Back in LBJ, the noisy, colourful, dusty and bustling town built on green hills and overlooking 20 or so islands of the Komodo Archipelago. My little spot of 2009 next to the police station has been taken and I've tied up to some jetty remnants in the old harbour. There is a long line of food stalls ashore and boats of all sizes noisily come and go. Kids are flying little kites and fishing from dugouts, sitting on the trampoline under the shadecloth gives me a prime seat to watch it all.
Hutch & I chilled out on the Gillies for a good week, swimming to shore with our dry bags containing books, sunnies and rupias and just lazed the days away. We also discovered that the resurfaced road north of Sengigi deserves a mention with the worlds great motorcycling roads, both on account of the spectacular views and its curvaceousness.
The actual trip to LBJ was a rerun of 2009 except that we sailed Teluk Saleh, the big inland sea of Sumbawa where we snorkelled on the memorably named isolated reef of Aart van Nes- who turned out to be a Dutch captain in the 1600's. There is little dutchness that remains in Indonesia otherwise, but I discovered that an ashtray is called 'asbak' here, and an exhaust is a 'knalpot'.
I seem to be suffering from some sort of writer's block. I think I'm a bit in love with Indonesia and my writing does no justice to Indonesia's beauty. It is a great privilege to have the time and money (little as is needed here) to waft along the islands, to suck in the sights and take a digital snapshot every now and then.
