Labuan Bajo

I FINALLY forced myself to leave the easy comfort of ex-pat life with R & K in Jakarta and head out on my own into another part of Indonesia. In the end, I decided to spend the second half of my Into time on the island of Flores, in the East Nusa Tenggara region of this enormous country. My first stop was the port town and tourist hub of Labuan Bajo.

I stayed in a really basic hostel that was a bit away from the main drag, so was quiet and had a beautiful dining balcony (a phrase that, okay, makes it sound way fancier than it is) with amazing sunset views.

Plus free breakfast included and just as lovely views in the early mornings of all the fishermen getting up and going with their days.

I stayed a couple of days, despite the crazy noise of so many motos on the main drag and the incessant call-outs from tour touts and taxi drivers, because the positive flip-side of it being a touristy town is that Labuan Bajo has some AMAZING cafes and restaurants where I was embarrassingly happy hopping from a green tea latte here to a veggie sushi roll there to a ginger-tumeric-lemon-honey juice (a local concoction called "jamu" that is my new favorite thing) at the next place to falafel salad at another.

Oh, my lord. And all while using the ubiquitous free wifi to catch up on weeks worth of emails and other computer tasks and chatting with friends in other places. Heaven.

And in the quieter gaps between motos rushing by and the umpteenth guy asking if you want to book a liveaboard SCUBA trip, the town really is lovely.

Still, there's a reason all the tourists come here and it's not the food or the town itself. So, more on that next post....