Travelling to Lombok, Bali, Labuan Bajo – Part 2

In this post, I have discover some story about Lombok, and now is the most interesting part begin, Labuan Bajo.

Labuan Bajo is a town in Flores, located in south east of Indonesia. Not so much flight able to reach this place, only 1 or 3 aviations do the trip. The one I took is by using Wings Air from Bali, it took about 75 minutes and using propeller aircraft. The price for the flight also a bit expensive, at that time it was IDR1.8mil or about USD160 for one way. Keep in mind that flight schedule also not so friendly as it only start from 8 AM and ends at around 4 PM, so you need to get the timeline ready ?. Another thing is, you will need a tour to get there, they will prepare everything including accommodation from airport to the port and all meal during the trip. Every trip will offer different destination too despite some interesting destination is the same. Last time I was using Indonesia Juara to manage the trip. Enough with all the snagging, now lets enjoy the trip!!

Labuan Bajo/Komodo (26th August – 29th August 2017)

Day 1

Start from Bali, I took first flight to Labuan Bajo at 8 AM, the tour staff is aware with all the flight schedule, so they usually will start departing at 10 AM. No worries, some first flight of most of the airlines will caught with the time. First time got to the port, it was so unexpected to see hundreds of boat is parking in the relatively small port. It took a few hop before we got into our boat. The boat is not so big, it consist of 3 bed room, 1 bathroom, 1 eating room, and a spacious deck at the top along set of seat. The bedrooms consist of 4-2-4 capacities yet they were quite narrow too. It would be good to squeeze your belonging so you will able to safe some spaces. First impression was not so good, to imagine myself live in this kind of boat for next 3 days looks to be harsh. Oh! The boat was lead by 1 captain, 1 chef, and 1 general guide. Enough with all the useless story, let the adventure begin!!

The first place to visit is, Kelor Island. Actually, kelor is name of a leaf, but I’m not sure why the island is called that way. Once the boat landed, everything looks so fresh, sea was so transparent clear and it was accompanied by white sand beach. There was endless of island around us, the landscape truly was so gorgeous. Despite all the good thing, there also a big steep hill in front of me and our programs is to climb the hill. It was so steep, the slope level may up to 45 degrees. Better to prepare a proper shoes before going there because it’s quite slippery a sandy terrain

Next destination is Rinca Island. There we only visit small part of Rinca Island. Actually Rinca is a big island where many Komodos still live up there. Komodo is very sensitive to blood smell, so any ladies and wounded person should pay more attention. We got some  rangers to guide us exploring the Rinca Island. Not so many to do in this island except meet with Komodo. After around 1 hour, then we close the day by heading to Kalong Cave. There, thousands of bats would come out looking for food in the evening. We will stay there for like 2 hours, waiting for the bats came out and enjoy the sunset from the boat.

Day 2

Woke up in the morning, we went to Padar Island to catch the sunrise and get the mesmerising view from the top. It wasn’t easy to get into the top, but not as hard as in Kelor Island. Belief me that you should do till the top because the view is superb!

Done with Padar, next we went to Pink Beach and had some snorkeling activities. We did it around the beach, so it was a great chance to warm up and retrain your diving/swimming skill. There’s still a lot of living corals and small colourful fishes below the surface.

After being tired, lunch time is coming and we enjoy the food. During the lunch, boat keep moving to manta point where we could find some manta hanging around in sea floor. This time, diving skill would be useful since Manta is a great swimmer compared to turtle. The boat will stop once we can spot a manta and let us jump to the sea to catch the manta. Manta usually swimming near sea floor means we need to go deeper into the water to see it closer.

All the activities was really suck up most of my stamina yet there still one more island waiting ahead. We would have sunset view from an island named Gili Lawa. Before we land over the island, the captain told us that the island gonna have 2 spots for enjoying the sunset. One is the easier track which will take us to lower hill, and another will take us to higher hill. Since it might our last chance to visit this place, then we commit to visit the higher hill. It really took much more effort to grab the peak of our spot, I found myself is so far from the ground when looking back. Finally after about 40 minutes of trekking we got into the spot. By seeing around, the view just so wonderful, it felt that all the efforts are nothing compared to what we got. That’s how we ends the day 2 trip and we back to our boat to take a rest and prepare for the last day.

Day 3

Wake up early, and the sunrise was up right in front of our head. Heading to where the sun rising, we start our journey to the main island. After hours of sailing, we arrive at shallow water, where we can barely saw the sand below the surface. The place is called Makassar Reef. We spent some time to take some pictures in a very small island with shallow water surround it. We also can walk into the water, swimming, and find some jellyfish there.

Done with the Makassar Reef, we continue into resort island, named Kanawa Island. This island have some facilities like resort and restaurant. The landscape is pretty beautiful just very hot. The sun may burn our skin just in second because it was around 1PM and the sky is very clear. We’re resting there for about 1 hour then continue our journey to the main island. That’s how the Labuan Bajo trip was done by Indonesia Juara open trip. It was very fun, the guide also very helpful and pretty knowledgeable. We arrived at the island around 2.30 PM, as part of their service, the tour organizer can lend the last transportation to either airport or hotel. Since I was worry the schedule is dragged too much that would end up I miss the flight so I get into a hotel in the island. It cost me around IDR 200k for 1 room. There was some place to be visited around the city, but since I was very tired, then I just strolling nearby, and find some food.

Day 4

I did nothing but caught the first flight to the airport. In Flores, near the Komodo Airport, there will be many Ojek (Motorcycle transportation) that active since early morning.

Tips and Tricks sailing to Komodo:

• All the transportation from/to airport should be covered by the tour organizer.
• Food will also included along the trip.
• There is ship with decent air con, with max 4 guys in single room.
• It was very hot there, prepare your sunblock and another equipment.
• Snorkling tools will be provided.
• Wear comfort footwear, shirt and pants, we will do some trekking.

So, that’s all for Labuan Bajo story, hope it can be helpful. Enjoy and have fun!