard has decent surf but had a good 6 months in East Timor including nearly 3 months up in the enclave of Oecusse.
Did you get up that way Stern? I did a trip into some of the mountain areas both on foot and in helo's and you're right as at that time it was still fairly untouched. That was a lot of years ago so not sure how much it's changed.
Would be good to follow your travel KungFu and really enjoying the photos.

Kahuna wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2020 5:10 pm Never got to see West Timor which I heard has decent surf but had a good 6 months in East Timor including nearly 3 months up in the enclave of Oecusse.
Did you get up that way Stern? I did a trip into some of the mountain areas both on foot and in helo's and you're right as at that time it was still fairly untouched. That was a lot of years ago so not sure how much it's changed.
Would be good to follow your travel KungFu and really enjoying the photos.

Blush, Kahuna -i realised when i wrote that post that my information was 45 years out of date.
1975.
It was so wild then, and given the history of the island, particularly Timor Leste (East Timor), it is probably still really wild in parts.

Landed from Darwin in Baucau on the very eastern tip. It was the only large-plane airport in East Timor back then.
Rough 4wd to Dili - i clearly remember a 4ft tall New Guinea looking tribesman dashing off to hide behind a tree when we passed - that was when i first realised we in a very very foreign land.

Stayed in the famous Dili beach house (free) for ten days.
We had tickets for a flight to Kupang that was non-existent by then because tensions were just below boiling point with Indo. Three months before the invasion.

Went to the small plane airport at Dili to see if we could charter a plane over the border.
Were quoted an outrageous price by the infamous pilot/drug smuggler Donald Tait so we canned that idea.
( i met Mr Tait one more time a couple of years later in a late night tuk tuk in Bali, from the airport back to Kuta.
I pinged him then, just by his secretive vibe and his denial of ever being a pilot or ever being in Timor)

Sat on the beach every night smoking Angolan Black and drinking Mateus Rose ($1,25 a bottle - like so much about this trip/adventure, i still remember it so clearly) with some Portugese conscripts that had just been transferred from Angola.
It was shortly after the Portugese revolution and these guys were just waiting to be shipped back home. The portugese empire was over. That is why the Indo's marched into the vacuum. After 400 years the Porto's had hardly established a school.

Surfed two foot waves on the reef in the middle of the bay out in front of Dili.
No power but fab fun in the circumstances.
The restaurant we ate at in Dili was bombed at dinner time 5 days after we left - 35 killed or something like that from memory.

Shipped out late at night on WWII tank landing barge from the wharf where aust journalist Roger East was shot and dumped into the sea 3 months later.
Barge was going to Oecusse but we hopped off at Batugude near the border. Truck to Balibo where 3 months later another four journo's were murdered by the invading Indo Kopassas special forces.
Spooky even then, the locals knew what was coming.

Truck, walk and pony to highland border near Indo town Atambua. Four days.
Four wide eyed kids with surfboards under our arms.
Wild wild wild country. Tough going. Stunning.

Small regional town Atambua was then base for thousands of Indo troops massing before the invasion.
Some local kids invited us to a big wedding - music, beer, dancing they said.
We walked into a super straight austere Muslim wedding and had to sit in the male side of the hall for three long long hours watching the boring as batshit ceremony - with no wild bacchanalia at the end of course.
But still very memorable because about two hours into this horrible droning trad muslim music suddenly we hear the unmistakable opening notes of Carlos Santana's Black Magic Woman.
We shoulda started dancing right then, it was our only chance all night.
Funny the things that you remember like it was yesterday.
Carlos Santana always takes me back to Timor.

Five days 25 feet up on top of an overloaded trucks thru the high chilly mountains, deep steep winding plunging valleys- wild wild wild and stunningly beautiful again.
Arrived in relatively civilised Kupang exactly four weeks after our arrival in Baccau.
Then flew on home to Bali (the second of my many trips there)

The public ferry crossing from Bali to Lombok was pretty uneventful other than a bit of a roll for half an hour mid way. The ferries are plush compared to the last time I took them. $US3 got you very comfortable reclining seats, A/C, two films on good size screens and loads of space as there were very few travelling this way. Everyone seems to take the fast boat to the Gillis nowadays and as a consequence there was only one other westerner on board. Bemos also no longer run o Kuta as a consequence of the drop in tourists so I jumped on at the back of a moto for the hour or so trip south to Kuta, Lombok.


Like most public transport toilets in Asia the view out the window was far nicer than the one below.


I asked one of the staff to ask the Captain if it was alright to come up front for a while, he was happy to oblige.


Recreational fisherman are often seen in these lampshade-type helmets while fishing, I'm unsure why this particular design was popular.

Hanging around the fishing village this morning I bumped into the guy I sold my boat to when I was living here. He'd just returned from a tourist charter with a decent catch of snapper with the business seemingly going alright.


When I was here it would cost me a packet of local cigarettes each for four young village guys to drag my boat out for repairs or maintenance and $US20 a month for moorings and security, which was pointless as I'd find it cut from its mooring sometimes, parts missing from it, and locals openly admitting they'd borrowed a stabiliser or cross beam. It was made apparent quite quickly my business efforts weren't appreciated and should be left to the locals. So I left, leaving two local village youths out of a job.


I'm staying in a small guesthouse about one kilometre left of the big lump for $US5 a night which comes with banana pancake for breakfast, private bathroom, 24 hour free tea and coffee, fan and also good wifi.


There's a few old rotting hulls around the bay.

Kuta, Lombok, has lost any rustic charm it once had and lives in that horrible place of development where they built an international airport and tourist numbers didn't increase enough to warrant the number of new buildings, so they sit half built or empty. The once lovely rustic bamboo and thatch warungs or eateries that sat along the shore have been bulldozed and replaced with a beach-long 30 metre wide strip of grey concrete and a couple of ugly grey geometric lookout type things and it's a fucking awful to see. I won'r be staying long, and I won't be coming back.

Apparently Lombok is hosting an F1 race this year which would explain the ridiculously large sized roads and roundabouts being built.