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Overview

Flores is approximately 500 miles east of Bali. Labuan Bajo, the primary access point is situated on the west coast of Flores, a 90 minute flight from Bali.

Access

Garuda Indonesia and Wings Air run flights from Bali to Labuan Bajo several times a day. Wings Air is the cheaper option with flights ranging from $70-100 each way.

There is a daily flight from Kupang, Timor as well.

There may be a plan for Jakarta-Labuan Bajo flight on the horizon, and the airport has applied for international flight clearing, but there is no indication of when that may come into play (I would guess 1 year+ though). It’s a 10 minute drove into town from the airport.

Labuan Bajo is a small fishing town with a few diving shops, restaurants and other little shops. The likes of McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut etc are yet to invade the town which is quite refreshing.

Accommodation

I stayed at the Sylvia Hotel - a nice resort 20 minutes from the town on the beach. Pool overlooking the sea, kayaks can be rented free of charge. The beach is a bit dirty as is the water. It's about $30 a night for a double room which I thought was pretty good value.

There are a few other resorts within a close proximity to the town. I would suggest staying in one of these as there is little to do in Labuan Bajo.

There are a few options in the town, backpacker hostels etc, but they aren’t very pleasant. Resorts run shuttle services to the town should you wish to go out for dinner. Renting a scooter at $5/day is another option.

Restaurants

Made in Italy and La Cucina are the pick of eating spots in town. Italian food, wine and beers are reasonably priced. There is street food serving BBQ seafood, with fresh catches of the day and standard Indonesian dishes.


Nightlife

Not really much going on. I'd try and cram as much into your days as possible and then head back over to Bali for some action.

Girls/Gaming

Again not really much to offer on this front. The local girls native of Flores aren't very attractive. They don't speak English apart from the handful that work in restaurants/dive shops. I speak enough Indonesian to be able to talk with the locals but I didn't come across any attractive ones.

Naturally, there are a few white girls who are on the backpacking trail, donning the elephant pants as well as scuba divers, but it would take a large amount of Bintang to entertain that prospect.

I would actually recommend this as a spot to take a girl with you, as I did. As I mentioned, you can get back to gaming when you return to Bali.

Cunca Wulang Waterfall

A great half day trip, the waterfall is located an hour from Labuan Bajo.
Entry is 100,000rp ($7) and includes a local guide to lead you down to the waterfall

It’s a one hour hike which is fairly challenging, but definitely worth it! There are a few ledges you can jump from into the water (5-7m) as well, so perfect to cool off from the heat.

Met a couple of Indonesian guys from Jakarta who sold ‘Guerilla’ (similar to weed) down at the falls, so had a smoke whilst lounging in sun.

Rinca, Komodo Island and the rest

There are a variety of options available in terms of tours. You can do one day tours, 2 days/1 night, 3 days/2 nights, 4 days/3 nights etc. depending on what you wish to do.

I went on a 4 day/3 night tour. There were 15 people on my boat, as it was a tour just advertised for Indonesians. It was a lot cheaper, but not very luxurious. I paid $200 for the trip which I consider really good value.

I wouldn't recommend going down this road. There were two friendly couples who I hung out with a bit, but the rest of the Indonesians didn't look particularly pleased when I loaded a couple of slabs of beer onto the boat and I regularly got thrown some disapproving looks.

We stopped at various little islands along the way for hikes, snorkeling and beaches but obviously the main attraction was to see the Komodo Dragons. They reside on two islands Rinca and Komodo Island which are fairly large islands with just the odd village, the population of the Komodo Dragons is approximately 5,000.

There was also a cool spot to see Manta Rays and flying foxes at night. I’ll post a few pictures to give a better idea.







Summary

Overall, I’d highly recommend visiting here, before this becomes a heavy tourist destination, which it definitely will over the next 10 years. 4-5 days would be enough to see everything.

This is also a hotspot of scuba diving, so tours combining the diving and sightseeing can be arranged.

Bring a girl or come with friends and some girls. If I were to go here again, I would get a few people together, rent a private boat and have a bit of a party whilst sailing round the islands.

If anyone has any further questions or wants more info on certain things, let me know.