Someone is Watching

The Warrior of the Light never forgets the old saying:

The good little goat doesn't bleat.

Injustices happen. Everyone finds themselves in situations they do not deserve, usually when they are unable to defend themselves. Defeat often knocks at the Warrior's door.

At such times, he remains silent. He does not waste energy on words, because they can do nothing. He knows it is best to use his strength to resist and have patience, knowing that Someone is watching, Someone who saw the unnecessary suffering and who will not accept it.

That Someone gives him what he most needs: time.

Sooner or later, everything will once more work in his favor.

A Warrior of the Light is wise; he does not talk about his defeats.

"Warrior of The Light" by Paulo Coelho

Relaxing on a Pristine Beach of Angel Island

Angel Island, or “Pulau Bidadari” (pulau means island, bidadari means angel) as the locals called it, is easy to reach from Labuan Bajo, Flores, Indonesia. With a slow boat, the journey takes only about 30 minutes. You can rent a whole boat for yourself and ask the Captain to take you here.

What’s in there on “Angel Island”?

Well… for those who love to laze around on a white sandy beach and crystal clear water, then this is the right place for you. You can spend the whole day here, sunbathing and enjoying your favorite books on a pristine beach with no one around. Sounds good, eh? With such a beautiful scenery all around and the blue water in front of you, I’m sure you’ll be tempted to plunge yourself into the water. Don’t forget to bring your snorkel gear, because you can also see some coral reefs and colorful fish around while you’re swimming!

enjoy the beauty of Angel Island

Angel Island is also one of the places for divers to learn scuba-dive. The reef is pretty shallow, perfect for beginners. I went there so many times, for fun. I've dived there once, too, but didn’t go deeper than 16 meters. It was a pretty shallow dive due to some divers were still beginners. And because of that, I still had 120 bars in my tank at the end of the dive! :D

Apart from diving, you can actually use kayak to come to this island. Contact the dive operator in Labuan Bajo and rent the kayak from there for a day. It’s also a nice way to spend your day!

There’s a nice accommodation on Angel Island, but you need to book in advance, especially during peak season. The resort is owned by Reefseekers Dive Center. You will not see the bungalows from the beach, because it’s well hidden. From the gate, you still need to walk in a beautiful garden, until you’re able to see the bungalow. When I was there, I felt like I was in a hidden Garden of Eden. The resort is surrounded by trees, making you feel like you’re lost in a beautiful forest. Very nice.

The room is spacious and the bathroom is a sweetheart. It’s an open style bathroom and it gives you a feeling as if you’re taking a shower in a forest. The bedroom has a king size bed made of wood and it’s facing big windows with garden view. It’s such a peaceful place. Perfect for couples who want to have a quiet holiday, far away from a hustle of bustle of the city. You wouldn’t hear a car honking or whatsoever. You will only hear birds chipping and a sound of waves from the sea. Simply beautiful.

The rate is around Rp 1,000,000/night and you need to stay minimum of 2 nights here. The resort will provide transfers from Labuan Bajo to Angel Island. So, no need to worry!

Have fun enjoying the peaceful of the Angel Island and its!

"Warrior of The Light" - Believers

The Warrior of the Light is a believer.

Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen.
Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change.
Because he is certain that he will find love, love appears.

Now and then, he is disappointed. Sometimes, he gets hurt.

Then he hears people say: "He's so ingenuous!"

But the Warrior knows that it is worth it. For every defeat, he has two victories in his favor.

All believers know this.


"Warrior of The Light: A Manual", by Paulo Coelho

Enjoying "Caci" Dance in Melo Village, Flores

What is “Caci”?

“Caci” is a traditional dance from West Manggarai. It’s a whip fight between two rivals, in which the fighters will dance following the rhythm of some traditional acoustic instruments (drums). A group of people will sing something that is a bit difficult to follow, because for those who are not familiar with the local language, the lyrics will sound like someone’s hum.

In Kampung Melo (kampung means village in Indonesian language), you can enjoy this “Caci” performance whenever you want. There is a cultural group called “Compang To’e” who organizes a “Caci” performance for tourists. With Rp 1,000,000 tourists will have the opportunity to be involved in a traditional ceremony, where they will be served a cup of local wine called “Sopi”, before watching the “Caci” dance. The cup of the local wine is special, too. It’s made of coconut shells. Very exotic!

The “Caci” performance will take around 2 hours, in which, the dancers will take turns to whip. At first, I got a goose bump seeing those guys whipping each other. But after a while, I got used to it. They all seemed strong enough and able to bear the pain. Hmm… I wonder what it because of from the local wine that they had before they performed? It reminded me of a special drink made by the medicine man in the “Asterix & Obelix” comic books, if you’re familiar with the story .

Anyway, another reason to go to Kampung Melo, apart from witnessing the traditional “Caci” dance performance is to enjoy the beauty of the nature. From “Panorama”, where the “Compang To’e” cultural group is located, you can see Komodo National Park from the mountains’ view. It’s such a spectacular view, because you don’t only see the sea, but also the mountains and the islands. Try to spend your sunset here. You’ll be hypnotized with the scenery.

Pak Yoseph Ugis, the founder of “Compang To’e” cultural group, built the traditional house on the hill, that’s now called “Panorama”, with the vision of making this place a place to rest for tourists who are traveling to and/or from Komodo National Park. Tourists can stop by having a cup of local coffee or tea before continuing their journey. For me, it’s such a perfect place to daydream.. and to realize that life is full of beautiful things. And at night, I see hundreds of stars in the sky from here. Very pretty. Kampung Melo has successfully became my favorite getaway spot in West Flores.

How to get here?

Pretty easy. Kampung Melo is located around 30 minutes by car/motorbike. You can rent a car or ask any tour agent to take you to “Panorama”/”Compang To’e” cultural group in Kampung Melo. They will know the place. If you want to witness the “Caci” performance, ask your tour agent to make a booking arrangement for it.

You can also go by public transportation. There are busses going from Labuan Bajo to Ruteng everyday. You can hop on these busses and ask the driver to stop at Kampung Melo where the “Caci” dance performance is located.

Have fun in Kampung Melo, guys! :)

Tasting the local night life in Labuan Bajo

Labuan Bajo, the gate to Komodo National Park

I will write some posts about Labuan Bajo and Komodo National Park, places that have a special spot in my heart...

As some of you might know, I spent about a year of my life living in Labuan Bajo, Flores, working as a communications consultant for an environmental project. It has never crossed my mind before to work in Flores, Eastern part of Indonesia. Yet, am glad that I had that experience :). And that's where the initiative of "Taman Bacaan Pelangi" (Rainbow Reading Gardens) started.

During my time there, I befriended with the locals, who, some of them I considered as my good friends now. Despite the limited infrastructure, my love to this place has grown bigger and bigger. Until now. I miss everything about this place. The people, the gorgeous scenery, the blue water, the jokes, the simplicity of life.

Labuan Bajo now has grown so fast compared to last year. It's unbelievable that in one year there are many new restaurants and some new hotels, too! This place would be the next "Gili Islands" or "Bali" soon... is it a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it depends on how you see it..

Anyway, if you happen to make your way to Labuan Bajo, you might be wondering: where to go on Saturday night? Is there a place to hangout?

The answer is YES. “Paradise Bar” is probably the only happening place in town on Saturday night. If you want to experience the local night scene, you have to come here. Live music will entertain the guests with songs that you will probably know. They don’t really play Indonesian songs, only occassionally. Around 10pm, this bar will be crowded with locals and tourists all together. Beers and “sopi” (a local wine) will be served and people will start dancing on the small dance floor, right in front of the stage.

When I first came here, I said to myself, “What is this place?”. It’s so different with the clubs that I’m used to go in Jakarta and Singapore. It looks very modest and simple. Wooden chair, simple bar, and an open space balcony with some tables, makes this bar a down-to-earth place to hangout at. No need to wear fancy clothes. No need to dress up. Everyone is dressing very modest here. You can even wear shorts and flips flops. Noone would care .

Paradise Bar isn’t located by the beach. It’s located on the hill! It’s probably the best place to see the sunset. The view is overlooking the sea with some islands around it. Such a breathtaking view. I love it.


Paradise Bar is actually a restaurant during the day and weekdays. They serve good seafood, Indonesian style. Try the “Squid Hot Plate” and “Grilled fish (tuna or whatever they have)”. It’s very tasty. The restaurant becomes a bar only on Saturday night. I think, almost all young people come here on Saturday night. It’s always packed with people. After the live music presented by a local band, the bar also offers dance music by the DJ. The songs selection is not up to date, so don’t expect dancing with the latest dance songs. But, just enjoy it. You’ll be surprised what your ears will hear. It might bring you to good old memories .

Every Saturday night, Paradise Bar opens until 3am. The music is pumping out loud, you can ever hear it from far away, because of the open-space style they have here. After 7 months of my stay here, I started to enjoy going to Paradise Bar and mingling with the locals. Despite their macho-look, they’re so sweet and nice! Have you ever heard “A wolf with a heart of a sheep”? This phrase suits best with the locals here . They will dance happily on the dance floor, jumping around, enjoying themselves following the beat of the music. It’s fun. They will also smile at you when they dance. Indonesians are known as friendly people. Probably one of the friendliest people on the planet. Even a “killer”-looking guy would smile at you kindly in this bar. Sweet.

So, when you’re in Labuan Bajo, don’t miss out the experience of Paradise Bar, either for the sunset or for a taste of a local night life!

Visiting an Underwater Temple

Does underwater temple really exist? Hmm.. kind of!

If you got a chance to scuba-dive in Bali, apart from other famous dive places such as Tulamben, Nusa Penida, Menjangan, etc... you should also make your way to Pemuteran. It takes about 3 hours from Denpasar to get there. Pretty far, but worth it.

When my friend Nicky who owns Bali Marine Sports dive center showed me a picture of the underwater temple a few weeks ago, I got so excited and promised myself to go there. Two weeks later, I came to Bali again, special to dive in the underwater temple :D. Nicky warned me that it's an eery dive site. Usually, local dive masters wouldn't go there if there are only 1-2 divers. Too creepy, he said.

Really? I couldn't believe him, 'coz I thought, what's so creepy about an underwater temple? The temple isn't even a drowned temple. People made it. So, it wouldn't be so creepy, would it?

From "Taman Selini" beach, we got into a traditional boat (not a dive boat) and drove for about 10 minutes to the dive site. There were 5 of us, including Rafi, the dive master. Before we jumped into the water, Rafi told us the story of this so called underwater temple. Back in 2005, there was a reconstructed temple in Pemuteran and the locals threw away stones and statues from that temple to the sea. Then, the local dive center(s) decided to re-arrange those statues, underwater!

This underwater temple "project" was funded by AUSAID and it's located in 15-30 meters below the surface in the area of 2,500 meter square.

Soon, we jumped in and started making bubbles out of our regulators. The visibility was poor. Hmmm.. that's probably why people get an eery feeling when they dive here!

Going down to around 30 meters, we arrived at the "temple". Whoa!! It felt like visiting a Roman Forum, but in "Balinese" style! The temple was ruined, but we still could see the Balinese style gate and statues.

What interest me most was to see Buddha, Ganesha and other Hindu's Gods/Goddess statues underwater, covered by living corals and sea fans. It's super weird! And right there, I have to admit, it was kinda scary to see "faceless" Buddha statues with some green living thing covering his body... eerrrr... somehow it reminded me of the "Pirates of the Carribean" movie! :D

Despite that it's not a real temple, it's still worth to visit. I mean, where else can you see Buddha & Goddess statues underwater? ;)

There were not so many fish here, but I saw a scorpion fish and two cute pipe fish walking around enjoying the exotic Balinese sands happily!

Good job for whoever helped to construct this "Temple Point/Temple Garden". It's definitely an interesting dive site!

World Oceans Day: Mola-Mola Video ;)

Today is the World Oceans Day.

To celebrate it, I'm going to share the video of "mola-mola" (it's also known as "Sun Fish" or "Moon Fish") that I took a few weeks ago, on May 21st, 2011.

Mola-Mola is a weird-looking fish that live as deep as 300 meters underwater. This fish usually can be seen in Crystal Bay, Nusa Penida, Bali, Indonesia around July until September.

During this period, they will come up to around 40 meters to get their "spa" services at the "cleaning station".

I was very surprised when my dive master in Bali sent me a message in April saying that he saw 7 mola-mola that day! Wow! I couldn't wait for long to fly to Bali to see them. What surprised me was that they come very early this year (also last year)! Weird!

Could it be one of the effects of the global warming?

Enjoy the video and let's save our ocean! Happy World Oceans Day! :)

Listen To Your Feelings

Here's my card of the day:

"Listen To Your Feelings"

There is the head with all its thoughts, ideas, logic and calculations

Then there is intuition, the gut feeling that gives you a sense of what is

Throw out the head and follow that gut feeling

Even if the mind is telling you otherwise

Logic is very often wrong

Wow. How come my "Now Cards" always tells me the same subject? What is it trying to say?

It is so true that sometimes I make decisions purely based on logic. I think that's the tendency of people who live in the modern world these days. Don't you think?

We are "forced" to use our logic, because there are so many bad people with bad intentions out there. We become too cautious. And a lot of time forget our inner voice...

"Logic is very often wrong". Wow. What a powerful phrase! It's been a long time since I heard this phrase.

I guess now it's time to remind myself to be more sensitive and follow my intuition more..

The next question is... if logic is very often wrong, can intuition be wrong?