Changing plans in Labuanbajo

Phew..! The last 24 hours were a bit hectic and slightly stressful to say the least, but things are sorted now and are looking good. We left our hotel in Bajawa at 6am yesterday morning to make the mammoth bus journey of 10 hours to Labuanbajo. Shame that the bus didn’t leave until 8:45am… We opted to take the public bus (rather than organising a private van, which would have been a lot more expensive), hoping for the best. And thankfully we managed to get some good seats right behind the driver, as the rest of the bus (or rather a larger minivan), was pretty packed: Us two, together with a Polish couple, were the only tourists, all other seats were taken by locals, the space in the aisles used to the maximum and taken up by suitcases, full potato sacks, other random boxes… and a still living chicken (not for too much longer though I reckon). As the end of Ramadan is approaching, many local people are on the move to get back to their families – similar to the days around Christmas for us. The landscape was stunning though and since there was no way we could have slept due to the bendy roads (every 2 seconds another sharp bend and you really had to hold on to your seat in order not to fall out), we had no other choice than look outside the window and enjoy the views (and listen to podcasts). Nearly 12 hours and 270 km later we arrived in Labuanbajo, with hurting bums, stiff legs and glad to be off the bus. We are staying right next to the harbour in a lovely bungalow complex, which surprisingly still had rooms available at a very good rate (200,000 IDR), including an all you can eat breakfast of banana pancakes, fresh papaya, fried eggs, toast and rice.

Our bungalow overlooking Labuanbajo’s harbour.