Baby sharks and flying foxes

Today was totally random for me. I arrived yesterday at Labuan Bajo and wanted to find a tour operator that brings me to the Wae Rebo tribe village. While walking down the street looking for the best prices, I met a swiss girl (italian swiss side) that was looking for a snorkeling/sunset trip for today. I just thought it was a good opportunity to share the trip to save some money and we decided to go together. However, while waiting for the guide, an italian family came by, looking for the same kind of trip, so at the end we were 6 people doing the trip haha we went at Kelor island for snorkelling and we saw baby reef sharks coming super close to the shore, very cute. Than we went to another island where the water was not so clear for snorkelling but was ok. At the end we went to Kalong island which is home of thousands of Flying Foxes, huge bats that eat the fruits of Flores Island and they go out for lunch when the sun goes down. They were so many and so big! It was beautiful. In the evening I met with Lydie, my french friend who lives here and we went to this Paradise bar to see a reggae concert. Apparently here reggae music is quite popular and lot of indos have dreadlocks haha I didn’t expect this at all haha
I had fun today but I have a thought I want to express. The family and the other swiss girl were judging a lot the fact that there was some rubbish in the sea and plastic in the drainage channels and felt entitled to tell our guide “you should do better”. I think I have said already that here there is a problem with rubbish and plastic and that usually rubbish is burned on the streets or in canals. It’s not good at all and it’s a huge problem but I was talking about this with Lydie who knows indos better than me and she told me that many families here are paid by the day. This means that sometimes they can’t afford to buy the big bottle of shampoo but they buy the small one because is cheaper and because feeding the family is more important, so of course this means more packaging and more waste. Moreover some of the rubbish in the sea is brought by the sea currents (which are quite strong here) so this means that this rubbish could come from other countries. It’s the government that of course should do something to improve the rubbish problem but also improve wages conditions for the people so that they have a stable monthly pay. I just don’t like the entitlement that some people have to judge a country based on their own standards when they have no idea of the struggles the people who live here have to face. Also complaining that here some people and some guides speak bad english, i mean this island is not like Bali, which is full of tourists. This place is more for Komodo and for diving so there are only this type of tourists and tourism is starting to explode now. I mean italy it’s not better, my dad speaks zero english but when he came to germany he always tried to smile, be kind and express himself with hand gestures. I mean being a bit more kind and understanding would be nice. But many western tourists come here thinking to find the same chic and posh stuff everywhere in Indonesia as you can find in Bali. I don’t want to sound mean but if you don’t like the hygiene or the bathroom of some places just book an expensive resort, stay there and stop complaining, otherwise just accept it.
They told me many italians live here, in fact there are lot of italian restaurants. If I had some money I would buy land or a house here because it seems to be a good investment and also because it’s beautiful. I’ll try to convince my uncle haha ok sorry for the long “pippone” hahaRead more