A Trip Through Time: Labuan Bajo May 2022

Moyahoo~

I've been postponing this post for months already, every week swearing that I would write this on weekend yet I did not, again and again. So here I am today! On a Sunday night finally gathering enough will to write something. If I did not, this would be like my trip in London.. which you haven't seen at all here, right? Hahaha.

(Note: Writing this again in January 31... yep, I've postponed this post for FIVE MONTHS I'm sorry)

(Pandemic came and just when I thought I'd have an abundance of time, came TWICE with their 5-year worth of videos for me to keep up 😄)

SO in early 2022, somehow Novi and I had an idea of going to Labuan Bajo. It seemed so wacana-ish the first time. I haven't gone with a friend just traveling on our own expense so it just didn't seem very real tbh. Then Novi posted the idea to her close friends hoping for someone else to want to join the club, and we have Lilian in!

Lilian joining our group trip is really a boost in the probability of actually making this trip happens (sorry, Nov ahaha). I don't know if it's us feeling wary because we are now having an ACTUAL PERSON that actually wanted to go or if Lilian is a certified adventurous traveler, but I felt that at that moment, we really needed to go.

Around April, Garuda Travel Fair was held. What makes traveling or other things become just a plan is, I deduce, the feeling of no deadline, that there is no timeline to follow. GATF added that sense of urgency to our plan and we quickly decided on a date.

A finality to the plan

There was no going back after. The tickets were booked, then we finally booked a tour for living on board in Labuan Bajo.

Oh! In the middle of finding time for our LBJ trip, Lilian said that she would extend her trip because she wanted to dive. My FOMO ass of course can't miss this! If you see our group, it was originally 27-29 of May. May 26 was the Ascension Day of Christ, so it was quite the long weekend. Apparently, that was not enough to spare time for diving, so we decided that we would stay in Bajo from May 22!

Calendar for reference as my personal calendar was packed with personal affairs haha

Spending a week in Bajo, what did we do???

Seeing the airport again
Somehow seeing the airport wasn't really the highlight of my trip as I've done 2 Bali trips before this during the pandemic. However, it was fun still since it's been ages since I last did a flight trip with friends. Mendra and I arrived first and we did lots of talks before finally meeting Lilian.

Buying books in airport is also actually my thing. With Mendra's advice, I finally bought this book:

I've actually put my eye on the book since university days. I like factual books like this and actually what intrigued me was when Mendra said, "Buku ini dipake di kuliah gue, susah loh bukunya." Feeling challenged, I checked out right away. HAHAHAH. Please pray for me so that this book did not only stay on the shelves or under my TO READ LIST, but that I will actually read this one day. AMEN. Also, I'm so so so so done with self-help book ffs.

And this is us preparing to fly!

I really really wanted to share with you my picture flying in a Garuda again or pictures of Labuan Bajo from the heights, but I really don't have it because in an incident I would tell you later, I actually lost my phone data from May 22 to 26! T_T Bottomline is and I will say this again: PLEASE BACK UP YOUR PHONE REGULARLY BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT SAVED ME.

We flew, and landed in LBJ that was scorching hot with no AC detected at that airport (but like, yeah we had to save the energy!). There was really no online hailing provider in Labuan Bajo so we had to stick with the traditional taxis. Surprisingly but not, all cars here use Innova. Pretty understandable tbh as Labuan Bajo is surprisingly so hilly even though it was in proximity to the beach. Probably they cut the cliff or something to build ports; however, bigger CC is definitely needed for cars.

We went straight to the hotel to put our bags. Our hotel is a budget 1 star hotel called Green Hill. I had the picture since I sent it to my mom:

Or I did not. I forgot where I sent it but it was literally nowhere lol. The hotel was soooo nice. I was opposed to it at first because the bathroom was only covered with a curtain and it had no roof. No lock wasn't my top concern. It was the non-existence of bathroom roof.... My anxiety went through the roof because lol idk what would happen with the smell etc. As a 1-star hotel, they didn't give us amenities but we were provided with clean towels every day. Everything was clean and honestly their bed, bed sheets, and pillow sheets were so so clean and comfortable. Location? Damn it was super strategic. It was located in the Soekarno-Hatta main road and was only about short 5-minute walk to the port. Superb spending!

After checking in and storing our bags, we went to iDive center. There we measured our diving toolkits for the next day's diving. Funnnnn 🥺 The road there was so hilly by the way, it felt like hiking and I was so weakkkk for not doing any physical activities for the longest time. I want to put the hilly road pictures here but some of my pics are gone :)

Diving in Labuan Bajo
Okay! This one deserves a whole chapter of its own.

I am always an adventurous person, but I'm just too lazy to do things on my own. They say Ox people born at night means I'm an api tungku type you know, I need someone to blaze my fire 🤣 So, once Lilian said she wanted to go diving, I was so ready to follow! And another thing about me is sometimes, for things that I don't know that have little consequences for others, I tend to be over underestimating! So sorry Lilian, but I thought Lilian is at the same fitness level as me so when I see you diving often, I thought it was easy :')

We took a newbie class with iDive. Before diving, Mendra and I were also shared online learning materials. I was super confident with my learning ability from theory, so I didn't think of it as anything else. I was super chill embracing the day after, where I would embark on my first ever trip into the sea.

On board, we were given other basic information about the diving equipment and know-hows. To be honest, there was some conversation gap between us and the diving instructor. Idk, maybe it's how my instructor talked? The accent? So I felt a bit anxious because some points were unclear to me ksksks.

So my first diving experience was.. so so. The instructor did say we would dive until 3m of depth, but I was truly underestimating how deep that was. The average house stood 3 metres tall, so just imagine now above you, there was huge body of water + 1.6m (your body doesn't count), and surrounding you was just the dark vast sea.

Mendra asked to be on the surface once or twice and then we had to send him back to the boat. However, by the time I had to dive again for the third time, my ears hurt so much. I tried to equalize many many times but the stinging pain just don't stop so I decided that I wanted to give up too.

That was it. My 2 mio rupiah first diving experience ended in just 10-15 minutes 🤡 Adding to that when I got back on board, apparently the wave that I felt why I floated got me seasick. So I spent like 1 hour or so being super seasick on the boat and trying to ease it all out with antimo (our savior!).

Oh, almost forgot this one! Your body position-- to stand or to float horizontally-- is affected by your jacket air volume, controlled by the oxygen tube. So it needed some skill too and it was quite difficult for me to control! It makes me feel like a helpless cokcroach whose body is upside down lol.

In the end, I finally got over my seasickness and on the third diving scene to see the mantas, I tried snorkeling. Snorkeling was fun because you get to see the sea with your own eyes minus the anxiety of being swallowed whole by the huge scary sea.. Sea is truly scary guys this is my takeaway from the diving experience no one can tell me otherwise haha. Those diving clips are only great to watch because they edited the color, edited the speed (maybe, and added serene happy music. In actuality, it was super hollow and silent in the water. Probably I'm not gonna do it again :D

The gastronomy scene in Labuan Bajo
On the first day, we ate pasta at a seemingly foreign-owned restaurant. The price was surprisingly expensive, even more expensive than those in Bali. I'm suspecting it's the combination of their wanting to reach BEP soon with their dollar flocked tourists and the high cost for materials.

I also went to this seafood place. It reminded me more of those Muara Karang seafood stalls to be honest. I expected that the fishes would be very fresh but I think they were just so so. The way they cooked it was also so so, not to mention that I got to see rats running about.. so yeah. We also bought lobster, but idk it just didn't taste like what I imagined it would T_T (I watched Nick Fry catching lobster on youtube and the way his lobster looked on that video was just superb).

Basically we only tried food along this street by the pier. I think the restaurants are quite agglomerated in that area only. There was also this one oven-baked pizza place that was apparently owned by someone who was my manager's batch mate in university. The world is indeed so small!

Spending days in Labuan Bajo
We arrived in Labuan Bajo on Sunday. Monday is diving day. Tuesday and Wednesday is working from Labuan Bajo day. Thursday is Ayana day (while in the morning we get to walk around Bajo). Friday to Sunday is living on board day.

We had Tuesday, Wednesday, and half of Thursday to enjoy Labuan Bajo. However, this would later be my most regretted decision ever: I should have taken leave. As I didn't, all I did during the day was trying out breakfast at the hotel across the street (which was only chicken katsu (!!!)), had meetings, and then dinner around the area of Bajo.

I didn't remember much about what work I did back then. Maybe there was a day when I had more important meetings, but in general I really felt like this has the potential to be me enjoying a slow life in Bajo but somehow I wasted it on city-related things.. Labuan Bajo is quite secluded to the hustle bustle of the city and is the perfect place if you want to have a serene getaway compared to Bali. Bali is too flashy HAHA butttt maybe if you're a picky eater like me, you'd find the convenience of Bali more alluring.

The biggest regret from not taking the leave is definitely us not being able to explore Bajo! We didn't even get to see the Manggarai settlement and all the things in the mountainous part of Bajo aside from its sea.

Trying out Ayana
We spent around 3 nights in this beautiful and clean boutique hostel called Green Hill. However, we wanted to try splurging a bit by staying a night in Ayana! It's a 5-star hotel, wouldn't call it a resort since it's relatively small with just okay activities offered around. We arrived at noon, hiding ourselves since we booked only for two but would snuck in two people, completely broke students behavior but make it Ayana hahaha.

That day we explored the hotel a bit, taking a view pictures here and there during sunset. We wanted to try their seafood, but after trying out more down-to-earth seafood the day before and finding the seafood scene here to be so-so, we decided to just eat at their Japanese restaurant. SUPER BASIC I know, but we weren't much of a food explorer and we wanted to enjoy the hotel!

Oh, and before dinner, me and Mendra actually tried out their spa :3 It was a super overpriced spa tbh haha I could've had like 10 hours of good spa in Bali.. but well, supply-demand and FOMO beat me to it!

Missing my phone data..
At night, we were ready to sleep and enjoy our night in Ayana. I was looking at my phone when I suddenly noticed something weird with my phone because when charging, it's stuck at the Apple logo. It was a big WTF moment for me. I was practically in this secluded island with definitely no iBox or any fancy electric shop in sight, and tomorrow I was about to board a supposedly magical adventure in this exotic seas. But no working phone for me!

I was super devastated. As usual, my go to was the Apple Care center. It helped me before with an unexplainable error from my old phone, so I believe this should've also fixable. Luckily I somehow still got Apple Care package, though I'm not sure if it's coming from my phone or from my recently purchased MacBook.

Maybe it was around 12 pm when I discovered the error. Spent hours finding solutions on the net and youtube before I finally went for Apple Care. Somehow they asked me to do the boot up using iTunes PC, so I need laptop. However, my work computer cannot be connected to any external devices.. Luckily, in this journey where everyone still worked, we had Lilian who brought her laptop that can be connected to external devices! So because of her laptop and this amazing Apple Care instructor, I managed to at least boot up my phone.

I slept at 4 am maybe after all the chaos. Since I had to be on the ship the next morning, I decided to just sleep it out while waiting for it to be fully restarted. Luckily when I wake up, my phone is back!!! It's just completely blank lol. Thankfully, the last time I backed up the phone is before I flew to LBJ so I still had the data online. This wasn't something on my mind when I decided to set "back up every time connected to wifi and power" but wow it really could do you a service in emergency!

PSA: PLEASE BACK UP YOUR DATA REGULARLY!

The drama hasn't ended though because we really needed to go to the harbor in like 9 am? I lost all my energy because of my phone so I just let my friend wander. We planned to take the transparent canoe but sadly it drizzled a bit so it wouldn't be a wise decision :')

By the time we had to go to the harbor, I managed to restore the majority of my data though still WhatsApp took 30+ Gb so I just went to the sea without WhatsApp. It's a silent trip for me! Haha.

Living on board in Labuan Bajo

I remember I had to wait a bit in nearby Starbucks while waiting for the ship because I wanted to try my luck and see if I can restore my backup using all these public wifi. But eventually time ran out and we had to board, so yeah, no WhatsApp it is!

We had to board on small boats before we go inside the bigger ships. There were lots of small boats swarming to several big ships. Our ship was called Natural 001, a relatively new brown-colored ship. There was a bit of rain so it was a bit tricky to hop on the boats and the ship. I tried to be very mindful so as to not do any stupid small mistakes 😂

And what we didn’t realize would happen with the rain is.. that the weather would be very windy and the sea very wavy. It wasn’t a warm welcome for land people :(

I’ve had experience of seasickness before and it was something I very highly anticipated for. We’ve prepared lots of Antimo before going into this trip. Mind you, I’ve never even had Antimo before! I know of the product because the jingle was so instilled in me (“Antimo.. menyenangkan perjalanann kiiitaa!” hahaha), but I don’t have motion sickness in a car so I never took it.

Due to the wave, it was suuuper unconfomfortable for me on the ship :( Lilian was really a champion, she still managed to open a laptop and had a meeting there! Only signal in the middle of the sea stopped her, meanwhile I had to bear with the seasickness just by existing gahhh! I remember pondering whether it’s best for me to look at still objects (like the table) or at the sky 🥲

Eventually the weather got better and we can sit by the deck without worrying of the rain. I was still super dizzy even after drinking 1 tab of Antimo. I didn’t think I could handle being in the confined room (and our room was like quite under the base floor?) so I just slept on the deck. I slept there absolutely without minding the sun burning my face because all I could think about was that SEASICKNESS 😭 I slept with only a cap covering my face lol.

In the first day, we have 3 destinations: Kelor, Manjarite, and seeing the sunset with the sky full of kalong. I did go out from the ship for Kelor. There was a mini hiking activity to get to the peak, where you can take pictures of mini bajo. Of course I didn’t have the will and body to hike, so I just stayed at the foot of the hill, with my head rested on my arms and slept my way through the 1-hour stop. I also got myself cup noodle because I think I needed some warm soup 🤣

Then we stopped at Manjarite. This is a snorkeling spot. Tbh after I dived earlier the week (which turned out to be just an expensive diving experience), I no longer had any curiosity for snorkeling so I skipped this. I think I slept in my room after that Kelor stop, and was woken up to have dinner. I did feel a bit missing out on the Kalong spot though, you know I’m a sucker for anything #sunset 😂 (ttagaun sunsett~~)

I woke up for the dinner because or else I might not have enough energy for the next day, which was supposed to be the big day because we were going to Padar island, pink beach, and Komodo island. The dinner was tbh amazing.. if I were already reading One Piece back then, I would be fawning on how the ship crews were really living the nakama life. They bring fresh catch but also catch several life fish on the board and they cook amazing dishes! They really taste amazing, really fitting to the notion that sailors cook amazing food 👍🏻

I continued to sleep in my room after eating another Antimo for the day. I forgot if Mendra also went to sleep or if I went to sleep earlier. However, what I remember was that the next day I thankfully woke up feeling super refreshed! I don’t know if drinking the Antimo (ended up having 2-3 tabs the previous day I think haha) help with the dizziness + sleep, but I remember feeling so good when I woke up. I was finally able to absorb the beautiful and amazing idea that I was there in the most beautiful part of Indonesia.

We were preparing to stop at Padar island before the dawn breaks. So in the middle of the dark and solemn night, we can really see the beautiful star constellation adorning the sky.. superb experience! Too bad my phone wasn’t able to capture all that, but it was something to remember. My phone back then was "just" an iPhone 12 and clearly the night capturing capability wasn't that advanced yet.

It's 3 years ago but I can still remember how solemn and peaceful the night was

Purplish sky

The sunset that starts to show the parking boats!

(From this point on, it's July 2025 and I just started to write again from Dubai hahaha with the same Why Nations Fail book on my bed that I haven't managed to finish!!! T_T)

The hike was.. tiring. I didn't expect it to be so full of effort. Like I know that hiking is not my forte, but I didn't know that we had to hike. I knew I had to go on though, there were no option for me to back down!

And indeed, the view in the end was very rewarding. Up to now, it's still one of the pictures that I am proud about.

It was 28 May 2022 at that time, so I made this picture for TWICE Dahyun's birthday! 😂

Dubu's birthday

The signature look of Padar island

The fantastic four! :D

On the second day. I can finally start enjoying the boat. Of course, I still had my daily dose of antimo!

I started to realize how blue the sky and the water is. Clearly it's one of the most most most beautiful and pristine thing I have ever seen. I am so glad that I get to experience this! Definitely a place that every Indonesian needs to visit at least once.

The ship in calm seas

Next up is the pink beach! For every small visit to each island, the boat will put its anchor to the deeper sea, avoiding the beautiful coral reefs of course, and then we got small ships to bring us to the shore. Below is the example of how we were being "transported" to the shorelines.

Us in the small boats on the way to pink beach

Pink beach

And one thing I learnt is that the beach gets and retains its pink color from the coral. But then tourists start coming in and take the red coral home.. that's why some of the pink beaches lose its color. What we see may not be the same pink beach that others are seeing. Please protect the nature's beauty and take nothing but pictures!

See what I told you about THE BLUEST water I have ever seen!?

And then after that, we sailed away again to the Komodo island. This is also another nature's wonder! So the komodo dragon is a type of lizard, but a big one. It's said to be one of those living creatures that survives the dinosaurs era. We were told so many dangerous things about the Komodo dragon, but well we can still see them here out in the wild! I was so afraid though being near them because they told us about how speed they are when they are chasing their prey. I was also told that this island is not the only island with komodo, for example the Padar island may sometimes have komodo as well. And why is that? Because they can swim :)))

After our journey to the Komodo island, we then had our lunch! As usual, the ship crew cooks for us. I think it was from that moment that I started to have this notion with me: seamen cooks very well! I think it's probably because they need to entertain so many sailors on the sea. They are away for so long, the only pleasure that they can obtain is probably from food. In the sea they also have access to the freshest catch of the day, so probably that also explains!

One of the dishes served to us

Before diving in Taka Makassar to catch the sighting of mantas and turtles! I probably forgot about the manta, but we definitely saw turtles!

Nightfall then came for the second day. After we cleaned ourself (in the water-clogged bathroom btw :'))), we had a nice dinner and then got a get together with the crew and the participants. We sang some songs and then went back to sleep.

When the third day came, it was already time for us to say good bye. We still can do some snorkeling though, but those are full of school of colorful fishes and corals. It was also quite packed with other people, so different from our previous spots where we had the limitless sky and ocean surrounding us.

I got a cool picture of the sea though! You can see the view of the so many islands here. It maintains to be my wallpaper until now for my Work profile!

The horizon in Labuan Bajo sea

And before we knew it, we already made it closer and closer to the main island. It was finally time for us to say goodbye to the ships and all the good memories here!

The crew that reminds me a lot about Usopp from One Piece! Haha I started reading One Piece the year after, in May 2023

We then chased our flight at around 1 or 2 pm.. and thus that ends our journey here in Labuan Bajo. It was a really nice getaway for us, this being our first flight after forever. The reality here, in which I don't really see the people wearing masks because probably they've quite secluded, was a fresh view for us from Jakarta.

In the airport, I also bought another book! That is also still with me here in Dubai at the time of writing yet I still haven't got the chance to finish! xD It was this boo, The Happiness Project. I think I kinda expected this book to be about a journey of life with the 'finding-happiness' themed voyage, which would fit perfectly with how I felt after leaving Labuan Bajo. Yet, turns out it's more atuned to the city life. Well, not so irrelevant for me since I'm a city girl after all! But I really need to finish this, gosh.

I saw my tanned lines as a badge from my week of beach life here. I really am a beach girl! Although if I need to make this trip again, I am probably at that stage in life where I would prefer much more comfort than this haha but this one's something to remember!

My adventurous self badge

Bye, beautiful Bajo!

Things I regret

If there is one thing I regret.. is that I don't take my leave as a leave. I had several days in which I need to work, probably I am saving my annual leave. But duh! I am already at this beautiful place and I didn't even spend the time to book a car and go somewhere, like visit the Manggarai people's village maybe?? It was an unncecessary "work-from-Bajo" thing because I should have enjoyed and explored more. Though maybe to my old-self's defence, we were only working for like 3 years and we still felt guilty about taking leave. WFA also was quite glorified back in the day, therefore we felt like we needed to still connect with work. I forgot if I had written about this previously, but even Lilian continued to be in a meeting after we had sailed through the tumultuous sea (and I was seasick-ed HARD) until she finally lost the signal!

The post-card

Back home, a few days later I got a post card sent from myself! I remember sending quite a number of postcards to my family and friends, but I don't think they even got this at all?? This is maybe one of the only postcards that succeeded in going its way accross the sea to Bekasi! :)

I put the post card as a bookmark for my Why Nations Fail book, so here it is with me in Dubai!

I got my post card from Bajo!

Since the Labuan Bajo trip, I ended up being quite close with Novi, Mendra, and Lilian. It was quite a group! I am also grateful because after that trip, I continued making several more meaningful trips with friends.

I love life!