Kelimutu's gateway — three crater lakes that change colour independently, Flores ikat weaving, and the island where Sukarno was exiled
Ende is a small port city on the south coast of Flores, wedged between two volcanic peaks — it is the gateway to Kelimutu, one of the most extraordinary geological phenomena in Southeast Asia, where three crater lakes at the summit of a single volcano maintain completely different colours (ranging across teal, turquoise, black, dark red, and white depending on the year and volcanic chemistry) through independent geothermal processes. The city itself has a significant historical importance as the place where Indonesia's founding president Sukarno was exiled by the Dutch from 1934–38, where he…
Ende's history is shaped by its position at the crossroads of Flores — a Portuguese colonial outpost from the 16th century, later Dutch, then Japanese during WWII. Sukarno's exile to Ende (1934–38) and subsequent exile to Bengkulu (1938–42) were the Dutch colonial administration's attempt to neutralise Indonesian nationalist sentiment; instead, the years in Ende gave Sukarno time to develop the philosophical foundations of Pancasila, Indonesia's state ideology of five principles. The city was heavily damaged in the 1992 Flores earthquake (7.8 magnitude), which triggered a tsunami that killed…