Pulau Flores Things to Do

Labuan Bajo Fishing Village is develop from a wandering tribes of Bajau (Bajo) peoples who migrating from Sulawesi island to the islands around Indonesia and one of its was the Western region of Flores island, then this region popular with Labuan (means Harbor) Bajo and now become the spot of tourist atractants as the stop over to the attendants who would see Komodo Dragon at the island nearby

Labuan Bajo as the capital of West Manggarai District, located at the most western tip of Flores island is the entrance gateway to Flores island, Labuan Bajo is a Bay front small town where you could see a really stunning beauty of a Bay with many small islands, there were two pier at Labuan Bajo, one for a ferry to Sape Harbor at Sumbawa island and one for boats trip to small island nearby: Rinca, Komodo, Padar, Nusa Kode, Gili Motang, Bidadari and many others.
Puncak Waringin is a good site to watch the beauty of Labuan Bajo Bay, beside a hilly mountain at Golo Hilltops

As the flight ready in landed, the beautiful panorama of islands below were really fascinating, Komodo Airport is a small airport and only small and medium aircraft landed, located between mountain range and savanna, with limited facilities but it is an exiting gateway to Flores island where you could meet so many tourists whether from abroad or from domestic.
There is one cafeteria or coffee shop name KOMODO where peoples packed while waiting for the departure.
On the other hand, from Komodo airport there were many transportation which would deliver you to your next destination: Ojek motorcycle and sharing taxi or angkot offer a short distance to your hotel at Labuan Bajo , simple but everything is okey for small town Labuan Bajo

If you take a morning or an afternoon flight from Denpasar to Labuan Bajo vise verse, don't miss watching the beautiful panorama of:
Bali island on which you can see the peak of Gunung (mountain) Agung,
Lombok island on which you can watch three Gili islands and the peak of Gunung Rinjani with its crater,
Sumbawa island on which you can see the peak and crater of Gunung Tambora and
Western parts of Flores island where you can see mountain range of Pulau Komodo, Pulau Rinca and Labuan Bajo downtown,
take many pictures of the islands, the clusters of islands were really stunning beauty

2 more images

Bajawa is quite far from Labuan Bajo, it takes 11 hours by public bus to go there. So it's better to spend one night on the road in Ruteng. But in Bajawa you can easily spend 3 days. The first one - for Bena, and Wogo, and Langa villages, the second - for the Red Lake (Wawo Muda volcano) and the third - in Soa hot springs. The Bena village is the most impressive from all traditional villages I ever saw. The road to Wogo and Langa is better and they're more easy to reach but the Bena has a real fairytale feeling. Local old women chew betel, weave traditional ikat, dry corn, grow vanilla and cinnamon. They sell small bunches of spices to tourists but very lazy way. Usually they leave it on veranda and linger at home. When I bought a small pack of coffee powder and asked to make a cup of coffee for me, they invited me to home, and all local women gathered around. I still remeber their names - Emilia, Dominica, Anastacia. All of them are catholics but they mix the christian rites with animist rites very original way. Stone altars for offerings, buffaelo horns symbolizing wealth, small houses for ancestors and all stone terraces around look absolutely magic. I even left some coins in chapel to return there one more time.

2 more images

Labuan Bajo is a really small fishing town on the western shore of Flores island. Around 15000 people live there. The harbour in Labuan Bajo has two piers - one is for ferrires to Sape in Sumbawa and another one for local boats to small islands. Many people buy package tour in Bali and fly from Denpasar to Labuan Bajo just to take a boat trip to Komodo island. Actually you can easily organise the tour yourself - just go the harbour and bargain with captains. The day trip to Rinca and to some of inhabited islands for snorkelling costs around 250000-300000 rp per boat, and you can share this boat with 5-6 people. The day trip to small islands like Kanawa, Bidadari, Sabolo, Sebayur (all of them are less one hour drive from Labuan Bajo) costs 150000 rp per boat. Kanawa and Seraya islands have basic bungalows with no fresh water. If you don't need a big boat with a shadow tent, and you love to try it as local people do - you can rent a small fisherman boat just for 2 people for 50000-75000 rp. The coral life near Sabolo Besar and Sabolo Kecil is amazing, all corals are alive and there're plenty of tuna, barracuda, boxfish etc.

Kelimutu are the oldest and best known of all the touristdestinations of Flores. Allready in the era of the dutch colony it was visited. This volcano are easy to visit from the village of Moni, but go early, and watch the sunrise from the craterlakes. It is three craterlakes witch different colours. At the time of my visit they were black, coffebrown and turqoise. One period the lakes was blue, black and redish brown, some times ago they was olivegreen,turqoise and black. Changes in the mineralsolutions down there gives the colourchanges. The path take you to the point of inspiration, here you can lie on your belly right at the edge and look stright down to the watertables of two of the lakes, the socalled black lake lie a little by it self. Then follow the path around the twinlakes and go up to the high vantagepoint, the only point where you can see all three lakes at the same time. There is a local tale saying that the sole of thiefs and murderers go to the black lake (Tiwu Ata Polu), the soles of old people go to The turqoise lake (Tiwu Ata Mbupu) and the sole of young people to Tiwu Nua Muri- the green lake witch now has turned brown. When a young dutch tourist fell into the lakes, he choose right and fell into the green lake. Nothing was ever found of him, but the searchteam measured PH 0,5-the same of concentrated cloric acid, and a high concentration of poisonous gases in the air. So the device is: Enjoy the lakes, but with care!! From the top you have a nice wiew to a very lush landscape, allready a couple of hundred meters from the crater the forest begins.

Not far from Bajawa, a recent volcanic explosion resulted in a site with 5 tiny red coloured lakes.

Though not as huge as the lakes at Kelimutu, the red pools and their setting are charmingly beautiful. Every pool has it's own red.

There are 3 different ways to go there:

1. organised from Bajawa where local guides hang around the popular traveller's places (cost ca. $7with local transport);

2. with a local guide from the village, where the trail starts (forgot the name). You can take a motorbike taxi to the village; local men will approach you (cost ca. $2). That's what I did -I always feel bad if I bypass the local communities...coming with a guide from "big town".

3. Do it yourself all independently, but it's very difficult to find the Lakes. It's really in the middle of nowhere and it's not touristy yet.

after negotiating the price, write down the amount agreed upon, to avoid "misunderstandings"