Finally! The journey to Flores was middlin' hellish, you'll be pleased to know. Got off to a grand start when I realised, a bit too late, that I'd left my mobile phone on Gili Trawangan - and couldn't leave the tour to collect it without having to pay half again for the trip and wait 3 days for the next trip to go. So got the guide to call a friend of his on the island to tell the hotel (no phone) that I'd collect it. They seemed pretty honest in the hotel - the proof will be on my next phone bill, I guess.
Kicked off with public ferry across to Bengal port. Not the usual ferry you might picture: I was wedged between goats and chickens, and you have to wade through the shallows at both ends of the journey. The bus (bemo) was an hour late, so - having no money and no cigarettes - I sat at a cafe getting hassled by the local boys in less than the best of moods. At least they gave me a couple of fags, even if they did assume that meant I'd pay them back with sexual favours. Finally,the usual long bemo trip with knees crammed around ears, blazing hot despite the minivan sidedoors being open. Took about an hour longer than it should - one group was delayed because someone's wallet had been stolen which meant they spent a long time discussing what to do while we waited. Crossed the island with occasional stops to pick up provisions for the boat - everyone bought their own beer (I was a bit worried to note that everyone else just bought 2 bottles to last 4 nights, after I'd bought 8.); we picked up two chickens at a chicken market - rather horrible to look out and see them slaughtering the chickens before your eyes, drawing a long knife across stretched neck. Ours were still alive and just chucked in a sack - as I found out later when I stepped on a bag and it started squawking and moving away. Rather disconcerting. And a million or so pineapples at a market which is the biggest pineapple centre in indonesia apparently - you can buy 10 peeled and ready-to-eat pineapples for 10p. By the end of the trip, we were all pretty sick of pineapples. Finally got to the harbour and waited another hour as our guide discovered that some of the ordered beer wasn't present and went to get more.
The boat was pretty small and ramshackle - about 40-50 feet long, with deckspace of about 20x10 for 12 of us to sleep - and eat, and wash, and live - for the next 5 days. The people seemed pretty nice - mixture of British, Australian, German and Danish; mostly travellers in their 20s, one middle aged Austrian couple on a regular holiday, and one odd couple - a 20-something girl and a 50-something woman; both schoolteachers travelling together; I think they were lovers but didn't ask, being the soul of discretion.
The first night was pretty bad. Anchored off Sumbawa, near the beautifully named village of Alas. The crew were working noisily on the generator till midnight or so - finally got it working so we had light, which was nice. Started travelling at 3: noisy engine, biggish waves; quite a lot of spray coming over the side at me - I just covered my face with my sheet so the water wouldn't wake me, and half slept for part of the night. The next night was worse. Massive rough seas, boat pitching all over the place; waves breaking right over us. After the third major soaking, they slowed the boat so we only got the basic spray of the previous night. Maybe it was the fact that the 'lifeboat' (a dugout canoe that you could sit 4 people in if they kept very still and the sea was as flat as a pond) broke in half and washed away that prompted the safety move. So sat there in the cold dark (generator bust again), soaked to the bone, pitching all over, freezing, people vomiting from seasickness all around, two danish girls just sitting there laughing their heads off (they said it was laugh or cry time, so they went for laugh) - just waiting for dawn. When it came, I demanded coffee - they'd only served tea that tasted of washing up liquid so far, and this was a coffee moment. It arrived. It tasted of washing up liquid.
Still, that was the lowest point of the trip. We did lots of snorkelling around various deserted islands - excellent coral and fish; far better than around the tourist points. (Okay, so the masks were dodgy, and they only had 6 between us - but it was good). We bathed in a freshwater river on one island on the second morning - that was the last chance to be clean for the trip, unless you washed yourself with your drinking water. Ruined my cleanliness by going snorkelling immediately after, and spent the next 4 days covered in salt. I was the only one to go into one of the national parks - the island was basically a big forested crater rim around a black briny lake, about half a mile across. Incredibly peaceful: not a sinner in sight.
And, of course, went to Komodo. The islands were getting more and more barren as we headed east: Komodo is steep hills of brown scrubby grass and intermittent palm trees. Saw our first dragon almost immediately - lying by one of the offices. They're big, yeah; 8 foot or so it looked - but very inert The guide prodded it with a stick to try and get it to stir for a photo-opportunity; flicked its tail, thwacked it. It didn't budge - though it did look marginally more disgruntled. Trooped off around the island and had a spot of luck - they quit feeding the dragons a year ago (the dragons were getting lazy), but someone had strung up a dragon-killed deer the previous day, and when we went, two dragons were feeding on it. One was a baby - a lively little item of about 18 inches, who scuttled around making people jump. The other was a female, who was having trouble with the food - about 3 feet of bone remained, and she seemed to be trying to break it off for digestion by sticking the whole bone straight down her gullet. She shuffled back and forwards, and seemed to be hanging from the bone and twisting as if on the gallows, but no luck in breaking it, and eventually - with much coughing, rasping noises - regurgitated it.
The last night was good. Stopped off on Flores to pick up ice (non-warm beer was a novelty at this point) and fish, then over to an 'uninhabited' island (so our guide, Hendry, had claimed. From the looks of the beachhuts lining the shore, and the various tourists lying in their hammocks watching us disembark, I think he might have been wrong). Built a massive bonfire for barbecueing the fish. This is not the posh style of bbq: none of yer fancy marinades or sidedishes here: just balance 4 skewers across the fire, and whack 4 giant fish on top (barracuda, snapper, tuna). Delicious. Even if you don't like fish, like me. Drank cold beer, listened to music, danced on the sand; drank arak - palm spirits - mixed with the local version of red bull; talked with the people from the other boats and swapped horror stories (one group had been stuck with 6 french people who spent the entire trip complaining - about the food, the wet, the cold, the facilities, the fact that they were on a boat...)(okay, yes it was uncomfortable, but was never meant to be a luxury trip, and having to listen to someone moan incessantly makes it all much worse).
Finally, Labuhan Bhajo on Flores. Corrugated iron fishing village type of place. Spent the morning running around trying to find a way out since I finally had communication facilities and discovered that I was now due to meet Dani in Bangkok in 4 days. Since it'd taken me 4 days to get there from Lombok, time was feeling short - especially since everything always runs late, except the thing you're trying to catch. Finally decided there was very little chance of making it back via Lombok and Gili to get my phone, and went for a direct flight to Denpasar on Bali from which it should be possible to connect on to Bangkok (impossible to organise over the phone. I tried 5 different numbers for the relevant airways and airports, and got nothing but funny dial tones. Even getting natives to help didn't work.).
Finally, all was sorted, and I found a hotel for a delicious shower - even though the water was a trickle, and you have to ask the manager to turn on the water any time you want a shower (to which he always responds with a 'Why?'. To which you reply that you want a shower, and he acts as if he's never heard of such demands, and stomps off in a Basil Fawltyish manner to do it). Hotel was basic; rickety, but all the essentials hadn't yet finished falling apart. A local cafe did a heavenly fruit salad with something I'd never tried before; squidgy and spongy, like wet cotton wool; but with a taste that seemed to layer various fruits on top of each other - a bit of orange, melon, apple, lemon, passionfruit and several others. Turned out to be a local form of custard apple - sirsop - totally unlike the one I'd bought in Walthamstow market, which had a texture like set custard and slightly vanilla flavour. Discovered that the bloke in the room next to me was the same guy from Waterford in the room next to me on Gili Trawangan. Bloody typical. Dinner with the people from the boat and him; and the luxury of a 10 o'clock night in a stable dry bed.
And today, just flew back to Bali. Got my flight to Bangkok - not without considerable pain: no-one working at the airport seemed to know where the relevant airline offices were, or even if they existed, so I chased one false lead after another all around the airport. It's a pretty place, as airports go - all rough red tiles and white main; all corners and walls decorated with elaborate carvings - but I got pretty sick of it after a while. Went to the tour group who'd organised the trip to Gili, and explained my phone problems. Like a whole host of angels, they rang their branch on the Gilis and said they'd try to have it brought back to me tomorrow with the next tour; I might be able to just-about get it before heading to Thailand, assuming everything's on time. How wonderful it is when people behave in a competent manner! - all the people I was asking for assistance, from the boat guide Hendry to tourist information offices in Flores, were pretty clueless (though, of course, it was nice of them to try). Anyway, I can get Perama - the helpful ones - to send it on poste restante to Bangkok, so should have it in a couple of weeks anyway. But no point in texting me meanwhile.