Author: marlyn

Soa Bajawa airport is tiny! They only have one belt for the luggage and not in circle so if sb didnt take his/her luggage it will just pile up. The airplane also small one, the one that is still using wing and it really match with the airplane that we flew with, wings 😉

Santos and Maggie picked us up and we checked in in our “hotel” and I guess we went for lunch first but because we were in such a weird time like around 2:30ish so not all restaurants opened we need to hop on to the 3rd restaurant that let us had our lunch there!

After that we went to Bena village (not getting in, only the front of Bena village) and we started trekking to Tololela village, it took us around 1.5 hours. Santos explained this is cinnamon tree, cocoa etc etc. Tololela is quiet unique, the village has front side and back side. In the front there are 4 clans and on the back is 3 clans of family.

Theres a altar for sacrifice usually they will sacrifice buffalo, pig or chicken. On the roof theres also a symbol of a guy, a house (which means its a women’s house) and no symbol. I found this village is beautiful, the donation or Id rather say entrance fee is IDR 10k.

Then we went to Gurusina village there was a cultural event to mark the day that they will start to rebuilt the village. They used to have 33 houses but due to fire they only have 6 houses left and for the cultural event they sacrifice 27 buffalos, 27pigs and many many chicken, they started the event from morning. By the time we arrived it was already like 6ish so we didnt see the dance or the way they killed the animal (not that I want to see it) but we have to eat sth as a respect to them. They put a lot of rice for us and the first meal was the pig with coconut sauce and sth else and I couldnt see because on the village 6ish is very dark! But Im happy in some way that its dark because me and Marina cannot eat the pork, Ive told Thorben and he said “you can slowly moved the pork to my plate” and there I moved mine and he also said “you can take Marina’s pork too and give it to me” so I did that too 🙂 good job Thorben!

We need to go back to hotel immediately as we will climb Inerie at 1AM! So off for some snooze!

For the second day, after we climbed Inerie, I asked Santos to go to hotspring first because first I was soooo dirty with all the dust from the mountain and second my leg couldnt handle it anymore! I need to chill on the hotspring before we continue to Bena.

We went to Manulage hotspring and I think we stayed there for one hour ish, it was soooo good! To have a rest in a mix of hot and cold water, from the same place if we go more to the left the water is cold and more to the right the water is hot hahaha we also met another travelers Lusi, Arnau and Mark 🙂 Santos was fall asleep on the stones and on the part of the water that is hot!

Then we are ready for Bena! This village is the biggest, they have 9 clans but even after the hotspring I still very tired and that time it was midday so the sun was at it strongest, my leg couldnt handle it anymore so we just take a quick look of Bena and went for lunch.

The entrance for bena is IDR 25K and they gave us the scarf for us to enter the village. The view is better than Tololela imo because the position is higher but for some reason I like Tololela more. I think seeing 2 villages in Bajawa is enough unless you wanna become village expert 😉

We had lunch in heaven’s door where we can see Inerie mountain, Lusi and Arnau was there too! This is such a place for tourist 😉

After lunch we went back to hotel for a short rest maybe like 1 hour before we go to see sunset at Wolobobo. I think the sunset at wolobobo is very nice, the line of the pink cloud is so beautiful! However it was very very windy! I had to borrow Santos’ orange “Laskar Jaramasi” jacket but it stills soooo cold!

Well well thats our trip we fly back to Labuan Bajo to have few days to chill as I cant walk properly anyway now haha.

We didnt expect that the real deal was the trip in Bajawa, I thought Bajawa is more cultural village and not much to see but nope I was wrong! I was more tired here other than in Labuan Bajo even if I didnt fall down on the swimming pool and do the snorkeling I still think that Bajawa trip is more tiring than LB’s and most important is whenever you’ll go preparation and planning is very important, maybe German way is still better after all 😉

Allright allright, fell down on the pool got under control, how to take a picture to make my bandage less obvious is also under control this mark that we are ready to start our boat trip!

When I arrived on the boat from east cruise komodo the boat crew was very concern because of my big bandage, he asked “what happened?” And I said “I fall down on the swimming pool” to my surprise he didnt even asked am I ok or how or what not, he replied “are you staying in La Cecile?” Oh yeah news spreads quick in this island! I feel like I am the headline of the news story! Do you need my signature? Want a pic with me and my wound? Haha anyway I still like the crew they are all very nice and when I want to get off they reminded me “watch out your head” as they dont want me to hit my head again and they make sure that I don’t snorkling because they want my wound to dry quickly. Nice people!

First stop is Padar Island, Thorben got up in like 15mins, me and Marina was like hmmm 40mins and I have to sit down like 5 times haha its the sun! We were there like 9ish so the sun is quiet strong and I need to find the shade, drink water etc.
Our Padar view is different from Marina’s sister because they went in April so they are more green while we went on Sept so…. its quiet dry…. but I still like it!

There is no stopping sign so actually its a never ending hike but since we only have 1 hr so we stopped at the good view spot and return 🙂 on the way to our boat we saw a bunch of deers!

Second stop is Komodo Island, I was asking Marina and Thorben if Im bleeding, they kept saying no, dont be so dramatic hahaha as the common knowledge is Komodo smells blood! Look at this beautiful Dinosaurs’ ancestor!

Third stop is Pink beach which from far away its just a white sand but when you got off the boat and come closer, it is pink! Yeayy, Marina and Thorben did snorkle there, me…. Im just watching them from the shore 🙁 and swimming but kept my head above the water.

Fourth stop is Taka Makasar and the sand is even pinker than the pink beach, the boat crew said you cant really snorkel because there is nothing on the bottom, only sand, but I like it because it is ocean-sand-ocean so they dont really have a shore as the sand is in the middle.

Fifth stop is Manta Point which I didnt go because you can only snorkel there, Thorben and Marina went and they saw 4 mantas very big one but Marina said the current is very big, without a life jacket it will be hard to go back to the boat.

Last stop is Kanawa island, I did swim again on the beach because I dont feel like I swam enough but even I always careful to put my head above water at some point I need to stop because the water already on soaked by my giant bandage.

And thats the full day trip! They picked us up at 5:30am and we came back at 5:30pm, we took shower and had dinner on the hotel and went to bed! Zzzzz
I had dinner with my PJ’s and Marina said “I didnt know PJ was an option” see dinner with PJ is awesome!

Thorben and Marina arrived Jakarta! Yeay! They had 2 days to do culinary here. I asked my parents on where to take them and what to eat and they said “easy, we got all the places, we will only bring them to the place that we like, even maybe its not famous but at least its good” so I was relax as everything will be taken care off.

They arrived 26th like late in the evening almost midnight, me and my parents picked them up and I’d to spent my birthday on the parking lot haha! But at least I got all parents complete on my bday, my biological and non biological 😉

The first day of culinary was only with my mom, we went to the traditional market, the place that my mom goes everyday to buy veggies, fruits and everything. We ate local food there, nasi uduk, lontong sayur and some drinks. They never or dont see white foreigner that much so every times they saw Thorben and Marina they said “hello mister” or “hello bule” haha people! Pleaseeee We also bought fruits like salak, passion fruits, the other type of passion fruits and mangoes.

For light lunch we want to eat otak2 and pempek (made out of fish) but we didnt walk there we took a bajaj to drive us. The bajaj driver was so happy because he got 2 bules on his ride 🙂

The original place of otak2 and pempek for some reason closed but the neighborhood told us that there is another similar shop around so we gave it a try.

Thorben tried nasi goreng pete on this shop, I dont like pete but for them its OK. Then we go home for a while because we cannot contain anymore foods, me and Marina figure out the additional luggage, east cruise komodo and who will pick us up from the airport.

Then it was somewhat afternoon and we ate more food, this one is meatball soups 🙂

We went to harvest to take my cake, we didnt have dessert here hahaha the dessert postponed for another few hours 🙂 And then my father arrived home after work and we go to Jetski cafe to have dinner with my other friends 🙂

The next day, the eating and sightseeing continues, this time my father also joined. We started to have noodles as breakfast at Mie Alip.

The same thing happened, they looked at Thorben and Marina haha like they are the only bules that came there. After we killed the noodles, my mom brought some breads for us to eat otw and Marina asked “warum??” And Ive told her to eat it later not necessarily now and she asked “when? When do we eat it? Later? When we have more foods” hahaha

This noodles enough to fill us up until kind of late afternoon. We went to “old city hall” to visit “Museum Bank Indonesia” and then went to train station. But otw to train station there was a bunch of teenagers that learn english and want to have interview with our bules and record it as their homework haha

They just asked simple question like your name, country where you come from, what is your fav food? And Thorben replied with “brain brain” which means otak2 which is definitely not the english word for it but Idk what to call it hahaha

Then we had lunch at Padang restaurant called Garuda. Thorben and Marina thought all of the drinks that they had is too sweet while I dont think so but I always order no sugar for them while for me? Yais please sugar bomb! Haha

We had another sugar bomb desert called Martabak, they were amazed with the amount of butter, condensed milk, chocolate and peanuts that they used to make it hahaha! And they surprised that we dont have diabetes hihihi but they like this sugar bomb desert 😉

We didnt have dinner after this, we just stayed at home but my mom cut all the mangoes and give it to them and Marina kept saying “warum??” my father said that “maybe you need to walk around and eat again” But the mango is so good so we all eat it anyway haha

When the nights come, I took shower, when I finished it my mom’s gone, I asked my father where is she and he said that she went to fruit shop thats only in front of our apartment. I was like “really? I dont think Thorben and Marina can eat anymore!” I went to tell Thorben what did my mom doing and he said “is she cutting more fruits for us?” I replied “no, she went out to buy more fruits” and Marina was “warum??” Suddenly, my mom with her barely spoken english arrived and saying “Marina, come come” #facepalm! They tried another fruit called dukuh this time haha but I’ve told them that they dont need to finished the whole dukuh.

The next morning, we all went to Labuan Bajo, its good that my father didnt dropped us to the terminal because our terminal changed! From the internet it was terminal no 1c and the reality was they closed down terminal 1c and moved Citilink airplane to terminal 2e but yeah! We made it! And here our holiday starts! And… we have another stories for that 😉

I hope you have a good time in my home as I always have a good time in yours XOXO