Friday - Shabbos: We spent Friday morning in the magnificent spa and grounds of the hotel. At about noonish, we sadly packed up and checked out, onto our next destination.
I booked a driver to take us to Seminyak, which is about an hour drive from Ubud.
We chose to spend Shabbos in Seminyak, as that is where Chabad is located.
We stayed in U Paasha Hotel, which was a really nice, uniquely designed, spacious hotel located about a 10 minute walk from Chabad.
We checked in, heated up some food in the Hot Logic and walked around Seminyak for a bit.
Seminyak has a very different vibe than Ubud, which was interesting to see.
Ubud is known for its cultural heritage, beautiful jungle views, culture, arts and shopping. There is a plethora of temples, incense burning at every single door, and statues and idols every few steps.
Seminyak is located on the coast and has a much hipper, stylish, beachy vibe.
An interesting point we noticed all over Indonesia is that they have a great aesthetic and eye for design. The streets look quite run-down and decrepit, but once you step into any store, café, or hotel, they are all decorated beautifully, down to the last detail.
We enjoyed strolling around and then went back to the hotel to get ready for Shabbos.
We had a wonderful Shabbos at the Chabad and whiled away Shabbos afternoon by walking to the beach and seeing the sights and watching sunset from the hotel rooftop bar.
Sunday: We woke up very early Sunday morning and drove to the airport for our next leg.
At 8:00 AM we boarded a quick flight to the nearby island of Flores. Indonesia is made up of more than 17,000 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited, so there are lots of options to chose from. Most people go to islands near Bali like Gili and Nusa Lembongan, which are beautiful and known for surfing and diving, and are just a short boat ride away from Bali.
Flores is a group of islands located in the East Nusa Tenggara province. We chose to go there mainly because of the iconic Komodo National Park, but it offers the same beautiful beaches and diving than the others do.
We landed in the small fishing town of Labuan Bajo and had a quick drive to our hotel, the beautiful
Plataran Komodo Resort & Spa. Plataran is a magnificent hotel, where we once again had a private villa, this one located just steps from the ocean.
They had amazing customer service. We were greeted on arrival by a personal butler who gave us his number on Whatsapp and was available for anything we might need from housekeeping to booking activities etc.
We spent the rest of Sunday enjoying the hotel amenities, biking and boating around the property.
This was the view from our porch:
Monday: We booked a full day tour for Monday and met our boat at the hotel jetty early in the morning. Most of the tours offer the same sort of itinerary, which takes you around to 6 stops in the area to see the sights.
We booked a private tour (this turned out to be one of the biggest expenses of the trip as we preferred a private tour for tznius reasons), which worked in our favor as we didn’t have to wait around for a large group at every stop.
We drove by boat for about an hour until we reached our first stop, Padar Island. We began hiking up to the peak, along with throngs of other people. The hike was not too long or intense, but it is steep and the sun was beating down and it was brutally hot (the hike closes at 10:00 AM for a few hours due to the heat).
The Padar Island hike has some of the most amazing and otherworldly views I have ever seen and gives a very Jurassic Park feel. When we reached the top, we drank in the views for a while and took some photos, it was absolutely incredible and words or pictures cannot capture it.
You’ll notice 3 bays in the photo, one is white sand, one is black sand (from the lava), and one is pink sand (from the coral). All the surrounding mountains are volcanos.
Each of these sand colors is spectacular on its own, but to see them all in one place is amazing.
At the beach we saw some deer drinking seawater, which was a first!
We got back on the boat and headed to our next stop – Komodo Island (I believe most tours do the pink beach first but I requested we do Komodo Island next while we were still in our regular clothes).
Komodo National Park has been on my list for a while and I was so excited to visit. Komodo Dragons are the largest lizards on earth and they only reside here, on these few islands in Indonesia. In addition, it’s incredibly scenic, together with the other surrounding islands (all part of Komodo National Park), and is surreal to visit.
The only way to visit Komodo Island is by boat tour from Labuan Bajo, you can’t fly directly or stay there.
Our guide warned us that it’s mating season so they may not be out and visible, but I was hopeful. Sure enough as soon as we disembarked, we spotted 2 baby dragons wandering around on the beach! I knew from my research that you’re almost always guaranteed to see at least one dragon, so I wasn’t too concerned.
We bought entrance tickets, met our ranger / guide, and began our trek. We did the medium trek, which was about an hour. We saw many interesting things like wild boars, birds, deer, and various plants and fruits that we’ve never seen before and ate off the tree. We were lucky enough to see another dragon, this one an almost grown male.
It was an incredible experience and definitely a bucket list item!
We got back in the boat and headed just a few minutes away to our next stop, the famous Pink Beach. There are a few pink sand beaches in Komodo National Park (honestly not sure which one we visited) and they are amazing.
It’s very hard to capture the pink hue in photos, but it’s an incredible sight in real life. We put on snorkels and spent some time there admiring the incredible coral reefs and underwater life.
Our next stop was Manta Point, which is a spot where it’s likely to spot schools of Manta Rays. We looked from the boat, and then jumped in with our snorkels, but sadly, we were out of luck and did not spot any.
We then sped over to Taka Makassar or the ‘sandy reef’, which is a tiny island in middle of the ocean. It’s a moon shaped pinkish sandbar surrounded by shallow turquoise and incredibly clear waters in every shade of blue, and it looks just otherworldly.
We swam and snorkeled here as well and it was unbelievable. We saw incredible fish and coral of every color!
I’m noticing now that we have no good photos of this area, so I am including a stock photo, but this is actually what it looked like.
Our last stop was Kanawa Island, where we spent some time on the beautfil sandy beach and snorkeled a bit more.
We were then returned to our hotel after about an hour boat ride, where we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and enjoying another beautiful sunset from the hotel jetty.
