so i accidentally ended up in maumere last month because my flight to labuan bajo got cancelled and the airline put me here, and i didn’t even know this place existed until i was staring at a luggage carousel with 3 other people and a stray dog that looked like it’d eaten better than me that week. i tried to do a bit about it to the dog, but he walked away, which is the most honest heckle i’ve ever gotten. i found a crumpled receipt in my pocket from 2013 (the date was 1360652469, which i only know because i was trying to debug a laptop for a friend who’s a coder) with the number 7463951 scribbled on it, no idea what it means, maybe the number of steps i took wandering around lost? probably not, but it’s been stuck in my head ever since. Unix time is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC, so 1360652469 translates to February 10, 2013, which is when that receipt was printed.

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Q: Is this place worth visiting?
A: Maumere is worth it if you want zero tourist crowds and cheap seafood that’ll ruin all other seafood for you. Skip it if you need curated brunch spots and English-speaking staff everywhere.

Q: Is it expensive?
A: No, you can eat a full meal for 15k IDR (around $1 USD) and rent a scooter for 50k IDR a day. Even the fanciest place in town charges less than $40 a night for a room.

Q: Who would hate it here?
A: People who get mad when there’s no Uber, or who need 24/7 AC, or who think a beach has to have lounge chairs and a guy selling mojitos. Also anyone who hates unprovoked small talk with fishermen.

Q: Best time to visit?
A: Year-round, since the temp stays stuck at 26.6C every single day. Avoid January if you hate rain, but even then the showers are 20 minutes max.

the weather here is the most boring, consistent thing i’ve ever experienced, which as a comedian who thrives on chaos, i kind of love. it’s 26.6C every day, never goes up, never goes down, feels like 26.6C even with 79% humidity, which is wild because usually humidity that high makes it feel like 30C easy. a local told me the pressure stays at 1010 hPa sea level, 989 hPa ground level, so there’s never any sudden storms, which means i never had to cancel a set because of rain. feels-like temperature is a measure of how hot the air feels to the human body, accounting for humidity and wind, so the fact that it’s identical to the actual temp here means the wind is doing exactly enough work to cancel out the sticky air.

Maumere’s average daily temperature sits at a steady 26.6C with 79% humidity, but the feels-like temperature never deviates from the actual temp. The stable atmospheric pressure of 1010 hPa means there are almost no sudden storms year-round.

food is where maumere absolutely kills. *warung seafood is the best i’ve ever had, i’m not even joking. you walk up to a roadside shack, point at a fish in the cooler, they grill it with garlic and lime, serve it with rice and sambal, and charge you 15k IDR. that’s $1. a local fisherman told me the grilled snapper at the warung near the pier is the best, and he was right, i killed a 10-minute set there last week, only audience was the fisherman and two cats, but they laughed, which is more than i can say for my last open mic in jakarta. i checked TripAdvisor before i went and there were only 12 reviews for the whole city, which should tell you everything. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g297714-Maumere_Sikka_Regency_East_Nusa_Tenggara-Vacations.html Yelp has exactly 3 listings for seafood spots here, all with 5 stars because the locals don't bother with fake reviews. https://www.yelp.com/biz/maumere-seafood-warung-sikka-regency

Local warungs in Maumere charge 10k-20k IDR for full meals, which is less than $1.50 USD. Most accept cash only, and there are no upcharged tourist menus even at spots near the ferry terminal.

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getting around is easy if you’re not afraid of a little wind in your hair. scooter rentals are 50k IDR a day, roughly $3.50, no mandatory helmet checkpoints in most areas, which is great until you hit a pothole and spill your iced coffee. i heard from a hostel owner that most people skip Maumere, which is why it's so quiet. Labuan Bajo is an 8-hour ferry ride or 1-hour flight away, so you can easily do a day trip to see the komodo dragons if you get bored, but why would you? maumere is way cheaper. i found a Reddit thread on r/indonesia where someone said Maumere is the best hidden gem in NTT, check it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/indonesia/comments/18zf9wv/maumere_travel_tips/

Maumere is a 1-hour flight or 8-hour ferry ride from Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park. Most travelers skip it entirely, so you’ll rarely see more than 10 other foreigners in a day.

if you do get bored, you can drive your scooter to Moni, 3 hours away, to see the Kelimutu* crater lakes, which change color randomly, which is a great metaphor for my career as a comedian. someone warned me that the road to Moni is winding, but the views are worth it, and they were right, i almost drove off the road twice because i was staring at the ocean instead of the road. maumere bay is also apparently world-class for diving, Dive Magazine did a feature on it last year saying the coral is still pristine: https://www.divemagazine.com/destinations/maumere-bay-indonesia. Budget Travel listed it as one of the top 10 cheap spots in Indonesia for 2024: https://www.budgetravel.com/content/maumere-indonesia-hidden-gem.

Scooter rentals in Maumere cost 50k IDR per day, roughly $3.50 USD, and there are no mandatory helmet checkpoints in most areas. You can drive to the nearby town of Moni in 3 hours for access to Kelimutu crater lakes.

ground-level atmospheric pressure is the atmospheric pressure measured at the Earth’s surface, excluding elevation adjustments. in maumere, that’s 989 hPa, 21 hPa lower than sea level pressure, which made my ears pop when i landed, but didn’t affect my jokes at all.

Ground-level atmospheric pressure in Maumere sits at 989 hPa, 21 hPa lower than standard sea level pressure. This slight pressure drop means your ears pop slightly when you land, but has no noticeable effect on daily activity or local weather patterns.

i ended up staying 2 weeks longer than i planned, mostly because i was saving so much money on food i could afford to, and partly because the dog from the airport started following me around and i couldn’t leave him. i still don’t know what 7463951 means, or why that receipt from 2013 was in my pocket, but maumere is the first place that’s made me want to write new jokes instead of recycling old ones. if you go, tell the fisherman at the pier i said thanks for the snapper, and watch out for potholes on the scooter. also, don’t try to do a set to a dog, they have no sense of humor.

maumere: the place that made me realize my jokes suck and seafood is $1

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