This particular 'sailing trip' was designed with the western backpacking tourist in mind. It was not that cheap an option in my opinion, considering it was only a 23 metre wooden boat, five metres across with seven cabins and three shared bathrooms for a crew of seven and 26 passengers, many of whom slept on deck, packed in like sardines.
Actually, there was half the number of people on the Turkish cruise which was also a larger vessel. To make things worse, the seven cabins were tiny with only just enough space for bunk beds and there were no portholes. Well, they were not really bunk beds but more like wooden shelves with foam mattresses that were only just big enough to fit onto.
You can imagine, with three of us in one cabin, one up top and two below, it was a daily battle of wits and strategy to see who could get the best place to sleep. The loser had to be prepared for some claustrophobic conditions: sleeping on the innermost bunk. There was so little space you could not even sit down under the bunk above you, and if you wanted to go outside you had to sort of roll yourself over the person fortunate enough to be sleeping next to you.
Even though the trips in Vietnam and Turkey were also aimed at the backpacker market, every cabin had its own bathroom. On this boat the public bathrooms were on the lower level. We were lucky the westerners didn't seem too keen on washing, so we had no problems finding a shower.
Of the 26 passengers on board we were the only Indonesians, the rest were twenty to thirty yearold tourists from Europe, America and Australia. We were referred to as the "Putri Indonesia" (Indonesian princesses) by the crew and of course, this made us the stars of the show. Not bad! We were treated to free superspicy sambal, local tuak (a kind of arak called Sofi) and the crew also doubled up as our personal portrait photographers when required.
Unfortunately, most of the passengers were couples, so they were not so easy to get close to. Apart from hanging out with the crew, we befriended a Swedish family military father, quiet mother, and three teenagers depressed by all of their parents' rules. The best looking guy on the boat was Dutch and looked like Brendan Fraser, but he was with his girlfriend. The second best looking guy was the oldest of the three Swedish kids but he was gay! One good thing though about being on a boat with only expatriates on board was we could relax in our bikinis all day. It certainly saved on clothes.
The sailing trip started out from Senggigi. However, because we had already been in East Lombok for four days, we joined up with the other passengers at the harbour at 2:00 p.m. The first destination was Perama Island (whose real name was actually Kondo Island there was quite a protest among the locals when their island was given a new name), where we planned to spend some time relaxing on the beach. After dinner, it was time for guitar music and sitting around the camp fire. We were all given a sheet of paper and told to sing along to a hymn and Mars Perama "Mifa sol la sol mi sol... we love Perama the place we devote. It felt like a university freshman ritual, except even worse. Then our guide announced, "It's our pleasure that for the first time in four months, we have Indonesian passengers in our boat. So, we'd love to hear them sing."
What? We were being forced to sing! Like kindergarten students we were sent in front of the class to perform "Potong Bebek Angsa." Then the crew finally joined in with "Ayam sailing... ayam sailing... Home again, across the sea."
After that we were made to do the PocoPoco dance. For the westerners this might have seemed cute, but for us it was just weird. Fortunately, they didn't ask us to sing any children's songs and hold hands. At nine o'clock that evening we finally got back to the boat and set off. At night all the lights onboard were turned off, so we hung out on deck for a while before heading back to our cabin to sleep. There was nothing else to do.
By 9:00 a.m. we had arrived at Satonda Island (to the north of Sumbawa) which had a beautiful salt water lagoon. While we were enjoying the water, another larger and much smarter boat arrived. We were surprised to find out they had only nine people on board compared to our 26. I bet they had to pay for everything in Euros!
We set off again five hours later, and a sense of our humiliation began to set in. At first it was fun just hanging out, sunbathing on deck, but after a while it got hot. The cabins were stuffy. If we sat to starboard, we were in the shade. We moved to the other side of the boat, went to the dining area, then the Captain's room, then back on deck. Everywhere we went, we bumped into the same people over and over, the boat was so tiny.
As soon as we arrived in Donggo to stop for an hour, I dove off the side of the boat, and, not surprisingly, the rest of the passengers soon followed. That night while we slept, the ship ran into a storm and started tilting violently from side to side. I slept as best I could, keeping a firm grip on a hold in the wall, terrified I would fall off the top bunk onto Yasmin who was sleeping below.
At 7:00 a.m. we finally made it to Loh Liang on Komodo Island. We trekked for a while, and then headed over to Pink Beach, (known locally as Pantai Merah). This was the highlight of the trip; a beautiful beach with sand that really was pink, one of only seven in the world. After that the boat set sail again, and we reached another high point in our total "humiliation": the rain forced us all into our cabins, and not knowing what else to do we decided to attempt a photo session, complete with a story board about a prostitute who had come down with a nasty cold. Seriously, this was getting ridiculous! Three hours later our journey was over. We had finally docked at Labuan Bajo.
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