Steven Raucher's World Tour

2001-11-12 in Sumbawa, Indonesia
Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa in 3 days!

It happened so quickly, one day we were having a chat with Bruno (my new best mate in Bali, and our host), just talking about going to Flores seeing the three Kelimutu craters and talking about time frames. Doug was there too, we were all adding our thoughts when Bruno suddenly announces:�To hell with it, tomorrow we leave at 5 am and I take a holiday!� He also very kindly offered Doug the use of his R80 Basic for the trip as he was taking his R80GS. Suddenly we are a gang, and boy do we feel cool

�Rock and Roll� it is Bruno�s favourite expression, it means: do it now/go very fast/take no prisoners/jalan jalan (inodesian for go very fast!). Bruno is not a man who likes to travel slowly, a man, one might say, after my own heart. But herein lies the difference: Bruno really goes fast. We didn�t bother consulting maps or guidebooks, we simply thought that Bruno and Doug could get to Kelimutu in the heart of Flores and back to Bali in 4 days. Look at a map and you�ll see why he calls it �rock and roll�.

By 9 am the next day we were on a ferry to Lombok, by lunch time we were driving the twisty northern coastal road of Lombok, at three we had lunch and by 5:30 pm we were in Sapit on the east coast. It was here that Louise first pulled out the guide book and we realised that in reality there was no way of getting to Flores in the given amount of time as there was an 8 hour ferry between Sumbawa and Flores to consider and it only operates during daytime. After a quick chat we decided that we would all go to Sumbawa find a nice beach and have a rest day there before Bruno and Doug bugged out and left me and Louise to make the pilgrimage to the volcano and see a bit of Flores on the way.

And that is how it turned out, we spent a lovely day in Sumbawa watching the rain fall and playing chess and backgammon, stranded on a deserted beach watching an awesome sunset and eating nasi goreng for breakfast lunch and supper. The beach which we had chosen is accessible only via a very nasty 7km track which with the state of my tyres had my adrenaline pumping and there was no way I was going to ride it in the rain.

The next day the weather cleared and the whole crew, Bruno & companion, Doug, Louise and myself went back to the port in Sumbawa to say our good byes to each other as Louise and I would continue going east. Our good byes all said Louise and I drove across Sumbawa to Sape, a small port town in the east of the island where one can catch the ferry to Flores. We were told there is no ferry on a Friday but luckily there was an unplanned ferry leaving at 5 pm that very afternoon, so we bought tickets and some take away nasi goreng (for a change) and boarded the ferry. And waved good bye to Sumbawa.

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left to right, Doug, Yani, Bruno and me

on the ferry from Bali to Lombok, pondering my fate, or something like that

the beautiful sunset as seen from Jelenga Beach, Sumbawa

the view of Gunung Rinjani in Lombok seen from Jelenga Beach

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