Most Inspirational Moment
The Gunang Leuser National Park seeing the orang-utans and other primates. The rangers are very knowledgeable and know the history of the individual orang-utans in the area. The three days on the wooden boat in the islands of the Komodo National Park adjacent to Flores. Some wonderful sunrises and sunsets. Seeing the first Komodo dragon walking across the path in front of us on Rinca - giant lizards with a rather nasty bite! The snorkelling was superb - I've never seen so many different types of fish or so many of them on the coral reefs. Apart from when some of us snorkelled off the boat at Manta Point, the water was very clear.
Thoughts on Group Leader
We had two - Elly in North Sumatra; Wira in Bali & Flores. Elly is a very experienced tour leader and provided much useful practical knowledge i.e. you should wear decent walking boots/trainers in the NP with long trousers tucked into socks. It was steep in places and slippery (we had very heavy rain) and there were leeches! She was good company and we learnt a lot about Indonesia from her. Wira wasn't quite as practical, but was very enthusiastic and arranged 2 birthday cakes. He was also a dab hand with the first aid kit.
Advice for Potential Travellers
The boat isn't big and has very little storage space, so leave your big bag at the hotel in Labuan Bajo and take just what you need for 3 days. Do take a T shirt to swim in whilst snorkelling/taking the dinghy to the beach - it is hot! As a group we decided to dispense with the air conditioning as it meant running a noisy generator all night; most of us slept on deck - much cooler and very peaceful when there weren't other boats running their generators. Do take walking boots/trainers on the central Bali day - it's quite steep descending to the lava fields. The Swastika Bungalows offered a 24 hour laundry service, or you can get your laundry done by one of the local stalls, just outside the hotel. This was halfway through the trip, so worked well. Hardy, the supermarket very close to the hotel, sold just about everything, including the local Hatten wine (very drinkable).