Drink "Arak" for Unity

Manulalu, the Pyramid Mountain, and the Jurassic park of Flores 

My first page of 2019 was begun with a tremendous trip to the village hidden in the jungle, Wae Rebo. It was not because of the destination which made it memorable but the journey and lots of luck behind it. 

This time, we started the trip from Bajawa, which is about 8 hour-drive to Dintor, the base of Wae Rebo. When knowing this many hours drive, it was only predicable tire appeared in mind added with the story of some bumpy roads created how crazy the trip would be. But, hold on! That was not the end of the story. 

The incredible thing before the trip was the atmosphere around Manulalu Vila Bajawa where my guests Ben and Tim were picked up. They were amazed and energized by the beautiful sunrise and sunset around Manulalu with view of pyramid mountain, Inerie. 

View around Manulalu, Bajawa

This had made us felt that there would be miracle among the storm. Almost the whole part of the island was having bad weather since the beginning of January. Just on our way, there was a big falling tree crossing the road which fell about 3 days before. Drivers had to be more attention when driving in this mountainous road. 

As the trip started, it took us about 30 minutes off the Trans Flores which the road is skinny and windy but so well-constructed by the local government of Bajawa. The first part of the drive gave us such opportunity to see the Pyramid Mountain, Inerie almost the whole part, its back and front part. We indeed did not miss this rare chance when the sun appeared through the dark clouds. After an hour drive, we stopped for taking some pictures of Inerie with its small mountains on surface. Tim was just so impressed with the stunning view of the mountains and said if it looks like Jurassic park which he had seen in the movie and its park in US. This great attraction accompanied our first 1 and half hours drive.

 

Mount Inerie (Photo by Akurat.co)

 Fresh Coconut and Mangoes along the Road

“The road is considered as the windiest road I have ever drive” Ben said as an intro to his sleepy. He also said if he always falls asleep easily when sitting in the car but then immediately it gone away as he found his favorite fruit, fresh coconut.  We decided to stop and spent about half an hour to drink fresh coconut water while enjoying the beautiful landscape of green Inerie.

 

A lady from Bajawa chopping off a young fresh coconut for us to drink

"It is perfect stop!" Ben and Tim said all together. As we continued driving, almost arriving to the south coast of Bajawa, we were welcomed by thosands of mangoes sold along the street. As I know a very good lady, we decided to stop in her place and trying some of her tasty mangoes.

"Enak"! One of the words of Indonesian to say good taste that Tim could have said to the lady, owner of the mango. She even gave four mangoes for free to test. With no hesitation, I bought some of the mangoes to eat during our trip. We were just lucky that it was still mango season

 

Ben (right) and Tim (left) enjoying the mangoes.

"Arak" was our next stop, the famous alcoholic drink in Flores. This is one of the main drinks for people in Flores to serve guest when there is special occasion and ceremony. Like in Bajawa, when there is a ceremony of building traditional house, they firstly start with greeting people who participating the ceremony by having speech while holding a bottle of "Arak" as a sign of warm welcome.

In Manggarai, "arak" is also used to unite people who are in conflict. The mediator who is chosen to solve problems  mostly use a bottle of "arak" as the medium of unity. The traditional rule is whatever happens if you have "arak" to unite, there is no way you decline. You must accept the solution.

Aimere is one of biggest towns to process "arak" traditionally from palm tree that we visited during our trip. They rely much on "arak" as their main income. They can produce 35-50 litters of "arak" per day with the percentage of 15 to 50 depending on buyers’ request. Bapa Aloysius, "arak" producer said that people in Flores mostly buy the strongest "arak" of 40 % to 50 %. Most of them buy for ceremony and New Year’s event in which each family of Flores doing small ceremony to end the old year and accept a new year.

Arak distillation in Aimere (photo by tribunnews.com)

After tasting little bit of "arak", we continued driving and enjoying nice panorama along the road. Something that we never missed on our journey was music. Ben and Tim were just so much enjoying the music. Tim even sang karaoke, he sang couple of songs. 

There was a moment when Ben joked if he had to wake up because of strange voice. What a fun! We can’t stop laughing.

For them, travel to Indonesia is not the first time. Ben had been to many islands of Indonesia especially in the west part. What he really impressed was trying lots of Indonesian culinary. He likes so much Indonesian foods especially Nasi Goreng and Mie Goreng. No wonder, during the trip in Flores they ate Mie Goreng that every restaurant has different taste like they did in Borong, Flores for lunch which they found so interesting and loved to eat. 

One of the highlights of this first day tour was the visit to spider web rice field located in the west part of Ruteng which takes 30 minutes drive. Again, we were just so lucky we could see all the paddy fields were almost done planting. So green and all of the parts could be fully planted due to having so much water after the rain. This served us an incredible experience that made us could not stop taking lots of pictures.

According to the the chief of Ruteng Pu'u traditional village, Bapa Lambertus, Spider web rice field is primarily made based on the structure of the traditional house belongs to Manggaraian tribe which is cone shape and middle structure inside. Each triangle form indicates the distribution of the rice field for each family in the village and centralized in the middle known as “Lodok” at the paddy field and “Siri Bongkok’’ in the main house of the village (mbaru gendang). As this paddy field located about 1.100 m above sea level, the farmers could only harvest twice a year, December and July that is just enough for their daily consumption not for sale.

Spider web rice field, Cancar

The last 3 hours of the part was off the highway with an hour drive on bumpy road. We arrived in Dintor late afternoon, we could not believe if we had done long journey even in some bumpy roads. Ben said it was because of mango meanwhile Tim said it was because of Karoeke. 

Wae Rebo Lodge, Dintor

Our place to stay was in Wae Rebo Lodge located in the middle of the rice field with a stunning view of Mules island. When I translated mules as stomachache in English, Ben continued his jokes saying we visit dangerous islands of diarrhea and Denge island (a last stop before trekking to Wae Rebo), something that I have just realized that I took them to death islands. Anyway, our ancestors were just jokers as well, they knew it would be funny names. However, we all agreed that our tour at day 1 was so blessed. No rain, no storm like the other day, and beautiful green forest. This was a very fortune journey of January.