Slawi Bay

We're anchored in Slawi Bay off Komodo Island. I am not going ashore to see the dragons, so all I can report on is this first touch of Indonesia, island after island after island, green slopes rising steeply from the ocean, trees outlined on the summits, occasional cliffs, occasional beaches, a poky little ferry putt-putting by, probably connecting this island with others nearby. Humidity, air temperature, water temperature all in the low 80s, though it feels more humid than that to me.

Many Indonesian crew members are on deck phoning home. I passed Yudith, who told me she was calling her husband. She says he lives too far away for them to see each other as the ship passes through. I told her to tell him "Hi" from me, which, now that I think about it, was a fairly weird thing to say, but she smiled with the tolerance the crew must develop toward eccentric passengers, and went back to her call.

Tomorrow 29 of us leave the ship for a six-day "overland adventure" in China. I feel uncharacteristically well prepared, probably because I have no idea what I'm getting into. I won't have Channel 40 to give me geographic and meteorological information, and the days look fairly tightly scheduled, but I will post as the opportunity permits, certainly at length once we get back on board. We spend tomorrow getting to Beijing, arriving the next morning after an overnight flight from Singapore, which we reach from the international airport at Denpasar, which we reach via a 25 minute flight in a Fokker* F27 from Mataram, to which we drive in a (hopefully) air-conditioned bus from Lembar, which we reach via tenders from where the ship docks tomorrow. There are miscellaneous visits to a temple, a market, and a museum in Lembar early in the day, but everyone will be thinking "China", so the Indonesian locations won't get the attention they probably deserve. Plus which everyone will be dressed for China, where it's still winter, making us very overdressed for equatorial Indonesia.

*Besides sounding funny, this plane name makes me think of World War Two fighter planes. I am having visions of a single-prop craft with smoke billowing from the engine as it warms up for take-off. Well, as the guide said repeatedly during the pre-briefing yesterday, "Just remember to think of it as an adventure."