Wednesday October 23

                                                 

Tai Chi in the Park

I was up early in the morning to reach the Botanical Gardens by 6:30.  The Gardens open at 5:00 and I wanted to take pictures in the early morning light.  I thought I would be the only person around at that time.  I was met by hundreds of walkers and runners, hundreds of Tai Chi followers and hundreds of garden staff, hard at work.  The park is obviously the in-place for the early morning crowd.  Later Barb, Joan and I met and toured the Orchid Gardens together. 

    That night I had a special treat.  Caroline took me to a Yoga class at her regular place.  We did Ying Yoga, which is a slow Yoga where the positions are held for 5 min each.  The room was hot and crowded:  35°C, 25 girls and me.  The instructor seemed a bit worried when I told her I had bionic hips and when she realized how inflexible I was I got the special remedial exercise program.   However the Yoga felt good and I feel better.         

Crane Fountian

       

Tuesday October 22

      

Flower Greenhouse

Arial Walk in Cloud Forest Greenhouse

We visited the park near Caroline’s place today.  It was built in the 2000’s on reclaimed land.  The park has 2 enormous conservatories; 1 for plants (all sorts) and one for the Cloud Forest.  The entry into the Cloud Forest “Greenhouse” is most impressive as you come face to face with a 50 M waterfall. The waterfall plus the misting guns make for a damp eerie environment. 

Cloud Forest Waterfall

Monday October 21

Merpati DH-6 (Made in Canada)

                                                               

Today we returned to Singapore to stay with Caroline and Ali once again.   Our first flight was from the island of Flores to Bali.  We boarded on time and sat on the plane for 30 minutes.  Then we got off again and sat in the terminal for 20 min.  Then we boarded again and took off promptly.  There appear to have been some controlled burning going on too close to the runway and during our time in the terminal they doused some of the fires and cleared the crews and equipment from the runway.            We did have 4 hours to wait in Bali so no major problem.  The flight from Bali took off on time and we had daylight for 20 minutes, but we did not fly over any volcanoes. 

Sunday October 20

A very leisurely day by the pool side.                             
              

Joan and Barb in Infinity Pool

Saturday, October 19th

We were all anxious to leave and go back to Labuan Bajo to a nice hotel and better restaurants. Tim booked a car and driver to take us back. The driver spoke no English but understood ‘stop’, a word we used a lot as we wanted to take pictures along the way.  We appreciated that he went slowly and confidently around the same up/downhill hairpin turns.                                           

Drying and winnowing rice by the roadside

 We were delighted to be dropped off at ‘LaPrima’, a beachside hotel with a pool, and a spectacular view from our 6^th floor room.  Yahoo! A shower in hot water, pool warm as a bathtub, air conditioning, and linens on comfortable beds:  one extreme to the other!

Friday October 18

Boys at the Market

Tobacco vendor at Market

            We left at 8:30 AM to take a public 12 seat minibus to Ruteng, a small town described as charmless in the Lonely Planet guidebook but also as being set in lovely surroundings. The trip was 3 ½ hours long over several mountain  passes with many hairpin turns. The scenery was amazing but, of course, we could not stop for pictures. We had not been able to reach any hotels by phone to prebook but the bus company said no problem, the driver will bring us to hotels until we found a room. The bus stopped first at a hotel for us and we took a room as we did not want to make the other 9 passengers drive all over while we selected a hotel. BIG MISTAKE! The rooms were cheap but awful – no shower, no hot water, mouldy walls, no toilet paper. An old red blanket took the place of a top sheet.  We were dismayed by our choice of room but also by the lack of places to visit. We did take a motorcycle ride to a village that had a few traditional thatched houses. Barb really enjoyed being on a bike, as did Tim of course, but I was less enthused.

Joan with children

                                                                                                                     

 We decided that the next day, we would return to Labuan Bajo. Even though we were not happy with being in Ruteng, the people were as friendly as ever-so many hellos and smiles.  It warmed our teacher’s hearts that a few of them really wanted to try to converse

in English.

Thursday October 17

Komodo Dragon

            Our trip to Rinca hit a snag right at the start.  We were loaded into the boat and pushed off from shore only to find we could not lift the anchor.  The first mate jumped into the water and followed the line, upon which we were snagged, back to a boat still tied to the dock.  That boat backed up until we could untangle the anchor, and then off we went.  The trip to Rinca Island took two hours on very calm seas.  The boat travelled through several islands – large and small, but all very dry looking.  When we arrived at Komodo National Park, we were reminded of the guide book’s description -  furnace hot.   We were met at the dock by our guide and given the dire warnings about wandering off the path and staying together with our guide.  At one point we stopped so he could point out the 39 graves of the tourists who didn’t heed the warnings.

            There are about 2,400 Komodo Dragons on Rinca.  There were at least 10 hanging about the office area.  We were allowed to get as close as 5 metres with the ranger and his forked stick at the ready.  Without the ranger we would never have seen most of the dragons.  They lie perfectly still disguised as a log.  When he pointed out a baby up a tree, I couldn’t see it even when I was looking at it.  Until it moved it was perfectly camouflaged.  We went on a 4 km hike through the forest and fields.  Several times I thought our guide was pulling my leg when he pointed at dragons.  However, every time he was right. 

            We spent 3 hours on the island before our ranger escorted us back to the dock and off we went to Angel Island for snorkelling.  We docked at a beach in the middle of a deserted island and off I went through another amazing underwater garden.  Several times when I started back to the boat I was waylaid by another fantastic sight.  I was in the water for 1 ½ hours and my underwater camera was still working.

            At night, after a terrific sunset, I downloaded my photos to my computer.  313 photos in 1 day!