Cultural villages...

Today we got up and caught the bus at 6:30am to go from Rihon to Bajawa. The journey was only 4 hours long but it is supposed to be the worst road to travel on in Flores so wasn’t great but luckily, it wasn’t that long! We arrived in Bajawa at about 11am, found accommodation, and then hired Ojeks (motorbikes) to go to 2 cultural villages just outside the town after Rod taught Chris how to ride one.

Me and Rod pulling over

Chris and Isa all smiles :)

Me on the back of Rod's bike

Local children

I am in fact so proud of ourselves for finally plucking up the courage to do it! Rod and I went on one, and Isa and Chris went on another and neither of us fell off! The cultural villages were nice to walk around, but it was quite set up and the first on we went to, all the young children kept shouting, ‘GIVE US MONEY!!!’

Cultural village

Not looking very happy!!

An old man

An old lady

Buffalo horns

Kids playing in the fog

Cultural village

Me holding vanilla pods

Cultural village

Me standing next to where they sacrifice

Cultural village

This was really irritating and upset us quite a bit, you had to give a donation to enter which we didn’t mind so much as long as it went to the community, but we also had to pay the locals to take their photos and with children asking us for extra annoyed us and didn’t make it feel so natural. So, we left and found another village that wasn’t in the Guidebook hoping that this one would be better. We did have a far better time here and we met with one of the villagers who had learnt English from speaking with tourists so she was great to speak to so we could learn about the culture and the history from her. She also gave us coffee, roasted sweet corn and some local spirit to try, which was kind.

Inside a local home

inside a local's home

inside a local home

She also didn’t ask for any money, although we did offer, so we instead brought a couple of souvenirs from her. On the way out, the chief’s wife asked us to sign the guest book and to give a donation, which was fine, but you had to write down the amount you were going to give and hand it to her personally instead of putting it into a box, like the one before. So we all put an amount together and gave it to her, and then she just said, ‘More’. We were so disappointed and we were then forced to give her double and as it was a donation and not an entrance fee, it made us realise just how places like this have been destroyed by tourism, so we left there quite disheartened and decided to just go back and leave the rest of the villages.

Laughing

Kid firing a sling-shot

Cultural villages...

Bajawa, Indonesia