We left Sanur at 7am the following morning to begin what would be my longest journey to date. A 34 hour trip that involved three boats, three buses, lots of haggling, little sleep and some interesting conversations to lighten our mood along the way.

The first few steps of our journey went smoothly, with prices as we expected, getting a boat from Pandangbai to Lembar and a bus from here to the bus station in Mataram. This was the moment our journey became more challenging. We knew we should be paying 150k Indonesian Rupiah (idr) for the combination bus/ferry to Bima, but could not find anyone selling a ticket for this price. All we came across were stubborn salesmen, unwilling to budge an inch on price, finding no other option we had to accept the 225k idr ticket. Things didn’t get much better on board the bus when the driver decided he was going to change our seat numbers to the back row despite our protestations.

It was here we meet Osim, an Indonesian man who had become aware of the situation, and began to apologise to us. We were quick to thank him but point out it was not his fault, and soon we were chatting away. He was asking about ourselves and our life on England, in return we learnt about his life as an administrator in a secondary school, a job which he loved, and were surprised to hear he had to pay 240k idr a year for a job report. We were only able to speak to him for a short time as our not so cheerful bus conductor came along to move him back to his seat.

The ferry to Sumbawa was mostly uneventful, we rode through heavy rain halfway across, though this was only an issue for the people sat in the outside area. The boat coasted towards Sumbawa as the sun was setting, the orange sky only making the smaller scattered islands that much more beautiful.

Sunset at Sumbawa

Back on the bus we spent the rest of the night trying to wedge ourselves into position, though even four people squashed into three seats could do nothing to prevent us being thrown back and forth as the driver speed along winding roads.

At 3am with around 30 minutes sleep we pulled into Bima bus station and began our battle for bus tickets to Sape, the port for our final boat. The guys in the bus station were trying to charge us 30k idr when we had read this should be 10k idr, even allowing for two years inflation since the latter price was printed, triple the price seemed absurd. We came to a stalemate, neither party wanting to budge on price, until they just walked away leaving us feeling frustrated and unsure of our next move.

Falling to think of any better ideas, I eventually decided the best thing to do in that moment was to just sit on the ground. At this sight, a young guy in charge of the toilets called us over to sit on a bench. We spent the next hour chatting away to an ever increasing group of young Indonesian guys, all at the bus station for one job or another (or the football game playing on TV). Though not all had great English, some barely any at all, we were able to communicate enough. Both Laura and I ended up with a bracelet made by a guy named Heros.

The final bus on our journey taking us to Sape (which we ended up having to pay 30k idr for) took us through some amazing landscape. Though the lack of sleep was finally getting the better off me, when I did manage to keep my eyes open I was greeted with views of rice paddies, lucious green fields, and far stretching landscape on my left to the sea in the distance below.

We had to wait three hours for the boat to Labuan Bajo to set off, leaving one hour later than scheduled. This journey was then another five hours at sea. We were finally able to get some sleep, finding comfort in a wooden bench I never before thought was possible.

During my time awake an Indonesian in his early twenties came to talk to me, and before I knew what was going on he was inviting me to lunch and to meet his mother, and for Laura and I to have free meals in her restaurant! On his journey downstairs to get himself some noodles, he even came back with a bag of rambutans (a pinkish spikey skinned fruit) for us.

By the time we had docked on land, found ourselves some accommodation and collapsed on our beds, a good 34 eventful hours had passed since our journey began.