March 13th: Moni

We left Riung around 6AM, drove around the village for about 40 minutes, then headed out. 2 Hours later we stopped for half an hour in the town of Enmai, where I met this man selling chickens. Two and a half hours later I arrived in Ende, caught a motorcycle taxi to the other side of town to the other bus stand which services Moni.

As I got off the the motorcycle, I was surrounded by numerous men trying to get me to go in their mini bus. Each person said their bus was going to Moni and that the other bemos weren't. What to do? So I chose one, and then waited. Finally, the driver came. "Let's go," he said, and we were off, right behind another bemo. Then we passed the other bemo, drove for another minute, and pulled over. The other bemo pulled along side us. We were then told to all get out and board the other bemo. Then we turned around and headed right back to the bus stand, where we sat for a few minutes before heading for Moni. One and a half hours later I finally arrived in Moni (quite a long day).

Bintang Lodge, my guest house

This is the patio in front of my room (this picture is for Christy, who likes to see details of where I am staying)

The view from my patio

I didn't use the mandi (bath) in the room once in the three days that I was in Moni. But I did go to this waterfall every day, even at 7AM in the morning before I caught my bemo out of Moni.

The falls are too powerful to swim into them, but you can edge around them and behind them, or you can swim under them to the cliff behind. This picture is to show scale (I estimate the falls are 10 meters high (about 30 feet). Setting up this time delay photo was a little tricky.