Captain Stan has spoken. It’s time to open the sails as we shove off from Doubtless Bay on a waka horua, a traditional Polynesian catamaran, built from two massive dugout canoes lashed together and bridged by an expansive deck. Opening its sails requires coordinated effort from all 14 on board. The masts are heavy, shaped from one piece of solid timber. We push and pull and seconds later, with the masts secured, the sails unfurl.
Evocative sounds filtered through the open-air yoga pavilion as I completed a sun salutation at Bali’s Como Shambhala Estate at Begawan Giri: the sunset song of tropical birds, the rolling thunder of the Ayung River, the faintest chant originating from a Hindu temple…
It looks like Heaven needs a good rain. Its outskirts could not be dryer. There are a few struggling tobacco plots in the parched brown hills. One abuts a compound of lean-to thatched bamboo shacks with satelite TV.
Here are some other things you didn’t know about Heaven. You get here via a narrow dirt track, which feels more like a trench. Some of the drops are so deep, I actually grunt as the car [yes you can drive to Heaven] lurches forward. Skateboarders will be pleased to hear that Heaven is equipped with an expertly molded, concrete half-pipe. Oh, and I should also mention that Heaven is actually right here on planet earth. In Lombok, Indonesia.
I’m in the middle of Flores, an undeveloped island in Southeastern Indonesia, and I’m surrounded by 50 angry villagers, half of whom are drunk on rice liquor and carrying machetes. This was not in the brochure.
I should have known the road trip was doomed when my guide pulled up lame within the first hour. It was something he ate combined with the relentless twisting and turning Flores Trans-Island Superhighway – a one-lane path of mostly crumbling asphalt that stretches from Labuanbajo to Maumere and traverses volcanoes, skirts the coast and arcs over raging rivers. It can fit two vehicles side by side, but barely. Jacabus, my guide, seemed fine until Ricos, the driver, pulled over suddenly and Jacabus started hurling uncontrollably.
This is a confessional… and it’s fitting that I’m writing it on a plane (JAL flight 079, Honolulu-Tokyo; est. arrival time 4:49pm) because I spend an above average amount of time on jumbo jets, an occupational hazard or novelty, or something… see, I’m a travel writer. For me, the traveling came first. The sweet, endless scent of an Ecuadorian rose sent me off on a six-month journey to, well, Ecuador.
This was one of the weird days.