When I wanted to return from Kupang to go to the West, I was looking at several options. As mentioned in the previous post, the ferry to Ende was rescheduled to a later date and therefore too late for my plans. The first alternative I learned about was Larantuka, but the ride from Larantuka to Ende would have taken the two days I would have missed by waiting for the ferry to Ende. So I looked into going to Sumba in order to reach Sumbawa from there since I've already been to Flores before. While discussing this with the ferry company I learned that this ferry has an intermediate stop in Aimere, which is the best solution: it's closer to Labuan Bajo than Ende and thus Sumbawa is even faster to reach.

I took the ferry from Kupang to Aimere on Thursday, April 18th. The ferry, KMP Ranaka, left at noon and arrived on Aimere the next morning at 8:00am. The price was 582.000 IDR. Like before, they sold me a ticket for the motorcycle category 2, although 3 would have been correct. This time the guy checking the ticket told me it's not correct, so I went back to the ticket guy and he gave me one of category 3, without any extra charge (would have been just 8.000 IDR anyways).

The ship is the exact same model as the KMP Sirung, but oh boy did they make it worse: they teared out all beds of the non-VIP dorm and put in chairs. They also put in chairs in all the passages without windows, so those pages are now very narrow and if you have to sit there you're close to the elements. It was very full unfortunately. Basic food was sold. I could get into the VIP room for 25.000 IDR extra, which was a little cold, but nobody was smoking. Unfortunately I didn't get a bed, so I had to share the couch with other people, leaving me to sit while sleeping. We could go to our vehicles at any time. Interestingly this time we got a security briefing at the beginning, like on an airplane.

All in all one of the worst experiences since I couldn't sleep lying down and I was either in the cold VIP room or the smokers room outside.

Pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1SU5Fkh59ZteMj877

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