Bajawa to Ruteng, Flores - Indonesia...
In the morning we told Harun, our driver, that it would be fine to do it in 3-days as long as he returned the money we had given him for the fourth day. He said the four day trip would be fine. Basically he would have pocketed the extra $60 dollars for himself if we had agreed without asking for our money back. Our uncomfortable feelings about our driver increased dramatically.
We left at about 8:00 am for Ruteng. Hayun, our driver, stopped above a local market out in the boonies and let us walk down and explore it on our own. We were the only foreigners and were stared at the entire time. I just walked through the market not taking pictures so as not to be any more out of place than I already was. One local guy spoke some English and accompanied us part of the time. He was nice and I think he just wanted to practice his English. I finally got up the courage to buy some oranges and managed to communicate through using my fingers the quantity and negotiate the pricing. I bought three oranges for 30-cents.
We stopped at a Palm alcohol processing shop that makes it into Arak (Sope). I bought a 16-oz "water bottle" of Arak for about $2 USD. They said it was 60% alcohol. He demonstrated by lighting a sample of it on fire. The guy didn't want us to take pictures of him. In some sections of Flores there were more bottles of Arak for sale than of gasoline.
It was raining most of the way, but we still had some incredible views. They used local materials, like bamboo, for nearly everything, roofs, bridges, staging, water pipes, instruments and home construction. They use banana leaves for umbrellas and just discard them when finished. Everything they use from their environment, when returned, decomposes and becomes part of nature again.
A side note:
Most everything from the western civilation just pollutes, oil products like gasoline, oil, plastic, especially flimsy plastic bags, cars, refrigerators and washing machines. Indonesians, having come from a way of life where you just return things back to where they came from and they naturally decompose often no wonder they don't understand that if you throw a plastic bag out of a car or bus or from a boat, it's going to be there for a long time and may kill some animal that gets tangled in it. It will not go gently back into the nature. It was sad to see the beauty of the oceans in Indonesian spoiled by the odd plastic bottle, can or even a plastic trash bag of garbage.
We visited another traditional village a short distance from Bajawa. The best part of the visit was taking pictures of the children. I showed them some of the photos I took of them and they loved looking and laughing at them. They had not generally learned how to smile for pictures or pay attention to when I was trying to get them all looking in the same direction. I guess I'm no Stephen Spielberg! Some of the boys had learned some tough guys poses and that was pretty funny to see. TV has found it's way into every town and some of the villages as well. Satellites dishes are quite prevalent. How they afford it, I do not know.
<>
In the morning we told Harun, our driver, that it would be fine to do it in 3-days as long as he returned the money we had given him for the fourth day. He said the four day trip would be fine. Basically he would have pocketed the extra $60 dollars for himself if we had agreed without asking for our money back. Our uncomfortable feelings about our driver increased dramatically.
We left at about 8:00 am for Ruteng. Hayun, our driver, stopped above a local market out in the boonies and let us walk down and explore it on our own. We were the only foreigners and were stared at the entire time. I just walked through the market not taking pictures so as not to be any more out of place than I already was. One local guy spoke some English and accompanied us part of the time. He was nice and I think he just wanted to practice his English. I finally got up the courage to buy some oranges and managed to communicate through using my fingers the quantity and negotiate the pricing. I bought three oranges for 30-cents.
We stopped at a Palm alcohol processing shop that makes it into Arak (Sope). I bought a 16-oz "water bottle" of Arak for about $2 USD. They said it was 60% alcohol. He demonstrated by lighting a sample of it on fire. The guy didn't want us to take pictures of him. In some sections of Flores there were more bottles of Arak for sale than of gasoline.
It was raining most of the way, but we still had some incredible views. They used local materials, like bamboo, for nearly everything, roofs, bridges, staging, water pipes, instruments and home construction. They use banana leaves for umbrellas and just discard them when finished. Everything they use from their environment, when returned, decomposes and becomes part of nature again.
A side note:
Most everything from the western civilation just pollutes, oil products like gasoline, oil, plastic, especially flimsy plastic bags, cars, refrigerators and washing machines. Indonesians, having come from a way of life where you just return things back to where they came from and they naturally decompose often no wonder they don't understand that if you throw a plastic bag out of a car or bus or from a boat, it's going to be there for a long time and may kill some animal that gets tangled in it. It will not go gently back into the nature. It was sad to see the beauty of the oceans in Indonesian spoiled by the odd plastic bottle, can or even a plastic trash bag of garbage.
We visited another traditional village a short distance from Bajawa. The best part of the visit was taking pictures of the children. I showed them some of the photos I took of them and they loved looking and laughing at them. They had not generally learned how to smile for pictures or pay attention to when I was trying to get them all looking in the same direction. I guess I'm no Stephen Spielberg! Some of the boys had learned some tough guys poses and that was pretty funny to see. TV has found it's way into every town and some of the villages as well. Satellites dishes are quite prevalent. How they afford it, I do not know.
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posted by Chris at 10:00 PM
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