When the Tourists Became the Tourist Attraction | Story Two
Backpacking Before Google Maps | Flores, Indonesia, 1991 | Story 2
After a few Bintangs in Bali, exploring somewhere a little further off the beaten track seemed like an excellent idea.
Our original plan was East Timor, but getting there was rather challenging at the time. Flores became the next best option. It had an airport and was still relatively close to Australia.
Erik and I were curious about our Indonesian heritage, and the three of us wanted to see more than the usual backpacker trail.
We had five weeks before we needed to be back at Denpasar airport to meet our girlfriends.
A rather grand title considering we’d only met them a few months earlier.
Plenty of time, we thought.
Besides, we’d survived the bus journey from Jakarta to Bali, so we were hardened Southeast Asian backpackers now.
An ageing Fokker and some useful Indonesian
Even the ageing Fokker F27 Friendship flight to Maumere didn’t worry us too much.
A friend back in Holland who was studying aircraft mechanics had warned me about what he considered the questionable maintenance standards of some aircraft operating in the region.
I decided not to dwell on that.
Instead, I used the flight productively, trying to memorise the Indonesian vocabulary at the back of my Lonely Planet guidebook.
The passenger sitting next to me was particularly helpful, teaching me some additional phrases that apparently hadn’t made the guidebook’s essential vocabulary list.
Among them was “You have pretty eyes.”
There were a few others along similar lines.
Naturally, I carefully added them to my Lonely Planet vocabulary.
You never knew when these things might come in handy.
Lawrence and the twenty-passenger people mover
In Maumere, a young bloke called Lawrence spotted three potential customers from a mile away and offered to show us around the surrounding villages.
After some negotiating, which we thought we’d handled rather well, we agreed on a price equivalent to a few beers back home.
He probably thought Christmas had come early.
We wised up quickly over the following days.
Our transport was a typical tiny people mover, designed for eight passengers in most countries but apparently capable of carrying twenty plus luggage in Indonesia.
What could possibly go wrong?
Maumere had already been an eye-opener, but the smaller villages were something else entirely.
We visited local communities and markets, including Bugis, where I remember houses built on stilts above the water.
It was a very different side of Indonesia from the one we’d experienced in Bali.
And while we’d come to see how people lived, we soon discovered that the curiosity worked both ways.
When the tourists became the attraction
In Ndete, about 30 kilometres from Maumere, the local market practically came to a standstill when we arrived.
Blending in wasn’t an option.
At 1.82 metres, I was fairly average by Dutch standards, and Ivo was taller still at 1.90 metres. But wandering through the villages of Flores we stood out like a couple of telegraph poles.
Compared with many of the locals, we looked like giants.
We didn’t mind a bit of attention, but we certainly weren’t prepared for this.
Everywhere we went, people followed, particularly the children.
It was as if the circus had rolled into town.
Only this time, we were the entertainment.
Looking at these photographs now, what strikes me is the curiosity on everyone’s faces.
We were fascinated by the villages, the markets and the people going about their daily lives.
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And they seemed just as fascinated by three unusually tall Dutch backpackers wandering through their neighbourhood.
My carefully rehearsed Indonesian wasn’t always much help either.
Different local languages, dreadful pronunciation, probably a combination of both.
Fortunately, the questions were nearly always the same.
Where are you from?
Where are you going?
Are you married?
After a few days, we’d mastered all three answers.
We were practically fluent, provided nobody asked a fourth question.
Erik gets a haircut
Then Erik decided he needed a haircut.
He had some flowing locks by this stage and hadn’t had one for ages.
The local street barber seemed as good an option as any.
Within minutes, a perfectly ordinary haircut had become the afternoon’s main event.
People gathered around, children pushed forward for a better view, and there sat Erik, surrounded by an audience that would have made a street performer jealous.
We were photographing the crowd while the crowd watched us.
I’m still not sure who found whom more entertaining.
Nearly 35 years later, travelling through Papua New Guinea with my son Ryan and our friend Cees on a dirt bike adventure with Niugini Dirt Tours, I experienced a remarkably similar welcome.
PNG was hard work but an extraordinary adventure.
And it reminded me of Flores.
There aren’t many places left in the world where you can arrive somewhere and find yourself attracting that level of curiosity simply by being there.
The surroundings were different, but the feeling of being a complete stranger, welcomed with curiosity and a few amused smiles, was remarkably familiar.
A phone call home
Back in Flores, I remember trying to phone my parents in Holland.
These days, you can send a message from almost anywhere and expect a reply within minutes.
In 1991, making an international telephone call required rather more commitment.
You had to visit a special office, book the call in advance and wait while someone connected you through an impressive switchboard full of plugs and cables.
Straight out of a black-and-white movie.
Eventually, I got through.
Dad asked whether we were safe.
Apparently, there had been reports of fighting somewhere nearby on the island in the Dutch newspapers.
Fighting?
What fighting?
We hadn’t heard a thing.
No mobile phones, no internet, and very little news reaching us.
Unless something happened right in front of you, chances were you knew absolutely nothing about it.
I assured Dad we were perfectly safe.
For now, anyway.
After all, we’d survived a toe-curling bus journey from Jakarta to Bali, an ageing Fokker aircraft with allegedly questionable maintenance, mountain roads more suitable for goats than vehicles, and people movers carrying more than twice the passengers and luggage they were ever designed for.
And all this in just our first week!
We were seasoned explorers now.
Ignorance really was bliss.
Continue the journey
Next: Story 3
[Story 3: Thank God for Vaccinations. Or So We Thought]
Missed the beginning?
[Story 1: 25 Hours, a Bottle of Whisky and a Bus Ride from Hell]
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Six Months That Turned Into a Lifetime
