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Textile tour in Indonesia May 2012. Our best holiday ever was on board a small boat cruising around the islands of Indonesia. We have been contacted by the boat’s owner, Dick Bergsma, who is a Dutch ex-pat living in Bali to alert us to a special cruise he is running as he knows our passion for textiles. We are unable to go having already committed to another trip on the boat in November but thought other textile enthusiasts might like to hear about it. One of the highlights will be a visit to Lamalera on Lembata which was studied in depth by Ruth Barnes and is very difficult to get to other than by private boat. Although the emphasis is on textiles there are other cultural aspects plus the Komodo dragons to keep non-textile mad partners happy. More information can be found at http://www.seatrekbali.com/our-itinerar ... ile-cruise

Hi Sue- Welcome to the Forum and many thanks for this information. I've always wanted to do one of the boat tours of the islands and this sounds like a really good one.

This reminded me of a recent email I received from Threads of Life, in Bali, about textile tours they are offering. Here's the link to their newsletter with descriptions of the tours:

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=c6sc6sbab&v=001fHRgY6J0lNPrf17HtVtDe20C5L5rydLQn9qMCqEogtd7sb3H4dYNiRs3EaT10WEnMTneqik2_qs9QcydUafFe38kdeKhHCqXH-voxTPZ3bfgq0leDFIBjdoj7pLnUxgvdkLl3O4jKntIuWhZRlg09tE6MhqlAc_2dHSu9YcRxGGcOz6TIfVVSgm47JCB3XZt

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Susan Stem

http://www.tribaltrappings.com
http://tribaltrappings.blogspot.com/

I just came back from another trip to Timor, Flores and Lembata and glad to report that the hotels, car rentals and food in Larantuka at the far east end of Flores and in Lawoleba in Lembata are much improved.

It's not hard to arrange a textile tour on your own. I followed the same route that I did a few years ago, landed in Maumere from Bali, visited my old friend Daniel David, who runs a weaving cooperative in Watublapi village, one of my all time favorite places in eastern Indonesia, then he accompanied our small group to a few more weaving villages. One that I had never visited before was the village near the Museum Bikon Blewut in Nita, called Nitikloang. Pak Endy Paji who is the curator of the museum arranged for a dance, music and weaving demonstration as well as textile sales for our group (3). Its' the first time they have done this but want to develop it for their village. It's a FAR nicer experience than the icky SIKKA village by the sea. If you plan to visit the area please ask Pak Endy if you can arrange it...similar to Watublapi but very different music, textiles and dance, so well worth the small expense. We then went to Larantuka and stayed at the very modern Asa hotel, then took the NEW modern ferry which is only one hour to Lembata, an improvement on the normal 3 hour trip. There is also a brand new modern hotel close to the Lewoleba market, called Palm Indah, again with restaurant and which can arrange transport. Out to Mawa and Lamagute again, and there are still women weaving masterpieces in their yards, but this time I did not find as many weavers.

Daniel has contacts with weavers all over the region and he brought one of the women from Lamalera (the famous whaling village) with textiles from her village. They are beautiful and well worth the cost.

If anyone is planning a similar trip it's now very comfortable and easy to arrange. Do contact Daniel David (his father was the original founder of the cooperative in post-WWII Watublapi) for a visit to his home village, and as well, he can take you to his home studio where he is doing fascinating work on his own new dyes and techniques. His email is jentiu1999@yahoo.com and his written and spoken English is very good.