A Round Trip Through Flores – The highlights at a glance

Almost every trip across the island of Flores begins in the port town of Labuan Bajo. You have different ways to get there:

First, there is the airplane. Labuan Bajo has a small airport not far from town and regular flights to and from Bali with Wings Air and Garuda. Cost from 1-1.5 million IDR per way (that’s about 65 – 100 euros).

The cheapest option is certainly to take the bus from Mataram on the island of Lombok. However, you need a strenuous 24 hours for the route.

The most beautiful way to get to Labuan Bajo is the famous 5 Days 4 Nights trip by boat from Lombok. This excursion also costs around 1.5 million IDR, but you get the unique experience of enjoying the landscape around Sumbawa and Komodo from the water, including great snorkeling spots and Komodo dragons.

Labuan Bajo itself is certainly not the prettiest town in Indonesia and it’s only worth staying there if you’ve arrived by plane and want to take a tour to Komodo or Rinca from there. Or you plan to go scuba diving from there. As a diver you really get your money’s worth around Komodo, unfortunately, snorkeling is not so good.

A little later I found out that it can also be worthwhile as a snorkeler to go on the tour to Manta Point. There you can also see the rays wonderfully from the water surface. It’s a shame, I would have known that earlier.

Here you can find more information about the islands west of Flores.

From now on it will be a little less touristy. Ruteng is about 4 hours east of Labuan Bajo and everything is a bit different here than you are used to from Bali and Co.

The locals are friendly but hardly speak English. The food is good, but you need to know a bit of bahasa to know what to order. Inexpensive accommodation is also available, but the standard falls a little bit and here at the latest you will find out what a »mandi« is.

One of the main reasons to come to Ruteng is the impressive »Spiderweb rice fields«. These are about 30 minutes outside of Ruteng and can be easily reached by scooter. The entrance to the View Point is via a staircase and through the garden of a nice family.

It’s not easy to see from the road, so you’ll probably have to ask for the way at the side of the road from time to time. The father of the family then accompanies you the last few meters to the viewpoint and can provide interesting answers to the question of why the rice fields were cultivated in a circle here.

Last but not least, there is an entry in the guest book combined with a small donation or entrance fee, but you can choose the amount yourself.

After another six hours heading east you reach Bajawa, the first nicer town on Flores. Bajawa clearly has more choices of places to stay and eat than Ruteng before it.

It’s best to take a scooter in Bajawa and explore the area on your own, it’s wonderful. There is a road that connects many traditional villages, including Bena.

Along the way, you’ll also pass Hot Springs and an awesome viewpoint overlooking Inerie Volcano. If you stop every now and then to take photos and spend some time with the people in the villages, this little loop turns into a day trip pretty quickly. There are a few small towns along the way and you have the opportunity to buy water etc. in some shops, but I would recommend taking a small lunch with you.

We continue east to my personal highlight of Flores. After about six hours by bus you will reach the charming town of Moni. Actually, we’re only talking about a stretch of street with a few simple guest houses and small, but very nice, restaurants.

Shortly before Moni is the junction to Kelimutu, the volcanic crater with three different colored lakes. Like many volcanoes in Indonesia, Kelimutu is famous for its sunrise.

You can rent a scooter and drive up the mountain for an hour at half past four in the morning, pay the entrance fee, then walk up for another half an hour and wait for the sunrise with 100 other people when it feels like zero degrees. And yes, he is very beautiful. But it was really bitterly cold and very crowded. Apart from that, it takes a relatively long time until the sun is so high that the first rays hit the lakes and only then do they light up in their real colour.

When our alarm clock rang at 4 a.m., it was pouring rain. So we hesitated whether we should drive at all and then in the hurry we forgot the money. The good man at the entrance to Kelimutu let us in anyway, but wanted to keep a camera as a deposit to make sure we came back later to pay the entrance fee. It was a bit annoying at first, but we were forced to drive to the crater again in the afternoon. And that was the best thing that could have happened to us. While you don’t see anything in the morning because it’s dark and it’s still freezing, this drive through bright green rice fields in the afternoon is a highlight in itself. And when we arrived at the edge of the crater we had the whole volcano and its beautiful lakes to ourselves,

The town of Maumere is again not particularly pretty and in fact there is little to nothing to do here. Maumere has an airport, which means if your trip ends here you can fly back to Bali from here.

However, there are only a few connections per week and it is advisable to book this return flight a few days in advance. If you want to stay a few more days in the Maumere area, I can recommend the Lena House, about 25km east of Maumere. A small bungalow complex right on the beach, run by a very warm family. Snorkelling trips and trekking tours to the nearby volcano can also be organized from there. Or you can simply relax for a few days in absolute tranquility and enjoy the excellent food in the guest house.

Most of the towns on Flores, apart from Moni, are not particularly attractive and serve more as a base for forthcoming day trips in the area. Flores is scenically beautiful. It is a good idea to rent a scooter in every town and explore the area on your own.

The roads on Flores are largely very well developed and not heavily used. If you still don’t want to drive yourself, you can of course hire a driver in each of these places and do exactly the same tour. As a passenger you can enjoy the fantastic landscape better anyway!