After finishing our three day trek on Mt Rinjani our legs were really heavy and our first day of cycling to the ferry to Sumbawa turned out to be a bit of a drag. We still managed to reach the harbour and within a few hours the ferry got us to the beautiful island of Sumbawa. Reaching in Poto Tano in the evening was a bit tricky as there is no acommodation to be found. We did not have enough time to get to the next town and we decided to camp for the first time in Asia. It was warm and humid at night but our camp was located right at the water front with a magnificent view.

The next days we spent cycling over the island and enjoying some really genuine encounters with the locals. With only few tourists visiting Sumbawa, people were very friendly, helpful and curious about the two weird "bule" (Indonesian word for Westerners) cycling. Many people greet us with "hello Mister" and the kids get very excited about us being there. We had a lot of photos take, spent some meals with locals and even joined a local volleyball game in which we ended up playing for money with most of the village watching (they were better than us but we did not give up without a fight and our team lost 2-1). The volcanic origin of the Indonesian islands makes them pretty hilly and the locals care very little about the steepness of their roads, making some climbs really challenging and in combination with the hot and humid climate we reached new levels of sweating. Nonetheless Sumbawa was a great place to visit, especially after the very touristy Bali and Lombok. In all the time on the island we only saw two other tourists on motorbikes. Once reaching the town of Sape at the Eastern end of the island we boarded a ferry to take us to Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores.

This ferry passed the famous Komodo National Park with its amazing underwater scenery and the Komodo dragons, the largest living lizards that can grow up to 3,5m in length. Once we got to Labuan Bajo we took a day off in order to relax a little bit and for Jonas to recover from a cold (ironic, isn't it? ). One day we spent on a boat trip to Komodo National Park that included the visit of a small island on which we could walk up a hill to get a great view over the area before getting to the island of Komodo to see the dragons. They are scary looking beasts but with two local guides with their long sticks to keep them at distance it was a really nice place to visit. We were there at around noon and all the dragons were lazy and resting but that allowed us to get close to them without any risk. After Komodo we had two more stops to go snorkeling before heading back to Labuan Bajo. The underwater life is just amazing there and Komodo is also known as one of the best dive destinations in the world and during our stop at Manta Point we saw one reason why. Being lucky and visiting during the mantas' mating season, we could see about 20 mantas just swimming under the boat and we could enjoy watching them just by floating above them. This day was an amazing experience and we can really recommend going there even if it is quite touristy.

Before leaving Labuan Bajo we spent one more day to get to a little cave close to town and after cycling to the closest village we had to get on a boat that dropped us off at the cave. We went together with a french couple we met on the ferry. Rangko Cave is a little cave you can swim in which captures the light beautifully in the afternoon. It was a great finish for our time in Labuan Bajo and next day we had to get back on our bikes to keep going further East.

All the best from Indonesia,

Keep cycling,

Vroni, Droni & Joni