Tuesday, October 10, 2006



The story from Riung
This is my second months I’ve been in Bajawa – Flores Island. I have so many new experiences in the past month. I have meet a lot of new people, I have gone to so many new places; Luckily I’ve got a ‘job’ to accompany a special tourist – who is interested in investing in the area of tourism industry in Ngada Regency. So, we went to Riung, a Sea Garden tourism object in the north sea of Ngada Regency. It is a beautiful snorkeling location. The conditions of the coral reef are still well, since WWF is working in this area for a while. Some part of this area has a natural reserve status, and some other part is for tourism destination purposes. The ethnic backgrounds of the people who are living in the north coast are mix; some of them, their ancestor were from Sulawesi Island, some of them are originally from flores and mix. It is colorful community I think.
I have chance to go with them – a group from Ngada regency and the ‘special tourist’ – to the natural reserve in the west part of Riung. There is an island called ‘flying bat island’, just because in this island living thousands of bats. When we went to this small island, the tide was so low, so our ‘perahu ‘/boat could not swim close enough to the bats island; So, we decided to ‘walk’. It will be more comprehensive story if you can look these pictures through this link:
After visiting the nature reserve, we went to the east part of the group of island and we stopped at the Pulau Tiga-three groups of island. The white sandy beaches were waiting for us. We had lunch in Rutong Island, one of the islands in the group of three islands. We had a chance to buy some fish from fisherman who was around. So we had lunch with some rice that we brought plus we barbeque the fish that we bought from the fisherman. It was a yummy lunch with a beautiful view. Did I mention that I went snorkeling on the way to east part of the natural reserve and before lunch time too? Around Rutong Island, there are beautiful places for people going snorkeling. The local tourism department builds huts in one of the white sand beach; so that people can have a rest and going snorkeling in this area.
We went back to the Riung town (30 minutes boat ride) and I rode a motorcycle back to Bajawa. It took around two hours by motorbike from Bajawa- Riung. As the closing of this journey to Riung, I took some pictures of rice paddy field to show you that not all the land in Flores is dry and savannah. And as the last information to you about Riung; Riung had a second time to have an International Rally of Sailing from Darwin Australia to Bali. The route was from Darwin-Australia then Alor, and then Riung with the ending point is Bali. They had this event last July, a month before I arrived in Flores, too bad hey? But there will be next year; I will be here, will you?


Inerie and Ebulobo, one of folklore and more to explore
Small town of Bajawa with limited amenities but beautiful weather and scenery are giving me an inspiration to just sit and enjoying morning coffee everyday. Life in this small and ‘not too isolated compared to my experiences in other part of Indonesia in the past’ is like slow motion pictures. Everyday things go slow in my mind; but I think is the way it is here. Luckily, I have an independency – in the same time flexibility – in my work that I am doing here with Culture and Tourism Department in Ngada Regency. Last week, I have a wonderful time travel around Ngada regency and get to know the area better with some people from government and visitor from USA that might interested in doing investment in Ngada regency. From that journey, I’ve got a bigger picture about Ngada regency in general. Mountainous, and not all part of the area are dry; some places are greens and has a rice paddy field-means there are more water source in this area. Geographically, there are two main mountains in this regency, Inerie (it is not active anymore) and Ebulobo (active volcano). The legend said that these two mountains were a husband Ebulobo) and wife (Inerie). Their life as a couple had rough time, they were fighting often. One day, Inerie could not hold her angry so she took a serving spoon and hit it into Ebulobo’s face. Sad enough, the spoon hit his mouth and knocked down his front teeth. Till now, the shape of Ebulobo likes a face without a front tooth.
This folklore is one of the abundant folklores in Ngada Regency. There are many more folklore are not being written yet. One – so far my knowledge – missionaries wrote Soa folklore. Soa is one of the districts in Ngada Regency where the culture is very strong as also other part of Ngada regency and Flores in general.
Other story from Bajawa, we are back into the present time of life. I’ve got my bicycle after it was delay for a while. Delay; late and uncertain are some challenges living in quite remote area such as Bajawa. It is uncommon riding bicycle here in town. People mostly ride motorbike (or we can say it scooter, because mostly the engine capacity only 100-120, and maximal 160); a lot of ojek – motorbike taxi – in Bajawa town. I ride my bike everyday now, except if I need to go out of the town for work, I borrowed one of my work placement’s motorbikes. It is fun travel with motorbike around Flores Island. I wish that you can have these experiences as well. Who knows hey…..Come.come.come…

1 Comments:

At 9:15 AM , Blogger Enviro-preneur said...

Hi Murdawa. Your news makes me pulled back in 1986. So nice to visit Ngada Regency, Mbay ofcource as a new regency , hah?
God Bless U and Keep in touch!

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home