#and then doing maths in my head like “hmmm when is 7am? how many hours is that? fuck it just--Alexa stop in seven hours

[denzartriste]

Jeffrey Preston Bezos has the audacity to ask for my money while i am doing the elaborate song and dance of asking alexa to play brown noise. The audacity. The damn audacity of that man I better get a piece of him when we eat the rich because i am not having a good time

[pinkguacamole]

Four Days on a Boat to See Dragons!

Yep. That’s pretty much it. Four Days on a relatively sturdy boat around many islands in Indonesia to see incredible things... including Komodo Dragons!

I arrived on Lombok, the island where the trip would begin, a few days before Wednesday, when the trip usually departs, so I could find a good price on a boat. I was intimidated because I had heard of the slight chaos of this trip. Some of the boats are hardly seaworthy and there are often shipwrecks. I also heard that the companies running these trips could be shady and try to take advantage of people. 

I walked into the mission of finding a boat well-prepared to negotiate and investigate after all I’d read. 

Well. Everything worked out beyond easily for me. There was a tourism operator next to the hostel I was staying at. They had the trip. I hit them with all of my questions. This price includes everything? Food? Entrance fees? There is vegetarian food? 

“Yes.”

“Hmmm. But this price is still too much.” 

I talked the guy down a few hundred thousand Indonesia Rupiah. 

Seemed easy enough. A 4 day boat trip for $120. It would be pretty simple, sleeping on the deck, eating whatever they served for food. But they would provide snorkels, and the spots we would visit were unparalleled anywhere else.

“Okay, but once the boat gets to the destination of Flores, how do I get back to Lombok or Bali for my flight?”

“You can fly or take a shuttle and ferries.”

So I walked around to see if there were any operators that had deals on flights or more information about a return trip. This boat would go eastward for 4 days and drop me quite a ways away from Bali where I would have a flight to Vietnam within two weeks.

While I was searching for a return trip, another Indonesian man asked me where I had booked the boat trip. I told him I hadn’t booked yet because I wanted my full plan first. He told me he knew the operator with the best price... 

Okay, why not? He called his friend.

Anton cruised up on his motor bike. He was a chill Indonesian man with a long pony-tail and a lot of energy. I got him to sell me the trip for 200,000 Rupiah less than the other guy. 

So here is how the math works: At the end of the trip, I found out from a guide that the “agent price” for these trips is 1,250,000 Rupiah. The price on fliers is 2,100,000. Everything else is just commission for the operators. And it doesn’t matter who you buy from, it’s all the same boat, at least in the town of Senggigi where I was shopping around.

I paid 1,500,000. Pretty good. 

I decided to torture myself and book a 24-hour shuttle bus (with two ferries) to get back to Lombok instead of flying. It was a fourth of the price of a plane. Worth it? 

And voila. Everything was all booked and ready to go. The hardest part was over.

A few days later, I was herded to an office with all of the other travelers on this trip. Eventually they boarded us onto a bus and we made it to the port by early afternoon. 

The boat was brand new and in great condition! It was clean and spacious. Most of us would be sleeping on the deck, but it looked pretty comfy. All the ambiguity of this trip was starting to melt away. It seemed like a pretty great thing. 

We finally left port and sailed to an island nearby to explore for a bit. I started to chat with my boat mates. All were super nice and most were European. It was interesting to talk about European politics again after I have not been there for a few years and it seems like American politics dominate the news lately. 

Our first night they served us fish and vegetables and rice. There wasn’t enough fish for everyone and it got kind of ugly. Luckily I am a vegetarian so they gave me an egg. 

After a spotted pink sunset, we began to lay out some pretty comfortable mattresses on the deck. There were pillows and blankets and it really wasn’t too bad. For the first first few hours of the night we were anchored near an island, but at 2 am the boat left to head to our next location. This is when sleeping on the deck became a bit more “rugged.” It was windy and cold. And rocky. 

It was kind of a rough night but by the time we arrived at our next island and I had some coffee, I was mostly human. I dove into the crystal water to swim to land where we would hike to a waterfall. 

After the waterfall, we swam a bit looking for fishies. 

Then we hopped back on board to sail for about 24 straight hours. We sunbathed on the deck, chatted and even danced a bit. It was relaxing and I did not mind the idea of 24 hours at sea. We could see the coast the whole time as we were gliding past the very long island of West Nusa Tenggara.

The scenery was slowly changing from tropical to drier. The island had large sloping mountains covered in green trees and even some volcanoes. We spotted dolphins a few times. 

By nightfall, the sea was getting a bit rough. The boat was swaying voraciously and it was hard to walk around. We were served a dinner of more food than the first night. Luckily there seemed to be more and more at each meal, unfortunately I was still eating more rice than I’d like and I was constipated the whole 4 days! 

We set up our mattresses on the deck again once the sky turned from yellow to orange to purple and the boat continued to sway. I took some dramamine to ease my stomach and knock me out for a what looked like a long night. 

Midway through the night we were all awoken as the boat pummeled through the waves. We were rocking back and forth and it seemed like the boat could flip at any moment. A backpack went flying and almost ended up overboard. We heard a large smash downstairs. Apparently our toilet broke. I heard on another boat that someone went through a wall. 

We all saw our lives flashing before our eyes and made plans in case we went down. Most people’s thoughts were “where are my electronics?” I did not have any of my valuables too close by. If we were to sink, I would just have to swim away without them... As I lay there, I realized that despite my love for water, I had never actually slept on a boat at sea. I’d slept on boats, but not moving ones. Maybe it was time to really think about the reality of my dream to sail around the world....

The boat creaked along, and we splashed into sunrise and eventually our next stop. 

The first stop of the day was to hike up a dusty hill and see amazing views. It was a challenging hike in the dry sun, but worth it. Then we all jumped in the water to refresh ourselves after a crazy night and rough hike. 

Our next stop was to swim with manta rays. 

Unfortunately nature was not on our side and we did not see any. This happens sometimes... We were all pretty bummed, but what can you do?

Then we sailed on and stopped at another beach to snorkel and chill.

That evening, we anchored near land and had a bit of a dance party. It was fun to bond with everyone, but after a while I felt really alone. I was one of the only people on the boat that wasn’t in a couple or group. It was fun to chat, but at the end of the day, they all had people and I was just... me. Alone, like usual. AND I didn’t have cell phone reception to at least pretend I wasn’t alone by posting something dumb on Snapchat. 

The next day was our last. We sailed into the port of Komodo Island so we could see Komodo Dragons! It was another hot, dry island. We hiked a bit, but the only dragons we saw were in the shade by the visitor’s center. It was a little fishy... but these guys did move around a bit. They were huge! It was a pretty magnificent encounter even though they were super lazy (hopefully not drugged.......?). I got the photos I wanted and made some Game of Thrones references, so it was successful enough. 

Then we sailed away as the trip wound down. 

We took one last dive and snorkel near our destination of Labuan Bajo, On the Island of Flores. 

The water was so shallow and clear. I saw some clown fish and a lion fish! It was beautiful and such a nice way to end a unique journey.

When we arrived at port, many of the group had planned to sleep on board the boat again then catch their flights the next morning. 

I had a shuttle the next day at 7am. I soon realized that the sim card I bought did not have any towers on this island AND the boat would be anchored a bit away from the shore so we would have to take a dingy to get to land. I immediately began to get claustrophobic. I needed off the boat!

I gathered my things and made it to land. With the help of an Indonesian man, I wandered around to different hotels on the verge of mental breakdown. I finally found a room. I paid too much but I really needed some space after a few days on a boat, before a few days of ferries and buses backwards. 

This was all a very abrupt way to end such a great trip, but it was wonderful while it lasted... and now I needed sleep. I ate an overpriced, but delicious meal at a Mediterranean restaurant. NO RICE. I had some watermelon juice. I was feeling better.

The next day I began my longgggggg trip westwards. There was a ferry for 7 hours, some wait time, a night bus, a night ferry, and then finally, about 24 hours later, I landed in Lombok where the trip had started. I had a little bit of juice left in me. I took a motorbike to the next harbor so I could take the 4 hour ferry to Bali. I booked a hostel right by the dock in Padang Bai and I collapsed onto a bed after 32 hours/ 6 days total of travel. 

I was back on Bali. My adventures around Indonesia would be ending soon. I’d seen incredible things. Mind blowing things! And now it was time to recover and drink watermelon juice until I turned into a watermelon..