The Windy 500 Goes Global Again !

The Komodo National Park. It’s a group of islands off the coast of Flores with flora and fauna of World scientific interest. Very few of the islands are inhabited by humans but there are a few small fishing villages including one on Komodo Island itself. Here the mainly Muslim population live a peaceful existence for most of the day. They are a devout bunch, having built three mosques in the village. And so it was at the end of the day we found ourselves moored up on our boat 100 metres off shore, admiring the sunset, recounting the experiences of the day, dragons and turtles mainly, and looking forward to food and drink. Elena’s birthday. Two years ago we were in Hanoi and picked our choice of restaurant very badly. I had vowed to do better this time around. Certainly the scenery had been better. Pointy, rugged hills and islands, white sandy beaches and turquoise water. Under the water when we made a few stops we were seeing coral and fish of many different colours and a grazin...

I emerged from Le Pirate restaurant on to the main drag in Labuan Bajo and immediately found myself surrounded. It was a gang of bikers. Horrible looking lot too they were. A few dodgy looking tattoos and dubious Sun tans. My pulse quickened...strangely though I envied them with their carefree lifestyle, their cameraderie and their ability to get around. How I longed to be like them. Fortunately, for the princely sum of £4 a day, I too could have a moped and could go where the rest of the Windy gang could go. The freedom of the highroad was mine ! No more taxis for me for today. The highroads of Labuan Bajo are a bit like the town, in a poor state of repair. In fact, large sections are just gravel and stones. The rules of the road are also a mystery. It’s sort of left hand driving but not always and junctions are just a free for all. Challenging for a bunch of novice bikers and not conducive to speed. With Lucas on the back of mine, wrapped up in long trousers and long sleeved sh...

Labuan Bajo in Flores, Indonesia is a scruffy little town. It has a large mosque and a ferry port, neither of which are conducive of a good nights sleep. I found this fact out on my last visit 15 months ago. Our accommodation that time was pretty squalid. It was in the centre, convenient for the shops and also convenient for the mosque and ferry port should I feel the need to pray or chase after a departing ferry at 5am as it sounded it’s horn as it left harbour. Our visit this time to Labuan Bajo is better prepared and researched. For an extra £10 a night it seems you can get a beach, 2 pools, air con, unstained sheets and breakfast better than stale toast and brown gritty liquid. I prefer this accommodation at Sylvia Resort a few miles out of town, even if it is less convenient for the mosque. And so it was that the group arrived, dropped kit and staggered down to the beach, like a bunch of Tom Hanks in reverse, soaking up the view, the water as warm as a bath and the approachi...

Medan. Not a true tourist destination in the normal sense of the word. We are certainly feeling ‘unusual’ here. The locals are desperate to speak to us or have photos taken with us. All very friendly, just curious it seems. On the subject of feeling unusual, several members of the group have been for massages and got more massage than they normally would expect. And no, I don’t have any photos that I can share with you. Seems the definition of ‘full body massage’ out here is more literal than back home, but I’ve heard no complaints so far. It was a sad moment leaving Bukit Lawang. The staff at the Hotel Orangutan had looked after us and entertained us with their ‘music’ and beer. The drive back towards Medan wasn’t quite as awful as the journey out as we didn’t have heavy rain or darkness to contend with. Just large logs in the road and bone jarring pot holes. Medan is a fairly sizeable city, the biggest in Sumatra. Lots of traffic, dreadful pavements, shopping malls and big swan...

Sometimes if you really want to visit somewhere, you need to accept a drop in the standard of accommodation. You may also need to put up with some less pleasant travel arrangements. And so it was to get here...hideously bumpy roads on a long minibus drive, cold showers, many steps to our location...but today’s experiences made it all worth the effort, big style. To get within a few metres of orangutans in their natural environment was awesome. Mind blowing. I felt deeply privelidged to be there, sharing this experience with the other 24 people in the group. Of course orangutans aren’t the only wildlife in the jungle. Thomas Leaf Monkeys (only found on Sumatra apparently) sat around in the rubber trees watching us as we watched them. Pig tailed macaques and the very common long tailed macaques, all within arms length of us. The trek wasn’t as arduous as many expected. It may have been a little slippery under foot but I don’t think we covered more than 3 or 4 miles in the day. Hard...

Our room is 113 big steps above the restaurant. I know as I counted them last night as I climbed them for the seventh time that day. It’s a nice room, the views of monkeys, trees and river are great, but boy do we pay for it in tired legs and sweat. On the subject of monkeys, I feel the need to share with you my wife’s comment last night that will stick with me for a while. “I’m not wearing that shirt of mine any more. It’s had monkey arse on it.”. She had left it on the balcony. The local residents had visited and plonked their arses on the clothes to watch Jo trying to shoo them away. To be honest, we are getting a little monkeyed out. The critters are everywhere. Whatever we are doing, walking, swimming, eating...they are there in the background waiting for an opportunity to steal something or just wipe their arses on something. Aron and Martin were burgled yesterday. Well, it was more of a walk in theft. They slept with their door open and the offenders got away with chocolat...