Flores: Diving, dragons and digs

After Burma we enjoyed a lovely week in Jakarta, seeing friends, mailing boxes home, and untangling bureaucratic details . Or perhaps I should say bureau-cat-ic details, since many of them revolved around the absurd process of preparing to take Susu with us on the plane. Who knew that a former half-starved street kitten of unknown origins would require something as fancy (and expensive) as an exit permit?

Susu demonstrates the Flying Kitty pose, blissfully unaware that she will soon be a flying kitty herself

Anyway, after getting things more or less organized we headed out for the last phase of the Southeast Asia Tour: Flores, Indonesia.

Why Flores?

First, there’s the diving, said to be among the best in the world. Second, there are Komodo dragons. What says “vacation” more than “island of giant reptiles”? Third, there are Hobbits. Or at least bones of Hobbits. Chad has wanted to do a story about the archeological discoveries there since before we came to Indonesia, and I promptly volunteered to be the photographer because I love hanging around dig sites. 

So we set off for Flores. First stop: Bali.