This weekly wrap-up covers our journey from December 29, 2019, to January 4, 2020. We left Ubud, Bali, on Tuesday (New Year’s Eve) to fly to Labuan Bajo, a town on the island of Flores that is a popular jumping-off point for visiting Komodo National Park. We joined an overnight boat tour through Komodo NP and flew to Yogyakarta (on the island of Java) on Saturday.
Favorite thing we ate: While in Ubud, we took a cooking class at a local home (our first Airbnb experience!). We made nine dishes, and Jonathan’s favorite was the gado gado: vegetable salad with peanut sauce dressing [pictured top left in above left photo]. While in Labuan Bajo, we had dinner at Happy Banana Komodo and ate the most delicious poke bowl [above right], which was Megan’s favorite meal of the week.
Favorite thing we drank: We treated ourselves to drinks on New Year’s Eve at Le Pirate in Labuan Bajo. Megan had a champagne cocktail from the holiday menu, and Jonathan enjoyed an ice-cold Bintang Radler.
Favorite thing we did: Our 2-day/1-night boat tour through Komodo National Park was pretty awesome! Seeing the Komodo dragons was neat, but we also did some beautiful hikes, snorkeled with manta rays (and a sea turtle!), visited a pink beach and met some great friends. [Our boat, which fit 21 passengers plus crew, pictured above.]
Biggest splurge: Komodo National Park has pretty steep entrance fees; we paid 600,000 IDR (~$43 USD) each for two days’ admission. (But we saw Komodo dragons! See above for one friendly critter.)
Best deal: On the other hand, our boat tour was a pretty good deal. It cost 900,000 IDR per person, which included all meals (B/L/S/D on day 1 and B/L on day 2); unlimited water, coffee and tea; the required ranger on Rinca Island (to see the Komodo dragons); snorkeling gear; and one night on the boat. All that for less than $130 USD (for two people!) seemed like a pretty good deal to us, especially because we saw day trips advertised for $100+ per person.
Biggest oops: This week was Jonathan’s turn to get sunburned. Whoops. We were pretty militant about applying sunscreen on the boat tour, but Jonathan took a nap under the tarp on the deck one afternoon and the sun snuck in and burned just one side of his body.
What we’re reading: Jonathan started listening to Redemption by David Baldacci and started reading The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren. Megan read two quick books to finish off the reading year (The Night in Question by Nic Joseph and Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga) and started her 2020 reading with How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell.
Total walking distance: 29.72 miles
Up next: We were planning to visit Bandung after Yogyakarta, but given all the rain we’ve been receiving on Java, we decided to head to Malaysia instead. (Also, since we’ve been in Kuala Lumpur, we’ve seen flood warnings for multiple parts of Indonesia, and Komodo National Park even canceled activities due to weather. Looks like we visited—and left—at just the right time!)
Featured image: Views of pink sand, white sand and black sand beaches on Padar Island in Komodo National Park
