It’s been over two months since we left Aussie, and also a long break between blogs. Finding a decent internet with any speed in Indo has been impossible so this comes from gay Paree. We have left the boat in Bali and hope it will be there (and intact) on our return.

We had a fun last day in Bali contributing to the local police retirement fund. Corruption is alive and well in Indonesia but one comes across it personally when hiring bikes. It goes like this. They pull you over for some minor, if not imagined offence and ask for and International driving licence. We couldn’t produce one, so they start writing a ticket and fine you 200 000 rupiah (about $NZ30) for no licence and another 200 000 for your offence, and you have to go to Denpassar, or, you can pay them now. We had been wised up by a mate prior that the going rate to ‘pay them off’ is about Rp50 000, about $NZ7.50. You open your wallet having already made sure that you only have Rp51,000 inside, and after much hurrumphing and saying sorry, off you go less your money and the cops split the money, three ways in our case. Oh well, the up side is we have had some fantastic meals in very flash restaurants in Bali, and paid about $25 for two mains, two entrees and two drinks.

We have seen and done so much it’s hard to put in one blog, so we’ll split it into three and put some photos in as well. One of the highlights of our journey so far would have to be seeing the Komodo dragons.











Giant monitor lizards that only live in a couple of islands in Indo. Very slow during the heat of the day but they can sprint at about 30km per hour over short distances. They have been known to attack wild buffalo and a couple of humans have met their demise from them so they should be treated with a fair bit of respect.











We saw a couple of small ones on the beach at this anchorage at the south of the island of Rinja, but saw the big fellas in the National Park on the north coast of the island. This anchorage also provided a great feed of big luscious oysters.

The diving and snorkelling here is fantastic with great coral and clarity of water. It’s like diving in an aquarium and with the vis at up to 50 feet plus you just slowly mooch around checking it all out.

Plus in a number of these great anchorages we have gone ashore at night, had a BBQ on the beach with a few other yachties in the rally, and watched the glorious sunsets that you get in Indonesia.

Indonesia has been very diverse. We have covered the whole spectrum, from dirty dusty cities such as Kupang where we started; traditional native villages that hardly ever see tourists; great anchorages with fantastic coral and snorkelling; through to Bali which is full-on tourism and very westernised. Although it has been great most of the time, you do realise that you are in a third-world country, with all the associated issues such as pollution, risk of disease (e.g. malaria), and lack of access to some things that we take for granted at home (clean water and good standards of hygiene).

Kupang was our entry point into Indonesia; it didn’t have anything else going for it really. The local transport in Indo is the ‘bemo’; small vans that you squish into the back of, with drivers – some who look barely old enough to be able to drive – and most with noisy stereos blaring out with the bass turned up to maximum volume. Shane thought he would sit in the front seat on one trip to get a view out the front window; fat chance when this is the view he got from the front seat!











Indonesia has been very diverse. We have covered the whole spectrum, from dirty dusty cities such as Kupang where we started; traditional native villages that hardly ever see tourists; great anchorages with fantastic coral and snorkelling; through to Bali which is full-on tourism and very westernised. Although it has been great most of the time, you do realise that you are in a third-world country, with all the associated issues such as pollution, risk of disease (e.g. malaria), and lack of access to some things that we take for granted at home (clean water and good standards of hygiene).

Kupang was our entry point into Indonesia; it didn’t have anything else going for it really. The local transport in Indo is the ‘bemo’; small vans that you squish into the back of, with drivers – some who look barely old enough to be able to drive – and most with noisy stereos blaring out with the bass turned up to maximum volume. Shane thought he would sit in the front seat on one trip to get a view out the front window; fat chance when this is the view he got from the front seat!


Keep going, there are two more updates below as we can only get five photos per blog;