Boat Boys - Labuan Bajo, Flores Island, Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 5 Sep 2010 08:28
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08:31.060S 119:52.07E
After a quick motor from Gili Bodo, we set the
anchor down in front of the Labuan Bajo Eco Lodge, which is about two miles
south of the Labuan Bajo port. We were further from town, but closer to
the first 'real' bar and restaurant we'd seen since Darwin. It's
good we have our priorities straight.
It wasn't two minutes after the anchor went down
that the boat boys arrived. We were expecting them. We had been told
that anything we needed could be arranged by the boat boys - diesel, water,
water taxi service, anything. It didn't take long to negotiate a price for
200 liters of diesel (~$0.65/l, fairly cheap compared to most places) and
arrange for a trip to town on their boat to visit a much needed ATM and the
harbor master's office to check in (unfortunately, like Fiji, Indonesia is
one of those places where checking in and out of every major port is
required).
Boat boys command a wide variety of ramshackle,
long, narrow, hand built, heavy wooden boats that all have one thing in
common. They are powered by a one cylinder, air cooled diesel
engine of about 15 hp which must be hand-cranked to start. When it
does get going, it produces a deafening putt-putt noise that at full throttle
and from a distance can sometimes be mistaken for a helicopter. We now
affectionately refer to all these vessels as 'putt-putts'. They
are used as the main mode of transportation around the islands and it seems
almost every family owns one - differing only slightly in the length and width,
degree of disrepair and color of the plastic tarp strung overhead, if a plastic
tarp exists at all.
The four or five sets of boat boys in Labuan Bajo
all seemed to come from Komodo Village on Komodo Island 10-15 miles to the
west. Evan (Eve-ahn), the leader of our boat boy team of three, said
he was in town for ten days, hoping to make good money servicing all the
rally boats. As we were to find out later, it wasn't just diesel and water
and taxi rides the boat boys were peddling. Their main source of
income comes from selling hand carved wooden Komodo dragons (giant
lizards this area is famous for), necklaces of Komodo dragon teeth ("Don't
worry! Taken only from dead dragons!"), and pearl necklaces. When we
visited Komodo Village a few days later, we got the impression
that the entire village of 1,163 people depends on the boat boys income
from selling these things to tourists. Wow. No wonder most of the
boat boys seemed just this side of desperate. Not our Evan though, he didn't seem desperate. He exuded
confidence, spoke excellent English for someone who learned it only through
speaking to tourists, and probably squeezed the highest prices for his
wares out of people like us. Not bad for a 23 year-old with a
wife and 8 year old daughter at home. He would do very well in a sales job
in the US. At one point I asked him if he stayed with friends or family
when he was in Labuan Bajo. "No" he said with a perplexed look, "I stay on
my boat." Of course. Why didn't I think of that? The
putt-putts may not look like much, but they are used much like our boat
is. Under the putt-putt floor boards is food, cooking pans, some clothes
and maybe a sleeping bag. Most putt-putt owners have a small fire pit on
the stern deck for cooking. We used to think the orange lights we saw on
nearby putt-putts were night lights. Nope. Cooking
fires.
Evan and his team delivered our diesel in jerry
cans and helped Don load it into our tank. We filtered every bit of it and
found a fair amount of grit and some water. Not too bad,
considering. Afterwards we hopped on their putt-putt and rode to the town
wharf, both of us perched on the very tipsy deck. All went well at
the Harbor Master. The head man made a point of telling us there was no
port charge for Sail Banda participants. We weren't sure whether he was
hinting for some kind of payment, or whether he was just making the point that
the rally boats coming from Kupang did have to pay port charges. Either
way, we didn't pay and haven't paid any port charges in Indonesia. Highly
unusual for a country often criticized for its corrupt
officials. It will be interesting to see if things change as we head
west and north through Indonesia.
Not only was the Harbor Master visit a piece of
cake, but the ATM was functional. A first since arriving in
Indonesia over a month ago. Unfortunately, the withdrawal limit per
day is only 1.2 million rupiah. Sounds like a lot and we love being
millionaires on a daily basis, but 1.2 million is only about
$120. We made several trips to the ATM on consecutive days to gather up
enough cash to pay for diesel, the stuff we bought from Evan, and to carry
us through until we get to Bali.
The town of Labuan Bajo is a tourist place.
The first we've experienced since our arrival in Indonesia. Nearby Komodo
National Park is world renowned for its beauty and diving sites. Several
large live-aboard dive boats operate out of Bali and cruise the 250 miles
to Komodo and back. The rest of the dive boats that ply the Komodo waters
are based in Labuan Bajo and when in port, provide a gorgeous ambiance with
their uniquely peaked-bow Asian shape, square-rigged sails, polished teak cabins
and perfectly painted hulls. Along with the usual mish-mash of putt-putts,
cargo ships and yachts, the Labuan Bajo port is one of the prettiest we've
seen. The town itself, however, is not a place you'd want to linger.
The main road is a dusty, cracked concrete affair with a steady stream
of honking cars and motorbikes. None of the tiny restaurants look
inviting and the fruit and vegetable stalls are few and far between. We
searched and found some tomatoes, a cabbage, more tiny red oniony things, a
pineapple that doesn't seem to want to ripen and a bunch of bananas that turned
from green to black in one day. Somehow I think we'll find a way to
survive in the face of such hardship (although our canned fruit stash is getting
dangerously low, as is our chocolate supply). We also found 12-packs of
giant Bintang beer bottles, so Don is set for his one-beer-per-day until
Bali. As we walked around, no one in
the town was the least bit interested in us. Quite a shock (and maybe a
relief) after the grand reception we've received at all the other
non-tourist towns.
Picture 1 - Labuan Bajo port and a
couple of putt putt boats. The scary-looking putt-putt to
the left is the one we traveled to town and back on.
Picture 2 - Our boat boys seated on a
putt-putt. Evan is in the middle.
Picture 3 - This is Evan's putt-putt, which is
upscale as far as putt-putts go. He's probably got the biggest dragon of
all the putt-putt fleet (all the putt-putts from Komodo Village have Komodo
dragon mascots). After paying Evan the wad of rupiah we owed, he promised
to name his dragon 'Mr. Don' in our honor.
We stayed only two nights - long enough to stock up
and sample the 'real' bar and restaurant on shore near our anchorage. Both
were excellent. More on our Komodo National Park
stops later.
Anne
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