Labuan Bajo Tour Experience, Indonesia

It was back in May 2018 when I went on this impromptu trip with a friend, and it turned out to be one of my most memorable trips so far.

Labuan Bajo is a little town by the sea in East Nusa Tenggara. We took the early morning flight to Bali (cuz it’s the cheapest + we wanted to spend some time in Bali for a bit) and then took the corresponding flight to Labuan Bajo in the afternoon.

We arrived at Labuan Bajo around late afternoon, greeted by our tour leader. Yep we went on a tour @hypetrip for this trip, they’re pretty cool. Got loads of nice photos from this trip, but their underwater cam and drone were broken tho at that time.

Anyways! We started exploring this beautiful fishing town later in the afternoon. We went to La Cecile to look at the beautiful sunset. There were many other beautiful places to see, but sadly didn’t have enough time as the sailing began on the next day.

It’s a 3D2N trip so I’m gonna break it down per day.

Day 1 : Kelor Island, Komodo Island

Sailing trip began in the morning! I still rmb how excited I was. The weather was perfect, sea was nice and quite, and honestly I didn’t get seasick at all. At all. Probably May was the perfect time to go here?

So the activity at Kelor Island was hiking lol. It was relatively a short hike, pretty steep and sandy though. But then we were able to get there with our lovely flip flops, so I guess when there is a will, there’s always a way 😗 lol but tbh yea if you have shoes, then use ’em, it would def make the hiking experience so much better. I underestimated how sandy and steep it would be, if I could visit this place again someday, I’d def wear shoes lol.

We then continued our sailing to Komodo Island to pay a visit to those fierce Komodo dragons. Komodos eat meat and they’re w i l d. So tbh I wasn’t that excited for this part of the trip. On top of that, I magically got my period on that day, right when we arrived at the island 🙂 I was scared af so I told our tour guide + our Komodo Island guide, cuz I kinda didn’t really want to die by getting eaten alive by the komodos. The guides were so nice though- I thought they would send me back to the boat. But they assured me that they would protect me and just told me to not get too close to the komodos.

It’s an interesting destination, however! It’s nice to learn about komodos. They’re rare and could only be found in Indonesia. Quite an experience to get to see these predators up close in the wild.

Onwards to the next destination! It’s Kalong Island (Kalong = bats), ye the island is filled by tons of bats. We didn’t step on the island– we stayed on the boat and enjoyed one of the most mesmerising sunset (ft. massive amount of bats). Like srsly I’ve never seen this many bats before, and they kept on going for like what, 10 minutes?

A unique experience indeed and that was only Day 1! 🤩

Day 2: Padar Island, Long Beach, Taka Makassar

We were supposed to wake up early and view the sunrise at Padar Island. But neither of us were a morning person, so we reached the top of the island close to noon iirc lol.

The hike at Padar Island was quite a bit longer, but they’ve got steps, so it was overall an easier hike. I wore shoes tho just to be safe.

The sun got quite hot and so we continued our sailing to Long Beach. It’s a pretty beach with pink sands and clear blue water. Spent some time here to take plenty of photos. Pretty sure the main activity for this trip was taking photos haha.

We were supposed to swim with manta rays, but we were not able to find them. So we adjusted our itinerary to visit Taka Makassar– a sandy area in the middle of the sea (similar to Derawan Islands’ Pasir Gusung). They’ve got pretty branches for photo props haha.

White Sand + Clear Blue Water at Taka Makassar

Next on the list was enjoying yet another beautiful sunset. I actually don’t rmb the name of the place…. Gili Lawa Laut maybe?

It’s a quiet island with short hike to get to the view. And the stars at night were splendid. Honestly the picture I put here doesn’t do justice to the actual view. That magical view sent me a very beautiful good night sleep.

Day 3: Gili Lawa Darat, Kanawa Island

Gili Lawa Darat was the perfect destination to start our morning. Soaking the warm bright sun, surrounded with hills and blue ocean– I couldn’t complain.

This was the longest hike on the trip, but not the hardest and it wasn’t too steep either. It was long because there was so many points to see, and the hike between those points were short and it wasn’t always hiking.

What I love about Gili Lawa Darat was their golden grass hill- it was the perfect complement to the bright blue sky and deep blue ocean.

The sun was getting high, so we sailed away to Kanawa Island for snorkelling. Underwater view was pretty and it was a bit quiet when we got there. This was the last destination on this sailing trip, so we sailed back to Labuan Bajo around noon to catch our flight to Bali in the late afternoon.