In the taxi from the airport to our hotel in Labuan Bajo Rich looked out the window and said “Sidewalks. There are sidewalks.” If you’ve traveled in a developing country you will understand his surprise. Walking in a lot of places – India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Mexico – can be challenging for a multitude of reasons, lack of sidewalks being a big one. Or, big holes or incomplete sidewalks. And, places that do have sidewalks, like a lot of Thailand, will come with a lot of scooters and street stalls to block your way.
Labuan Bajo on Flores Island is one of the “Five New Balis” the Indonesian government has identified and put money into. Technically it’s called the Five Super Priority Destinations Program. The goal is to get travelers to visit other parts of Indonesia, not just Bali. And some of the money has gone into infrastructure. I can’t find when the sidewalks were built, but they have definitely been a good investment for locals and tourists. We picked our hotel because it’s close to the commercial area. We always prefer to walk to dinner and around town instead of taking taxis.
We spent a day just exploring town and debating a trip out to Komodo Island to see the dragons. Our intent in coming to Flores Island was to explore the island, not specifically to see the dragons. Komodo Island is firmly on the tourist track and offers of trips to see the dragons, visit the pink sand beach and walk to the view spot on Padar Island are ubiquitous. Also, so many dive shops and folks offering live aboard boat trips.
The Indonesian government has a plan for periodic shutdowns of Komodo Island beginning in mid 2025 to not only to help the island regenerate, and hopefully to rewild the dragons, but also to encourage tourists to visit other sites and spread the tourist visits to more attractions. We read enough about dragons being fed (and possibly drugged?!?!) to keep them on the beach and easily visible to tourists to give us pause about visiting. At busy times of the year the scrums of folks getting dragon photos looks pretty awful. This isn’t the busy time of year since it’s the rainy season, but we still just couldn’t find the motivation to visit Komodo Island. Maybe on our way back through Labuan Bajo. Maybe.
So what did we do instead of a Komodo Island visit? Well, a big downside to Labuan Bajo is that there are almost zero beaches at which to swim. One public beach close to town is a bit of a mess with trash, and the only other close by beach has been privatized by a fancy new luxury collection Marriott resort. We want to spend our tourist dollars visiting attractions so we hired a driver for the day and headed out to visit two caves.
After lunch we went to Rangko, the small village is the launching place to visit Rangko Cave. A cave with swimming.
The highs of Labuan Bajo were the sidewalks, the views, the two good restaurants we ate dinner at, Happy Banana and Le Bajo, in addition to the local lunch place. The lows were the lack of a swimming beach and the missing mid range small locally owned resorts which you find on Bali. Labuan Bajo had a few fancy expensive resorts (one of which had privatized a local beach), but Rich couldn’t find a good small resort. A swimming pool would have been nice since there was no beach access, but there is a water issue in town. All water is delivered by truck filling large tanks, and drinking water in 5 gal/18 liter bottles.
Less Car, More Life 
Which was the lunch place near the school?
It was called Rumah Makan Kellan.