14.11.10:

It was too early to fathom what was going on, but I seem to have found my way into a taxi and it seems to be heading to the bus station.  These are good signs.  I think I know where I have to go and I think that it takes three hours to get there.  The guy is telling me I can buy a ‘through ticket’ which will include the ferry to the neighbouring island of Lombok as well.  Okay, sure.

I woke up on the bus having dreamt that I had just been driven onto the ferry to Lombok.  I looked around.  I had been driven onto the ferry to Lombok.  Excellent.  It would seem I’ve been doing this kind of thing so long I can now do it in my sleep.

Goodbye Bali.  Goodbye Neil, Paul, Justin, Simon and all the brilliant, brilliant people I’ve met over the last couple of weeks.  I can see why people find it hard to leave Bali, I did.

Arriving in Lombok, I wanted to get taken to the other side of the island, popped on another ferry and taken to the island of Sumbawa.  Luckily, that’s what the bus driver also wanted to do and I was happy to let him.  So another short ferry trip and I was in Maluk on the western tip of Sumbawa wanting to go east.  There was a bus leaving in less than an hour that was going where I wanted it to go.  This was like shooting fish in a barrel.

What’s more, the helpful tout dude offered me a through ticket for the ‘fast boat’ to Labaunbajo, Flores – the place from where I can get another ferry to Indonesian West Timor (East Timor hopefully being country 183 of The Odyssey Expedition).  I settled into my seat on the bus as it sped off into the night.  Tomorrow I would be in THE LAND OF THE HOBBITS.  No, really.