I had long dreamed of going to Flores for reasons I can not quite explain. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that its name is derived from the Portugese word for flower, or that I had long ago read about the three-colorer lakes of Kelimetu. It could have even been its proximity to Komodo Island – hell, I do not have any clue what originally put Flores on my map, but it had a bright red pin hitting the dead centre of it.
Image taken from Lonely Planet
For a nation with the highest Islamic population in the world, Indonesia’s Flores Island feels like a separate world all together. Traveling through Flores was the first time I noticed what I had read so many times in guidebooks and on the internet: Indonesia truly is a country of many little countries put together.
Flores is a very Christian island, and throughout my travels there I could feel the Christianity in every which corner I was. It was a really interesting comparison to a place like the Gilis, where the five times daily call to prayer served as the schedule to my days on the island.
I would not necessarily say that Flores is completely off the beaten track (a popular travel term for places free of tourists), but to some degree it is. It is not a major tourist destination that is inundated with travelers making their through the way they are Lombok, Bali and Java, for instance, but you will find them sprinkled through the island.
Most who do travel to Flores usually end their journey exactly where they started – the port town of Labuan Bajo. Travelers use Flores as a spring board to visit Komodo Island and Rinca Island, and others use it as a base for exploring the waters of Komodo National Marine Park.
But there is so much more to Flores when you set out to explore it. From the people to the landscapes to the uninterrupted beauty that is not overridden with tourists, Flores is a beautiful island that is just waiting to be discovered.
[Getting here]
There are a handful of ways to make your way to Flores, some of which can be time consuming but cheap and others which can be fast but cost more.
There is the option to fly into Labuan Bajo, which has access to most major destinations in Indonesia and sees several flights coming in and going out each day. Alternatively, there is the option to fly into the town of Maumere as well as Ende, which are both further east into the island than Labuan Bajo.
This gives you the option to fly into one place and fly out of another if you are looking to travel across the island. Be sure to book your ticket with a reliable domestic airline. I flew with Wings Air from Ende back to Bali, and the plane looked brand spanking new. It was one of the nicest low-cost carrier airlines I have flown with.
Also, it gives you some pretty damn spectacular views.
Additionally, it possible to reach Flores by boat, like my backpacker Komodo Boat trip that left from Lombok, or by a more comfortable boat trip booked through well-known and trusted companies like Perama. The boat trips do not run all year round given the rough seas and currents at certain points in the year, so this is not always an option depending on the time you go.
Again, the trip rewards you with landscapes that you thought existed only in your dreams.
Lastly, the 36-hour land and sea journey from Bali via Lombok to Flores, which can easily be booked with an agent and seems tedious and difficult to organise each leg of the long journey on your own.
[Accommodation]
Flores can be either really cheap or really expensive, and much of that depends on whether you are traveling alone or with another person.
Aside from Labuan Bajo, which offers only one real hostel, hostel dorm beds are non existent. In Labuan, I stayed at a place called Cool Corner Hostel owned by the Jackie Chan of the area – not in strength but in exact features. He basically packed every traveler into the dorm rooms as he could – 60,000 Rp for an actual bed and 50,000 Rp for a mattress on the floor. It was well kept, clean and though tight it was still comfortable and cool in the evenings. And it was dirt cheap.
Yet you will not find that everywhere through Flores. Though I am traveling on my own, I met two sisters from Switzerland in my hostel whom I continued my travels onward with, and we met a Canadian girl on our bus, making us a tidy group of four.
Expect to find rooms from at least 100,000 Rp and up, which makes it incredible inexpensive when split between two people but rather costly when you are one person traveling through the island on your own.
There are not an array of choices in each of the towns, though it seems accommodation is on the rise with new place having just been built or currently in the process of being built in some towns across Flores.
Do not really expect glamor and luxury, and you can virtually rule out WiFi the further east you travel.
[Transport]
One of the reasons the tourism traffic in Flores is growing is because of the construction and repairs being made on the Trans-Flores highway, the island’s only and major highway that runs from one end to the other. The roads are not in the best shape, and travel between places can be slow, but it is relatively inexpensive.
We relied on the public buses, which start driving through towns from a little before 6 am. while men hang out the sides yelling the destination point. The buses are small, there is no air-con and most of the time the music makes you feel like you are sitting on the stereos of a club. They are always decorated with care and the outsides of the buses are like a festival of colors and images that make me wonder who decided to put the image of someone like Che Guevara on the side of a bus in a village in Flores.
The tickets can be anywhere from 120,000 to as little as 20,000 depending on the length and time of travel, but most starting travels out of Labuan will be a decent journey.
[What to do]
Flores is seeping with traditional villages and cultures, and its skyline is dominated by a volcanoes dotted across the island. Once I arrived on this island, I realized that there was so much more I wanted to do that I first had planned for, yet as you go super far east, the planning can be more difficult.
The most popular places to travel to in Flores are Labuan Bajo, Bajawa, Moni, Ruteng and Riung. Each place offers different attractions, with Labuan serving as the base for exploring the grounds and waters of Komodo National Park and also exploring the little activities entrenched in the nooks of this little port town.
Ruteng is the destination closest to Labuan, and it serves as the gateway for people to explore Liang Bua, which delves into archeology with the excavation of the “hobbits” of human beings discovered in the 50s and 60s. Ruteng also provides access to the village called Wae Rebo, which more and more tourists are learning about. Though I would have loved to go to Wae Rebo, it is still slightly difficult to get to and can be expensive; traveling here requires hiring some kind of car hire and usually a guide to lead you on the treacherous uphill trek to the village, where you can spend the night in the homes of the villagers
Bajawa is the place to go if you are looking to explore and spend time in traditional villages and hot springs as well as climbing the arduous Gunung Inerie
Yet the most popular volcano across all of Flores is Kelimetu, which is what leads many travelers to the small town of Moni, where they spend the night and wake up at 4 a.m. to catch the sunrise over Kelimetu.
I would have loved to continue my travels on to Alor, which is famous for offering even more and beautiful dive sites, making Flores a diver’s playground. Additionally, Alor is also sprinkled with traditional villages deep within its islands, and it all together seems like a place that is still largely unexplored.
[Overall]
I would definitely suggest that people traveling to Indonesia, especially those on longer backpacking trips, include Flores in their itinerary and allot a fair amount of time to it. Most places on the island require only one or two nights stay total, but this is one of the islands where you can get most in touch with nature and the people who make it as beautiful and colorful of a place it is.
I would say that some of my best memories of the trip are from Flores, and it was the first time all trip I felt like I was really getting in touch with the culture on a deeper level than doing things like lounging out and diving on the Gilis or trekking Mount Rinjani did.
Flores is also a jumping point to continue on to West Timor, Sumba or to go to Sumbawa, all three islands that are on my itinerary for my travels to Indonesia when I return, hopefully within the next year.
