indonesia - Legian bali to Kelala Sumba - april 2010

After a night’s rest in Legian, Bali I was ready to move on to Sumba.

I caught a taxi to the domestic airport in the morning and bought a ticket to Waingapu in Sumba. It cost 725 000 rupiah with Merpati. I checked in and this time my surfboard cost 125 000 rupiah. The domestic departure tax was 30 000 rupiah.

I called David at Mr David’s resort at Kelala in Sumba to book a car and check room availability. There was no problem with rooms and a car would be at Waingapu airport to pick me up. The car was 500 000 rupiah.

The flight was good with no problems. At Waingapu, I walked from the plane to the small air terminal for a ‘customs’ and my bags. These arrived a short time later but the area was so small it was difficult to get my surfboard without bowling a couple of people over.

The car hadn’t arrived but one of the transport drivers rang David and he ended up driving me the 2 hours to Kelala.

The drive was amazing. We didn’t pass through one town, even though they were indicated on the map. Basically, a town constituted a number of houses and huts that were in reasonable proximity to each other. The traffic consisted of a handful of cars and about two handfuls of motorbikes. The road was one lane and in reasonable condition. The landscape was very dry and very flat with some crops and livestock.

Nearer to Kelala the landscape became a bit hillier and the vegetation lusher. It was raining at this point onwards. The final leg into Kelala was on a sandy road/track.

The resort was very open and there were no problems with my arrival. I was the only guest there.

I checked into my ‘villa’ which was a large clean room on stilts with a large veranda and checked the beach/surf. The surf looked okay but a bit wild and the beach/sunset was awesome.