Spiderweb Rice Fields

The morning started with yet another transportation c**k up. The Gunong Mas shared van that was supposed to pick me up at the hotel didn't arrive at the appointed time. The hotel called Gunong Mas, who told us they will call back in 15 minutes to confirm. While waiting, I found out that another hotel guest was heading east with a hired car. I asked him if he was willing to give me a ride to Ruteng, and he said yes. Although I ended up paying a bit more than I would have on the shared van, having a hired driver meant that I could visit the spiderweb rice fields en route (I wouldn't have been able to do this with the shared van) so this was a win overall.

Setting off from Labuanbajo around 8.30am, we drove east into the mountains. In the car with me were Pierre, a French retiree and fellow guest at Komodo Boutique Hotel who graciously agreed to share his ride with me, and John, the driver. The drive to Ruteng took us through winding mountain roads. It rained throughout most of the drive, and there was fog as well, so the going was a little treacherous. Along the way, we saw two overturned trucks. John and Pierre turned out to be good company. Interestingly, when John asked me whether I was married and I replied in the affirmative, his next question was: “is it a he or a she". I certainly did not expect this from an Indonesian from outside the major cities. He didn't miss a beat when I said "he", but then, rather bizarrely, he went on to refer to my spouse as my wife. I didn't quite know what to make of this.

We stopped at the spiderweb rice fields at Cancar Village. To get to the viewpoint, we had to hike up a hill. The rice fields are shaped like spiderwebs because of how they are divided when the land is passed down a generation. There were four spiderwebs visible. Amazingly, the clouds cleared just as we got to the viewpoint, and we had a few minutes to take photos before the view was lost again.

I wrote an Atlas Obscura entry for this site: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/spider-web-…

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