7 November 2011
Homeward bound
We left Kuching at 1615 for Kuala Lumpur. Arriving at 1755 we had a very safe “self-connect” waiting time till our ridiculously cheap non-stop flight to Christchurch at 2340.
30 October 2011
Factory outlets
Above: The green countryside before arriving into Bandung. Rather than fly out of Jakarta, we thought it would be different to fly out of Bandung to KL/Kuching. We’d save a little on lower departure taxes out of a regional airport … and the distance from Jakarta to Bandung is only 3h by train. The train […]
29 October 2011
With family
We had a nice buffet breakfast at the Novotel where had stayed for the night. But kids were running around noisily around us. It wound Kim up quite badly. On our midday flight from Bandung to Kuala Lumpur, I had ordered possibly the best airline meals I have ever savoured, so Kim could share in […]
27 October 2011
The Big Durian
We made our way to Labjuanbajo Airport early for our Wings Air 0830 flight to Denpasar-Bali for our connection to Jakarta. We never expected a traffic jam in a little town like Labuanbajo. But today was the day that locals were departing for their Haj in Mecca. The main road was chocka as was the […]
26 October 2011
Dragon safari & snorkelling Day 2
Dragon-spotting on Komodo Island As we’ve kept ourselves on New Zealand time in order to make early flights and dives, we woke up naturally at 5am … assisted by the sunrise. Breakfast was cheerfully served at 5:30am and we were at Loh Liang, the National Park base for Komodo Island at 6:00am. We had to […]
25 October 2011
Dragon safari & snorkelling Day 1
Crew, stowaway, freeloader or extra passenger? We pushed off from Labuanbajo harbour around 7:30am on our lovely comfy boat with what I thought were 4 crew members. As it turned out, one of them was an Indonesian passenger … I think the crew had smuggled him on even though we had paid for the entire […]
24 October 2011
Labuanbajo
We walked around Labuanbajo, in the land of Komodo dragons, and enquired about dive trips. Day trips are common and overnight trips require the right numbers in the travelling party. Every shop had the same offerings at the same price … except Labuan Bajo Dive Club which was IDR50,000 cheaper. That little difference in price […]
24 October 2011
Diving
Above: Sunset as viewed from our accommodation. Today we did a full day’s outing from 0800 to 1700 with two dives. Like many people, we skipped the optional third dive but couldn’t return until everyone was done. First up was Manta Point (Karang Makassar) where we saw four manta rays and an eagle ray. It […]
23 October 2011
The road not taken
We hired a motorbike today with the intention of going out of town, including to a waterfall. We didn’t get very far … about 10 minutes out of town, the road disappeared into a bumpy dirt track. We pushed on for about a further 10 minutes and decided that the ride was far too uncomfortable […]
22 October 2011
Flying high across Lesser Sunda
We didn’t have much time this morning before our 1140 flight from Bali to Labuanbajo. We walked out of our hotel to grab some breakfast. Unfortunately at 8am, there was not much choice. Kuta is rather touristy and it was only pricey cafes or McDonalds and KFC … nothing cheap or local. Our Lion Wings […]