RUTENG, FLORES, INDONESIA
After a couple of days it's become fairly obvious that Hayun, our "English-speaking driver and guide" 1) is a pretty good driver, but 2) doesn't speak a whole lot of English, and 3) really isn't much of a guide. Half the time when Chris asks him a question (I've pretty much stopped doing this altogether), he either misunderstands it, gives a frustratingly incomplete answer, or just sort of laughs and ignores it completely.
Which is really not that big a deal--he's at least getting us from point A to point B, and stopping at all the sights so we can take pictures.
But he's also proving to be a little shady about trying to make more money off us, which given the local economy isn't too surprising, but it still pisses me off! Last night, for example, he suddenly gave us the option of reaching our final destination of Labuan Bajo a day early. Which would have been fine with us, except we're paying him by the day, and had already paid him for four days. If we finished the trip in three days, would he give us back the money for the unused fourth day? Uh, no, evidently that's not what he had in mind!
So out of principle, we're sticking to our original itinerary and staying in Ruteng tonight, even though we apparently could have easily made it to Labuan Bajo today. Grrr....
Other than that, day three of our trans-Flores trek went pretty well, but talk about your twisting and turning mountain roads--I don't think there was one point today where the road ran straight for more than 20 meters! I'm kind of surprised I haven't gotten carsick. On the road, we passed a number of places where we could see evidence of recent landslides, including one place where Hayun told us eight people died three months ago when a big chunk of the mountain slid off and buried the road. Yikes.
At one village we passed, it was market day, so on a whim, Chris and I got out of the car, walked down to the market, and bought some oranges. It quickly became clear that rural Flores doesn't see too many western tourists, because everyone there was staring at us like we were from Mars or something. It was a little disconcerting, but I guess they were just curious.
Hayun then took us to a village known for producing arak (palm wine), where we got to see one man's crude backyard still. He lit some on fire to demonstrate its high alcohol content (yep, it burns just like gasoline!), then let us taste some--which we already had last night, of course. Speaking of gasoline.... Nah, it's really not that bad, although it is pretty potent, especially before 10am! I would have to say that it's really nothing like wine, though--more like whiskey or scotch.
Our one other stop of note was just outside Ruteng, at the traditional village of Ruteng Pu'u. In some ways it was similar to Bena, with huts arranged in a circle around a raised stone ring, although the thatched buildings here weren't quite as dramatic. We did get to walk inside one here, though, to look at its construction, and to see some buffalo-skin ceremonial drums. We were followed around the whole time by dozens of friendly village kids, who were all about getting their pictures taken. The one English phrase that all the kids in Flores know is "hallo mistah!" so we heard plenty of that! (I think I also heard a few "konichiwas," too, which was kind of funny.)
Travel Tip #6: Did you know that roosters don't only crow at dawn? That's right, they "cock-a-doodle-doo" at EVERY HOUR OF THE GODDAMMED DAY AND NIGHT!! And there are a LOT of roosters in Indonesia. Seriously, I am eating chicken from now on at every meal.
After a couple of days it's become fairly obvious that Hayun, our "English-speaking driver and guide" 1) is a pretty good driver, but 2) doesn't speak a whole lot of English, and 3) really isn't much of a guide. Half the time when Chris asks him a question (I've pretty much stopped doing this altogether), he either misunderstands it, gives a frustratingly incomplete answer, or just sort of laughs and ignores it completely.
Which is really not that big a deal--he's at least getting us from point A to point B, and stopping at all the sights so we can take pictures.
But he's also proving to be a little shady about trying to make more money off us, which given the local economy isn't too surprising, but it still pisses me off! Last night, for example, he suddenly gave us the option of reaching our final destination of Labuan Bajo a day early. Which would have been fine with us, except we're paying him by the day, and had already paid him for four days. If we finished the trip in three days, would he give us back the money for the unused fourth day? Uh, no, evidently that's not what he had in mind!
So out of principle, we're sticking to our original itinerary and staying in Ruteng tonight, even though we apparently could have easily made it to Labuan Bajo today. Grrr....
Other than that, day three of our trans-Flores trek went pretty well, but talk about your twisting and turning mountain roads--I don't think there was one point today where the road ran straight for more than 20 meters! I'm kind of surprised I haven't gotten carsick. On the road, we passed a number of places where we could see evidence of recent landslides, including one place where Hayun told us eight people died three months ago when a big chunk of the mountain slid off and buried the road. Yikes.
At one village we passed, it was market day, so on a whim, Chris and I got out of the car, walked down to the market, and bought some oranges. It quickly became clear that rural Flores doesn't see too many western tourists, because everyone there was staring at us like we were from Mars or something. It was a little disconcerting, but I guess they were just curious.
Hayun then took us to a village known for producing arak (palm wine), where we got to see one man's crude backyard still. He lit some on fire to demonstrate its high alcohol content (yep, it burns just like gasoline!), then let us taste some--which we already had last night, of course. Speaking of gasoline.... Nah, it's really not that bad, although it is pretty potent, especially before 10am! I would have to say that it's really nothing like wine, though--more like whiskey or scotch.
Our one other stop of note was just outside Ruteng, at the traditional village of Ruteng Pu'u. In some ways it was similar to Bena, with huts arranged in a circle around a raised stone ring, although the thatched buildings here weren't quite as dramatic. We did get to walk inside one here, though, to look at its construction, and to see some buffalo-skin ceremonial drums. We were followed around the whole time by dozens of friendly village kids, who were all about getting their pictures taken. The one English phrase that all the kids in Flores know is "hallo mistah!" so we heard plenty of that! (I think I also heard a few "konichiwas," too, which was kind of funny.)
Travel Tip #6: Did you know that roosters don't only crow at dawn? That's right, they "cock-a-doodle-doo" at EVERY HOUR OF THE GODDAMMED DAY AND NIGHT!! And there are a LOT of roosters in Indonesia. Seriously, I am eating chicken from now on at every meal.
posted by John Kuge at 10:27 PM
1 Comments:
So do the kids speak Japanese (i.e., konichiwa = good afternoon)or is there an overlap in the languages?
James LeBleu
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