Category: Uncategorized

I’m in Ruteng for the day, a sprawling town in the mountains of Flores that quite obviously does not get many solitary tourists wandering around. Ojecks (motorbike taxis) are few and far between, restaurant staff just sort of stare at you blankly when you try to order off the menu by aggressively pointing at things, […]

Back from Wae Rebo, a rather Neolithic feeling village perched in the mountainous jungles of central Flores. Getting here is a production. You must hire a driver from Labuan Bao for the seven hour trek up to Denge, the village where the Wae Rebo people send their children. The drive skirts cloud forests and immense […]

Since WordPress is proving utterly non-functional tonight, here’s an image dump from the past few days. I really like Labuan Bajo and am heading to the small village of Wae Rebo in the interior of the island tomorrow — I am guessing it’s going to be a good time. I really like Flores. Nice people, […]

This is what Komodo Dragons on Rinca usually look like: somnambulant. Almost drugged. Camp-dwelling bums who have forsaken their natural, beautiful heritage of hunting amidst wild nature. Well, they say they don’t feed them. Except for the occasional park ranger who has sat down at his desk without checking under it first. Since Komodo Dragons, for […]

I always meant to learn to scuba dive but the timing was never right. School in New England, freezing temperatures and swimming pools. Tulane University had cheap PADI courses, but I was caught up with school and never got around to it. I was too poor when I first got to Cambodia, and then the […]

I always get most excited about travel when I’m forced to fly via a smallish turboprop, the kind of airplane voted most likely to Fall Burning Out Of The Sky for the past 50-odd-years-running. They are wobbly, shake about when a particularly large person gets on, an offer little to nothing in the way of […]

When I first thought of going to Bali, I rejected it. The island, I was sure, was chock full of bloated Australian tourists nursing skin cancer and middle-aged women in the throes of Eat Pray Love sickness — there would be nothing for a cool, Anthony-Bourdainesque Traveller Capital T like myself there. The place would […]

I’m off to Bali and Flores this morning — a day or two in Bali attempting to collect some odds and ends, and then a flight to Labuan Bajo for a bit of — strange sounds so perverse, but that’s pretty much the overriding impulse here. Yes, there will be Komodo dragon spotting. There must […]