Flores to Sumbawa to Lombok to Bali

Two blogs in one week shock!

(Apologies for the lack of photos in this one, though)

I will never curse Wightlink again! Imagine having to do the Portsmouth to Fishbourne crossing twelve times over without stopping. Then imagine it at 35 degrees whilst sitting on a wooden bench about as comfortable, I would imagine, as riding a bicycle with no saddle. Twin that with perhaps the roughest bogs known to man, and you have the eight-hour Flores to Sumbawa experience provided by my favourite Indonesian outfit, J.M. Ferries. Please enjoy a sample some of the entertainment provided...

(Dad, this is where you press the video button again and turn up the volume very high on your computer box. The manual will tell you how to adjust the volume).

The only interesting bit of the ferry journey happened right at the end when we were passing a few feet away from a jetty crammed with local kids. As soon as we got within jumping distance, but still moving at about five knots, tens of local children started leaping at our ferry, scrambling through any open windows, onto the car deck. Five seconds later, these kids were streaming through the boat - it was only after about thirty seconds when I reached for my bottle of water that it became apparent what they were doing. Every plastic bottle on board had been expertly pilfered! Mine from under my very nose! I later learnt that once they had collected enough plastic bottles, the local children got a small amount of money from the drinking water factory, which washed them out and re-used them!

But back to the journey - we still had another twenty two hours journey via ferry and bus ahead of us! From the port at Sumbawa, we took a bus for about an hour and a half, through absolutely stunning scenery, to the main town, Bima. Whilst waiting for our connecting bus, we had a wander around and the locals seemed fairly chuffed to see and speak to us! As our bus was leaving at seven thirty that evening, a local teacher even tried to persuade us to visit his local school the following Monday - we made a deal to send his class some letters and photos!

The bus was also fairly uncomfortable (and smelly), but took us for twelve hours throughout the night right across Sumbawa to the port where we were due to catch a mercifully short ferry back to Lombok. Once back in Lombok, our bus took us to the main town, Mataram.

Once in Mataram, we decided to catch a bemo to a small village we’d heard great things about, called Kuta, in the far south of the island. (not the same as Kuta in Bali). We haggled a decent price with a driver, and after about twenty-six hours on the go, were looking forward to a relatively stress-free two hour run down to Kuta…Twenty minutes into the journey, however, the driver changed his mind about the price and started trying to charge us an extra ten thousand rupiah (60p) each! A bit of a stand-off ensued, with him pulling over to the side of the road refusing to take us any further whereby I took my book out of my bag and sat reading for ten minutes, refusing to get out! The driver eventually turned his bemo around and started heading back in the direction we’d just come from! He then stopped and had a chat with another bemo driver who was heading that way anyway, so agreed to take us - all very amusing indeed!

After another two bemo changes (the drivers seem to sell-on passengers quite a lot!), we finally made it to Kuta Lombok, about thirty hours after we’d set off. We found somewhere to stay pretty quickly and after four nights on the deck of a boat, and a fifth on a very uncomfortable bus, it was brilliant to have a proper bed at last!

We spent another couple of days in Kuta Lombok relaxing, eating and drinking well, admiring the scenery as well as the buffalo roaming free in the streets, before finally deciding to head back to Bali on the morning of Tuesday 19th May.

Aiming for the midday ferry, our extremely casual driver, after stopping both to have a chat with his Mum on the side of the road, and at the mobile phone shop to buy himself a new mobile, got us into Lembar Port at 12.15. Luckily the ferry was running late, so we made it just in time for another five hours at the mercy of J.M. Ferries. Oh the joy.