Labuan Bajo & bureaucracy

I enjoyed watching the audience watching the dancing

Labuan Bajo is a sizeable town on the extreme west end of Flores Island. It's the largest town we've visited since leaving Kupang and has, apparently, exploded tenfold in size in just the last three years primarily due to the great diving in the region which is bringing dive tourists in by the hundreds.

The town is filthy, the waters filled with plastic pollution and the streets hectic with thousands of motorcycles all adding to the bad air already suffering from the stench of raw sewerage and a myriad of other rather unpleasant odours. However, despite all this, it has a certain charm and the people, as always, are just so incredibly friendly and welcoming.

Again, we were treated to a Gala dinner with a host of traditional dances which was well done and professional. They'd travelled from right across Flores to perform for us which probably means that they sat in uncomfortable, rickety buses for many many hours, even overnight. At the previous small villages, the dancers were mostly children from the junior and secondary schools which we found absolutely endearing. Here the performances were all adults which were certainly extremely good but I have to admit, I just loved the children so much more. The meal was very good and the organisation of the entire event went very smoothly which is about the last thing that worked smoothly during our stay here.

The president of Indonesia is coming to visit Labuan Bajo and we've been invited to attend the dinner in a couple of days time. All signage (and there's plenty of that) indicates that this is all in honour of Sail Komodo (part of Sail Indonesia) but, in reality, we have been subjected to some rather unwelcoming activities. We were given notice at 6:30 yesterday evening that we had to vacate the anchorage by 7:00 this morning due to security reasons and to move a bit further south making it very difficult to get into the town. We were then boarded by customs officials which was short and inoffensive but we weren't allowed to leave our boats until they'd come and gone and we've just got the feeling that they'd rather we'd not be here at all.

By the time they all arrived, we couldn't see the horizon

The bay is filled with more than a dozen and a half military, customs, coast guard and medical ships and the town awash with military uniforms. Not too sure why so much fire power, but they must be rather paranoid about invading forces from who knows where. I thought that rather than people trying to invade Indonesia, it was a matter of so many trying to leave, but, I guess this is what happens whenever the country's president goes walkabout.

The town is being comparatively spruced up (well, at least they're trying but have a very long way to go) and millions are seemingly being spent on a waterfront venue for the visit. Sad, as we'd rather have seen more funds be directed at the dirt poor villages we've passed en route or the refugees from the volcanic eruption. There are some very very poor people living in this vastly overpopulated nation.

Another problem with all this military activity is that we can't get fuel. Usually boat boys come around to offer their services in filling jerry cans for us but this is, in fact, unlawful. Now they're afraid to come out so have disappeared and there is no means of getting fuel or water for those who need it. Fun and games. However, it does look very pretty at night with all the ships lit up with their lights and flags. Well, despite presidential invitations, we're off to see the dragons and won't be returning for said president's dinner.

Scenes around the market taken in a rush to get out into some fresher air.  Needless to say, we didn't buy a thing.