Labuan Bajo - Day 3

Finally a much needed sleep in. We depart at 11 am and take the speed boat out to the one and only Komodo Island. Second time around the dragons have lost their celebrity status. Photo below was taken after our ranger threw some rocks at the lazing dragons to stimulate a reaction. This seemed to work temporarily as the dragons rose and crawled around before finding their bellies in the shade of the cafe.

The weather has started to become fairly overcast - First stop Pink Beach, unfortunately I suspect a fair amount of photoshop in the tour guide as when we arrived the beach looked like a normal sanded-beach. Closer inspection showed the red hue of coral on the shore, but I can't say the camera did it any justice.

The final stop was a choppy boat ride over to Padar Pulau for what can only be described as one of the nicest sunsets I've seen - I'll let the photos tell the story. We hunkered back down and stole through the night for the final 2 hour boat ride back to Labuan Bajo.

Currently reading "Bad Blood"

Labuan Bajo - Day 2

The (new) Wonder Woman was showing last night. I still haven't seen it and the temptation was to stay up and ogle Gal Gadot was strong, however we had a 3 am wake up call. Why 3 am, you ask? Well, we were determined to go for a sunrise hike over at Gili Lawa Darat which from Labuan Bajo is approximately a 2 hour speed boat ride away. The four of us grumbled as we sat in silence as we made our way to the pier. Nobody was at the pier when we arrived aside from a couple of stray dogs.

Our skipper arrived just after 3:40 with the first mate and daily provisions and we set off out into the darkness. Two hours is a long time, especially on a boat in silence. The drone of the motors made conversation difficult, but provided white noise, it did make for a fairly long ride out. I focused on my breath and as we slowly left sight of shore, the lights becoming less pronounced. I entertained my strategy in the case the boat capsized, I would swim in that direction, I would swim breaststroke, and I would hope that there's no sharks. Back to the breath. I started to recount the novel "The Life of Pi" in particular the carnivorous island and the symbolism. Back to the breath.

As light began to break, land became visible and passed through docked boats whose patrons were still fast asleep. The sun was about to rise and had a summit to scale before the sun got there; we were behind schedule. The speedboat pulled into the beach and Andy was talking to the skipper and pointing to the submit. The minute we came ashore Andy jumped up out of the boat and dashed across the beach front. The next 20 minutes we scaled a vertical mountain side, occasionally having to crawl with our hands. We finally made it to the top with not a moment to spare. Gasping for air in attempt to slow down the heart rates we took in the spectacular views as time slowed down and the sub trickled up from behind the horizon.

Our next stop was Takar Makassar, a sand bank. We were quite exhausted and lazed on the beach dozing off for a twenty minutes before the skipper threw some snorkels at us and shouted "Turtles", we roused half startled and jumped in the water and snorkelled around the reefs following the turtles.

Next stop was Manta Point. Clearly a popular site as it was only 10 am and there were already other speedboats floating around a patch of sea. The skipper instructed us to put on our fins and snorkels and when he gave the signal, we had to jump in. The boat sped around and soon enough he was shouting "Manta! Manta! Manta!". Diving in we entered the world of the Manta Ray. Absolutely amazing. Huge. Placid beasts, highlight of the day!

After that excitement we crawled back on board and tucked into the lunch. Fairly basic, but super tasty. Deep fried Chicken (Ayam), some brown ride, some raw cabbage, boiled water spinach, bit of Asian Basil and mouth watering sambal.

The girls headed off for some dives while we went Dolphin watching and had a couple of more dives at Kanawa Pulau. Most people who travel out to Komodo, live on a boat for a few days meandering through the islands of Komodo. We traveled 2 hours out, and 2 hours back to have the luxury of a hotel. It meant for painful commutes. We endured another long ride back before grabbing a massage and a plate of Mee Goreng. Great day out on the water.

Labuan Bajo - Day 1

My association with Bali has always been fairly partial. Kuta and Seminyak is where I have spent more of my time in Bali and these two areas tend to attract a particular subset of the Australian species that are known to wear Bintang Singlets and drink beer, not that there's anything wrong with that. Easter 2019 would be an opportunity to spend some time exploring the Eastern Side of Indonesia, particularly around Labuan Bajo, famous for Komodo Island, the home of the Komodo Dragon.

Our journey would start with an after work flight out from Hong Kong to Bali. Being the Easter long weekend, flights were not cheap, including domestic transfers the cost of the flights came to approximately 10K HKD - to put this into perspective, regular non-long weekend flights to Bali from Hong Kong usually come to around 4-5K HKD. It's safe to say the airlines charge a premium over the Easter break. Everybody had the same idea flying into Denpasar, the immigration hall was FILLED. Not surprisingly, there were some officers who were amenable to some cash in hand to facilitate queue expedition. We would spend one night in the local airport hotel before jumping on a domestic flight early the next morning.

The domestic flight between Denpasar and Labuan Bajo was chartered by Lion Air. Lion Air, the airline once infamously known for having one of the worst safety records for passenger flights and more recently in the press for the recent 737 Max airline incident was reason for mild anxiety. The flight was delayed by a 40 minutes, this would be the only blemish on an otherwise smooth ride.

We arrived at Labuan Bajo domestic airport, it was sunny and warm and we had expected to be greeted by somebody holding up a sign. Turns out Max our driver had come on time, only to find out flight had been delayed retired back to his home to catch some z's. After a handful of phone calls we were soon at the hotel to meet the rest of the party. Our room was not going to be ready until after 2, so we decided to start our tour of the Islands. We were taken to the pier and introduced to Andy, who would be a tour guide for the 3 days. Majority of the sight seeing would take place via speed boat.

First stop - Kelor Island. It's the middle of the day and the sun is blazing. We hike to the top snap some pics.

We snorkel and then make our way to Menjerite and Pulau Rinca for our first encounter with the famed Komodo Dragons. Each tourist must be accompanied by a ranger, who is local with Dragon Deterrent Device; ie: a big stick. Due to the deadly nature, people aren't allowed to get very close to the Komodo Dragons and we are asked to keep a good 5 metre distance from this huge reptiles. First impressions are that the dragons are super lazy. Second impression is that it all feels very staged.

The final stop for the first day is to moor just off Kalong Island with the hope to catch a glimpse of the fruit bats leaving the island for sunset. Unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worst and we were rained on, we did manage to sneak in some bat action however by this point we were soaked to the bone and ready to head back to the hotel. Day one finished with a delicious seafood dinner by the marina. We were actually cheated by the organisers into purchasing stall tickets. Read, this is a scam. End of the first day. I'm wiped.

Pause. Reset. Refocus.

The class schedule this year has been erratic, last minute changes to assignment deadlines and presentations have made planning for trips extremely challenging. The stipulation is that during the course, students should try to be in Hong Kong for the entirety of the semester. My strategy for this is to book all trips ahead of schedule and ensure that I have travel insurance and a decent cancelation option as not to absorb the costs of a forfeited fare. I have already started to get used to the internal struggle, with the usual questions being tabled: “should I really be traveling around and compromising grades?” which is always countered with “should school really be dictating who I hang out with and how I spend my time as I get older?”

I desperately needed this trip - Psychologically I yearned for some therapy or release valve for all that anxiety. Deep down, I knew that it wasn’t as simple as going on a trip. In any case I managed to get to Bali. The reason for the trip was because my dad’s best friend’s daughter’s was getting married. From a trip perspective, it was therapeutic in the sense that we were in a resort, with not a lot to do. I managed to have some quality family time and even catch up on some sleep. We had a nice group dinner by the beach on the first evening with the wedding on the Sunday.

One of the more enjoyable parts of the trip was witnessing the interaction of my parents with their university friends. It was as expected, a barrage of the same line of questioning “How’s Hong Kong?”, “When are you getting married?” and of course a dad joke. So many dad jokes. As I watch them interact, I see who the instigators of the group are, and try to match up individuals with characters in my circle of friends. For example, there’s the uncle whose smuggled a bottle of whisky to dinner, there’s the other uncle who is always encouraging people to drink, there’s the quiet uncle and then there’s the uncle that doesn’t drink. One of the uncle harasses a twenty something “Hey, f**k you, drink that now!” while I overhear my dad consoling another young adult “You should stick your finder down your throat if you want to throw up”. I guess group dynamics remain constant even through the generations.

With the aunties, I overhear them talking about how the men have gotten “grumpier” and “more forgetful” over the years. There’s idle chit chat about which degenerative disease such-and-such has, or what stage cancer was recently found. All of my parent’s friend’s children are married. My mother is grilled as to why her two children still remain unmarried, she brushes off the questioning with a “my kids have their own lives, they can do what they want”. The conversations bring a smile to my face but also exposes a certain emptiness that I was not expecting. I often forget that as I get older, so does everybody else around me. Parents included. This alone was the grounding experience that I had wanted, but not expected in this manner. I feel already closer to home.

"My kids have their own lives, they can do what they want" - Mom

The Bali Six

The logistics of rounding up people from Sydney, Hong Kong and Jakarta would be the biggest challenge of this trip. To convince people to spend almost a thousand Australian Dollars, 10-12 hours on a plane with the intent to spend less than 72 hours in a single destination would require either a carrot to dangle or the coercive skills of a master salesman. Luckily enough we had a carrot, a carrot so large and orange that it was capable of commanding an army of rabbits. Or in our case five guys, the carrot was the Groom-to-be and this was his Bachelor's party, Stag-do, Buck's Trip, call it what you will. Inspired by the movie The Hangover we headed to Bali, Indonesia.

We, the Hong Kong contingent arrived in Bali Denpasar just after midnight. The hall for immigration was filled with arrivals all trying to purchase Visas and get through customs. Seeing our impatience airport security approached us and asked if we would like to purchase and "express visa" bypassing the queues and headaches. We negotiated a final price of 500 HKD for the three of us and immediately cut through the assembly of tourists.

The last time we were all together in one place would have been the wedding in 2008. It had been a long time coming and I honestly miss hanging out with these guys. What ensued was a weekend spent lazying in the villa, catching up, cracking jokes, reminiscing and of course plenty of alcohol.

Saturday night we gave the Buck his Belly Dancer outfit, a platinum wig and a list of tasks to complete by the end of the night. Tasks included, Find a woman with the same name as your fiancee, dance onto of a table in a public area, get a guy's phone number plus many, many more. Great night, plenty of stories, plenty of laughs, plenty of realisations that were no longer 18 years old. Come Sunday we were spent and could not wait to get home. Somehow managed to score an upgrade to Business Class on the flight back but that did little to alleviate the tiredness and the thought of work on Monday. Excellent weekend, cannot wait to get back to Sydney for the Wedding!