Today was supposed to be the day the ferries started running again. Yet I am still here in Labuan Bajo, and my ferry is still anchored here in the bay. Not moving at all. And the weather still doesn’t look great (although we don’t get much wind here because Labuan Bajo is quite sheltered in a bay we do get crazy rain showers a few times every day).

That’s my ferry, the big blue and white one

Anyhow, the latest forecast now is that the ferry will leave on Sunday. This time the forecast sounds more accurate though so I am hopeful (granted I am a hopeless optimist, so you should probably take that with a grain of salt).

Now leaving on Sunday would mean that I am 8 days delayed out of Labuan Bajo and that is officially past the limit of messing all of my plans up completely. Basically the boat I am using to get my bike from Indonesia (Medan) to Malaysia (Penang) goes once per week (every Tuesday). To make the boat I was planning to take (Feb 21) I would have to drive ~10h/day for 7 days straight once I arrive with the ferry in Surabaya. Not only is that just straight up painful, it would also mean missing a bunch of cool things I want to see on Java and Sumatra. So I will aim for the next boat instead (Feb 28), giving me another week to actually have an enjoyable journey through the rest of Indonesia.

This complete collapse of all plans is great, because it gives me something to do now that I’m stuck here in Labuan Bajo with nothing to do. Some of the challenges (or propportunities, if you will) I am now facing:

• Everything I have booked in Malaysia, Thailand and beyond will have to be rescheduled (bike service in Bangkok, various hotels etc)
• My Indonesian Visa expires on Feb 26, two days before the boat leaves… so I will probably have to spend one day flying to Singapore and back to get another 30 days Visa in Indonesia
• Because I will have to take a flight out of Indonesia and back, I am not able to send my passport away to the Iranian embassy to get my Visa for Iran (which was originally the plan since I don’t need my passport as long as I stay in the country) so I will have to build in time later to do that

I will do a full damage assessment once I get moving again, but this cyclone has probably added 2 weeks to my trip with all the knock-on effects accounted for.

Over and out,
Magnus