It has been 10 hours since Doni, 48, and 22 of his peers set off from Labuan Bajo in West Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara. However, their destination of the traditional kampong of Wae Rebo in Manggarai, Flores Island, is yet to appear on the horizon.
Wae Rebo is a famous tourist destination on the island of Flores and is located 160 kilometers from Labuan Bajo. About eight hours of the 11-hour journey to get there is spent traversing the hilly road that stretches 150 km from Labuan Bajo to Denge, the closest village to Wae Rebo. “It is really hard to get there, despite the widespread promotion,” said Doni, who is from Surabaya.
The road to Wae Rebo has to be taken slowly, because only the first 90 kilometers is smooth and wide, with a width of about 8 meters. The remaining track of road spanning almost 60 kilometers is less than 4 meters wide with many sloping hills and winding turns. Many parts of this section of road are not asphalted.
The available public transportation heading to Wae Rebo are modified trucks, which costRp 30,000 to travel from Ruteng (capital of Manggarai). “If you want to go by rental car, each passenger has to payRp 100,000. The car is for five people,” said Titus Jegadut from Satarmese road, the only access to Wae Rebo and the southern coast of Manggarai.
From Labuan Bajo, renting a car is more expensive, at Rp 1 million a day. It was such a car that Doni and his peers took to Denge.
There is actually another path that can cut the travel time from Labuan Bajo to Wae Rebo to only four hours. However, that road has not been used for a year. One of the bridges on the road, the Wae Wuang Bridge, collapsed during a flash flood in June 2016 and is yet to be rebuilt. With the path cut off by the collapsed bridge, the only remaining access to Wae Rebo is by Satarmese road.
“The people that drive through here every day need to change tires at least once a year,” said Feri, a rental car driver.
Tires need to be changed often for safety reasons, as regularly driving along rocky roads can puncture them at any time. “We don’t have an alternative route. We have no choice but to use this small and damaged road,” Feri said.
No budget
Manggarai Public Works Office head Adi Empang said that the Manggarai administration wanted the access to Wae Rebo to be improved. “We have sent the central government a funding proposal for repairing Wae Wuang Bridge. We have no budget [for this]. We hope that the central government will support the proposal because the bridge is a strategic access for tourist areas,” he said.
Manggarai regent Deno Kamilus said the infrastructure of local tourism spots remained a major issue. In fact, almost all the tourist attractions on Flores faced the same problem.
The regency administration cannot simply disburse funds for improving, repairing and maintaining infrastructure, as several roads leading to the tourist spots were provincial or national roads. “I once fixed (a provincial road) from Bajawa to Riung. I was reprimanded by the BPKP (Development Finance Comptroller), as it was deemed a budget misappropriation,” said Ngada regent Marianus Sae.
State finance regulations do not allow the regency administration’s budget to be used for repairing provincial or national roads, while the regency administration merely wants the access to its tourist attractions to be in good condition. The road to Riung includes heavily damaged sections stretching dozens of kilometers.
A Flores contractor revealed that the state budget for road construction in East Nusa Tenggara was Rp 1.7 trillion. Of this amount, only Rp 410 billion was for Flores, while the rest was for Timor and Sumba, prioritizing areas along the border with Timor Leste.
About Rp 6 billion is needed to repair each kilometer of severe road damage, while repairing minor damage requires Rp 3.5 billion per kilometer. At these costs, the allocated government funding would be enough to repair only 58 kilometers of heavily damaged roads.
This policy is deemed unfair because the central government has named Flores as a national tourist destination. Therefore, the funds allocated to Flores for infrastructure development also needs to be increased. Better infrastructure would enable tourists to enjoy a comfortable and untroubled vacation.
Sikka regent Ansar Rera has thus asked the central government for a more balanced policy. “After continuously promoting Flores tourism, the government should provide [an adequate] budget for the construction and reparation of road infrastructure,” he said.