Wholesale Beer and Pearls in the South Seas - Ancient Wisdom

Greetings from Labuan Bajo, Flores Islands.

Paradise wouldn't be a bad description of this place. We arrived via a one hour Airasia flight from Bali and a short taxi ride from the spanking new airport to the bustling port town of Labuan Bajo.

Last week I was telling you of our trip to East Java and the textile factory in the friendly city of Solo, if you missed you can catch up here.

First view of Labuan Bajo

My wife and I are on holiday.. yes actually. Regular readers will know that Coco was in China the last 30 months trapped by covid restrictions. At great expense and some difficulty we managed to find a way out of China for her on a business trip.. which it actually also is. But after sorting the business in Bali and Java we thought we might escape for a few days to see the Komodo dragons on Komodo island a day or so boat ride from here.

Most people come for this reason, they stay in town for a day or two and then head off on a two or three night trip aboard one of the many yachts or house boats floating in the harbour. I tried to book online but the price and the quality on offer from basic to uber-lux was confusing to say the least. A friend in Ubud told us it was easy to find on harbourside and you can check out the boats also.

But as we arrived at our portside hotel, we found that a G20 side-meeting had just concluded, the President himself had been here the day before. Our hotel was full of political types.. now of course all looking to take advantage of the visit and charter a boat.. so it wasn't so easy. Coronavirus lockdowns had killed off half the fleet of boats, you can sadly see many abandoned boats in the bay. Plus the local government had announced that the one day ticket to visit Komodo national park was going to be hiked from $15 to $250 on the 1st August. So also a mad rush to beat the increase.

So we decided to extend our trip a bit to discover the Labuan Bajo area slowly and have a chance to find a berth on a boat.

Flores Islands were colonised at one time by the Portuguese.. and if you have been to Goa in India, there are shades of that feeling here, tropical white washed Churches in the jungle, friendly people with Christian names like Ferdinando or Harry. I mistakenly thought we might be able to explore the island, but it's much bigger than Bali, and doesn't have good roads so getting around can take days not hours. 2 million people live on the island mostly in farming or fishing villages. They tell me there are 30 local languages just on this island.

So in the meantime we made friends with a booking agent working out of a clapboard office by the port called Ferdinando who promised to work hard to find us a trip. He took us on a car trip around the area and to a fishing village where we got a local fisherman to take us to a cave on a remote beach. We went to view the available boats in the bay, but they were basically floating boxes smelling of fresh paint.. then on Sunday he called me and said there was a cancellation on a nice boat, if we could pay immediately we could secure the booking and have the boat just for us. We couldn't see it as it was not in port, but he assured me it was good (the pictures looked amazing). I sent him the money via Wise and immediately thought, OMG.. we have been conned.. he could just disappear with our money leaving us literally high and dry.

But good as his word on Monday morning Ferdinando was waiting in the lobby, he had said with a car to take us to the port where a launch would ferry us to the boat. Where is the car I asked? No need he said, your boat is here in front of the hotel. "I persuaded the captain to pick you up here" he said with a grin as wide as his face.

It was love at first sight.

So that's how we ended up on a drop-dead beautiful boat with a crew of six for a ridiculous cheap price. We have never done this before, we are novice sailors.. but that's how we spent three days sailing around the South Seas.

We did so many things it felt like a week or more.. turtle spotting, snorkeling on empty beaches, watching the hundred thousand flying foxes on a dusk migration fly over the boat.. that was amazing. Shore trips to various islands, we had adventures before breakfast and much more. The crew were delightful and included a guide called Harry. I asked Harry if the crew were allowed to drink beer in the evening? Absolutely he said but we have no beer and we are a days sailing away from port. But we asked the captain anyway if we could buy beer anywhere.. There is a fishing village on Rina island we can call at and ask.. the crew were delighted and excited.

The village was a Muslim one so the small local portside shop said no immeadiately, but suggested we ask in the village. The captain soon located the local beer runner, in a small very basic shack he seated us in plush chairs to begin negotiations, but his price was OK not much more than the supermarket, so we bought all his stock at asking price and the crew cheerfully carried it back to the boat.

Here's Harry with the beer guy and his stock.

Back to the boat.

On the way back in the village we passed an old lady who had spread some local handicraft items on a trestle table, Coco spotted a pearl necklace. We asked if it was local, yes made here..

In Bali they sell these - I had seen for about £100 the lady was clearly delighted when we accepted her price of £10..

That night we had a party with the crew under the stars.. but my mind was thinking about the pearls...

The next day the captain took us to a famous pearl farm, owned by a large Australian company. It had been closed because of covid and not yet functioning, but the manager met us and suggested we meet his boss in Denpasar.

Back in port I asked Ferdinando if he knew any local family pearl businesses (more our style).. yes of course he does..

It's Friday midday now and in 20 minutes we are off to meet them.. he has five local people lined up to see, he will drive us around to meet them.

Yes I know we are supposed to be on holiday.. but this is just so much more fun.

We have to go..

It's almost August..can you believe, soon it will be September and almost Christmas.

And it seems to be getting busy already.. I have seen the first orders coming for Orange and Cinnamon candles.

Take care and more news next week.

Let's see what happens.. full report next week.

David