14. One the road and in the air again. Pizza, anyone?

Time for the final ‘main’ destination of my trip via an overnight stop on the way. From the big boat, we clambered for the last time into the smaller ‘speed’ boats and were then deposited with our luggage back to the port in Lambuan Bajo, the main town on Flores island. There, we were directed into various waiting cars and taxis who were to ferry us to our onward travels, be that the airport or hotels. There was the usual chaos of many other tourists also unsure of where they were going, massive trucks reversing, without beeper warnings, at speed down the footpath in a game of human skittles and a bevy of men with what seem to be huge thick carpet like cloths slung over their shoulders who approach you and attempt to sell you their wares. I can’t imagine anything I’d rather buy less than a thick blanket while sweating it out in 30+°C heat with a bag which is already bursting at the seems and back-breakingly heavy. Anyway, we seemed to have the honour of an escort from Mr Jimmy in our cab, which we thought was star treatment until he reminded us that he was taking us to the ATM to facilitate cash withdrawals in order for payment of port fees to be settled because the card machine were were told would be available was conveniently ‘out of order’ … again… like it has been on every trip for the past couple of years I think!

Onec the ‘port fees’ / cash racket and the all important tips handed over, we were then dropped to our hotel where we spent the day and night repacking all our gear back into one bag each (again, heavier than ever before!), eating a lot of carbs - we found a pizza place for lunch and then went back there for pasta dinner and mojitos! - napping and generally just doing very little and recovering from our very tiring week! Our hotel had a roof terrace and incredible views over the port and islands. We were told on arrival that breakfast was served up there too although we hadn’t quite caught the timings for that. On return from dinner, I went to check the breakfast time and found the night porter / caretaker at the desk ….

Me: Hello, what time is breakfast in the morning, please?

Reception man: Hello, yes….

Me: err, breakfast? What time is it served?

R: breakfast? Yes ….

Me: breakfast … what time (pointing to watch)

R: yes ….

Me: is breakfast from 7am (still pointing at watch, speaking slower and a bit louder, because that’s the universally understood magical translation strategy to overcome a language barrier)

R: 7am. Yes….

Me: Breakfast finish time?

R: Finish… yes

Me: breakfast finish 10am?

R: 10am….yes

Me: OK. Thank you.

R: thank you….Yes.

Although I enjoyed immensely the game of ‘repeat after me’ that we’d played, I was no nearer to knowing the definitive breakfast time but I figured we’d hope for the best in the morning as there was absolutely no plan to be appearing for the breakfast start at 7am. As it turned out, when I trotted upstairs at 9.50 (having already had two delicious teas while reading my book in bed while Shelley did ‘hilarious’ English accents and commented on ‘time for a spot of tea’. I had successfully bought a little carton of milk the night before and a Nutella bar in case I got hungry - Shelley had bought a small bottle of local spirit and several cans of coke as mixers), the breakfast buffet was all still laid out. Given that it comprised of Indonesian breakfast (rice, noodles, some sort of meat curry and some long dried out fried eggs), I went for some water melon and a slice of toast. A fairly impolite European man at a table on his laptop busily and extremely importantly tapping away helpfully pointed out that I only had 9 minutes left when I asked the lady if it was ok to help myself. I graciously thanked him for his comment and explained that was all I needed for making some toast. When another man slouched onto to the roof and got himself a coffee and, somewhat oddly, a massive bowl of plain rice, at 9.59am the helpful European man couldn’t help but tut loudly and look animatedly at his watch. When a third person appeared to make toast at 10.10, when all the breakfast equipment was still out, I thought the European man was going to spontaneously combust, particularly when Shelley then arrived and got herself a coffee too. He was almost beside himself with watch waving gesticulations. He then had the audacity to request a cappuccino from the hotel lady, who was clearly entirely unconcerned by the overrunning breakfast time as she was busily watching screechy videos on her phone. I considered pointing out that since it was gone 10am and breakfast was officially finished, he may need to pay for his coffee. However, I rose above it and smirked to ever so subtly to myself instead.

Our transit to the airport went smoothly and there were real life humans on the bag drop desks, which was luckily because the automated scales would not have allowed my 26.6kg bag through and would have charged me for the 1.6kg excess. I’m not sure the checkin lady even noticed to be honest as she was too busy in a fully animated chat with her friend to even remember to return my passport and was quite put out when I had to interrupt her clearly riveting tale, which by then involved my passport being waved about as part of her recount, to request it back. There are 4 gates at Komodo airport but they seem to just use gate 3 for every departure. This means 3/4 of the airport are essentially empty and gate 3 is rammed full of people sitting everywhere in disarray. A flight that was taking off at 18.30 was on the screen for gate 3 (from when we arrived at 13.00) but every 20 minutes of so, an entirely unintelligible tannoy announcement proceeded a mad rush and big queue as everyone attempted to board each flight. We managed to fill our waiting time by taking excellent selfies involving recreating some of the airport artwork.  When it appeared to be our turn to board, I joined the queue of people, each of us checking as we handed over boarding passes that this was the flight to Bali, only to be ignored but slightly aggressively gestured through. Off I went, following the people in front. At the end of the corridor, there seemed to be 3 options for people tubes, each with a plane at the end from what I could tell. With no idea which I needed to go down, I chose the queue that looked like it had the most discerning of passengers and joined that one. I have either made the right choice or am currently on a plane to a mystery destination. It’s like plane roulette. Excellent! Where ever I’m going, they are refrigerating the plane again and I’ve forgotten to pack my jumper in my hand luggage so am thankful that this is likely to a short flight as I’m bloody cold and a bit shivery in my leggins, vest top and shirt that I’ve got on. I’ll need a delicious cup of tea on arrival to warm back up!

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Great news - I was on the right plane! We arrived back in Bali awaiting our luggage from the carousel. People check some weird things as hold luggage. My favourites today were a ladder (a fancy collapsible one that compresses down to 1m high but if it’s the same as mine, can extend to a 4m high ladder or a bend in half to a 2m step ladder. Honestly, it’s a revolution. And it turns out I could even have brought it with me as my luggage!). Shellie had decided that our height difference (she’s 6 inches taller than me) is so amusing to her that it has required the making of a ‘hilarious’ video that emphasise the me on top toes / her crouching down for selfies together and has started pretending to be my height and be the small one when taking photos. Even more reason to bring my ladder next time! Possibly my favourite ever hand luggage though that arrived with the luggage today was two takeaway pizzas ….. no, really! Fortunately, my luggage successfully followed me here - again! We ran the gauntlet of locals shouting ‘taxi’ repeatedly into your face as you negotiate your way through the airport and crossed at the zebra crossing to meet our pick up. People / drivers are so unaware of the basic principals on how to use a crossing that there is a man employed, it seems, to stand at it loudly and incessantly blow a whistle and stop cars to allow people to cross.

After one or two issues with our apartment we’re staying at, which I solved really just by annoying the man on the front desk so much he got it all sorted instantly just to get get me to go away and stop bothering him I think, we dumped our stuff and headed out for dinner, bought milk / alcohol and headed back for an early night. There is still a little work going on to provide access directly to the beach from our hotel but the feeling would appear to be that they’re happy with the progress so it’s been left like it is for a while - they’ve made an excellently convenient gateway from the road to the beach and really finished off the pavement nicely. There is then an interesting range of drinks options on the beach and some odd marketing choices.

We’ve got a little apartment here with our own bedroom each and a tiny kitchen. Interestingly (well I think so), the fridge is nowhere near the kitchen and is in the corner of the sitting room. I’ve checked and it’s 15 steps away from the kettle, so going to the kitchen to put the kettle on, getting milk from the fridge, making the tea, returning to milk to the fridge then collecting delicious fresh tea takes 60 steps. So not only am I staying hydrated, I’m also doing a bit of exercise with each cup of tea! The place we’re staying is on the beach and has a lovely pool so I suspect the plan for the next couple of days is to pretty much indulge in all of that and just chill out. What a dream! Off to bed now; the bedrooms overlook the back of the hotel and across to the street, in which there is a karaoke bar. The windows are typically, at best, loosely fit to the size of the window frame so there is nothing sealed about them. It’s like being in the karaoke bar while simultaneously lying in bed. I shall drift off to sleep to the refrain of classic karaoke of ABBA, Prince and the spice girls all being butchered by some overly keen but under-talented enthusiasts! Slightly less of a dream!