Indonesia Part One- Bali and Flores

We arrived in a sunny Bali around mid-afternoon, booked a taxi and met a friendly, Hawaiian shirt wearing driving who took us to our 4 star hotel. Anyone who says backpacking is about roughing it clearly doesn’t use the booking website- Agoda, we secured a £140 room in the Horison hotel for £17, including buffet breakfast.

The hotel was a little out of the main town but fitted our plans perfectly as we were only using this visit to Bali as somewhere to secure all our transport to Labuanbajo, Rinca, Lombok and the Gili islands, we are also returning back to Bali later on to see temples, volcanoes and the occasional beach so this suited us perfectly. We utilised the strong WiFi, buffet breakfast, pool and Bali sunshine for three days, did a fair bit of swimming but in truth we did sweet FA.

The real Indonesian adventure started when we arrived in Labuanbajo, one of the main islands in the Flores region and the gateway to Rinca island, aka Komodo National Park. I am the biggest fan of the Komodo Dragon, for as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by these prehistoric giants and dreamt of the day I’d see them in the wild. But like so many things in life I assumed my chances of ever getting to Komodo National Park was nothing more than a pipe dream, so when we arrived in Labuanbajo and booked our boat to Rinca for the following morning it is fair to say I was excited. In fact I didn’t really sleep much that night, like a kid at Christmas I was absolutely buzzing at the prospect of seeing my reptilian idol in his natural habitat. 

That evening one of the guesthouse staff, who we’d booked the boat through knocked on our door and told us that the trip couldn’t happen tomorrow. My heart sunk but thankfully this was not the case, what he meant was that they hadn’t found anyone else to go on the boat so we’d be going by ourselves…Dragons and a private boat it was getting better.

We set off early the next morning and travelled the two hours to Rinca, the landscape was spellbinding, I swore when I left the Philippines that I’d seen paradise, I’d seen the best the earth had to offer but this journey trumped anything I saw there, or anywhere else for that matter. My jaw spent the whole journey on the floor, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The endless water was still like a millpond and clear as anything, the sky was perfectly blue and all around us were hundreds of volcanic formed islands, jutting high out of the sea, the slopes were covered in greenery. Each time you thought there were clouds in the sky you’d realise they were in fact just more islands in the distance. The waters here have Dolphins, sharks, tuna, barracuda and all many fish in them and from time to time we’d see things leap out of the water in the distance. In the air were eagles which circled and dived into the waters.

Absolutely nothing broke your view of mother nature, it was pure and untouched and like nothing I’d ever seen before. The view was so spectacular I almost forgot why I was even here.

But as we moored up beside a sign welcoming us to Komodo National Park I very quickly remembered, we were met by a guide who took as to the main office where we paid our fees, picked our route then set off.

My hopes and dreams of seeing a wild Komodo Dragon were now in the hands of lady luck, Rinca is ginormous, thickly covered with trees, swamps and plenty of places for the dragons to hide the odds were not in my favour but if I was ever going to see one it had to be today.

“DRAGON!!”

We’d only been on the island five minutes and there he was, a 30 year old, 2.5 metre male Komodo Dragon, he walked with a swagger onto the path, past my feet and over to a shaded spot under a tree, laid on his belly, legs akimbo, head down and into a sleepy slumber. I was mesmerised, an actual Komodo Dragon was mere feet away from me. Our guide got his stick at the ready while I was able to move closer and take some photos, I only have a 18-55mm lens and so I had to get close to get the shot. It was surreal, I was living out my dream, I felt at peace with them but the guide wasn’t so keen on me testing this new friendship.

We carried on the trek when Hatty was promptly stopped by the guides stick across her front.

“DRAGONS!!”

The sleepy beasts are so well camouflaged that she hadn’t seen that she was about to step on not one, not two but three adult dragons. We moved back out of nibbling distance and again took a moment to enjoy their company. Two of the dragons were fast asleep, one against a tree and another on the ground, a large male waddled between them, licking them. It looked like he was looking for someone to hang with but they were too sleepy to give a damn. The sleepy male started to snore which was hilarious, the noise was enchanting and a little disturbing. The bored dragon came closer to us so I got Hatty to grab a few photos of me with my mates but as he was getting a bit more active the guide moved us on again.

We turned the corner when something scuttled in front of us, this time it was a young dragon. Unlike the laid back, sluggish adults this one was youthful and spritly. The guide was significantly more wary of him even though he was considerably smaller, less than one metre and thin as anything. But one nip from him and the big boys would soon liven up so we kept our distance from that one.

Komodo’s are capable of eating half their body weight in one sitting, for an average adult male that means dinner can weigh 40kg. They eat any and all types of meat, whole monkeys or pigs, deer, horse, other dragons there really isn’t much that’s safe on the island. They have two techniques for hunting, for smaller animals like the monkeys or baby pigs they just lay and wait in their path then grab them and swallow whole. For the larger animals, water buffalo, horse and so on they utilise the bacteria in their mouth, administer a fatal bite then stalk to the animal for as many days as it takes for the infection to kill them, then when the animal is weak they move in for supper. Some people say they are lazy, I say they are efficient.

We past a Komodo nest where we learnt that we are just outside of mating season, this is good news for us, for had we been a month later then all the males would be fighting and the females who’d laid eggs would be nipping at our heels. I love these beasts but my compassion for them probably wouldn’t put me in any better sted if one made eyes for my tasty trimmings. At over 2 metres long, 90kg they are big, they can run, climb, swim, stand on their hind legs, have a killer bite, viciously sharp claws and a taste for flesh, I’d be a goner.

Females lay around 30 eggs, around 80% of these survive, 20% become feed for snakes, eagles and other dragons. The mother is very protective of her nest, which is dug some 2 metres underground and surrounded by numerous dummy nests to put snoopy dragons off the scent. Once the dragon eggs hatch the young quickly learn to make it up to the tree for protection from a hungry mum. That’s right, once they hatch the maternal façade vanishes and the truth comes out, she was just protecting her lunch.

We encountered a troop of lively monkeys who looked to be setting up an ambush on anyone who had a packed lunch, thankfully they didn’t target us. We stepped over our fair share of fresh water buffalo poo but didn’t see any of the culprits.

We climbed to one of the peaks on the island which offered a surreal, Jurassic Park esque vista, the park was quiet and we were the only people around for miles which made the experience even more special. We went through the jungle, over the swamps and streams but didn’t encounter anymore dragons, that was until we began our walk back to the boat when we saw one in the distance, my belief is that he had popped over to bid us farewell, I’m sure he cocked his hand and gave us a little wave. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

We departed Rinca island and made our way to a neighbouring Kalong island to do some snorkelling. This was initially disappointing, we swam out but there was little more than a few clusters of dead coral, no fish in sight but as we swam around the other side of the boat the ocean came to life.

Corals of greens, purples and oranges and schools of fish darting about around them it was a proper fishy playground and a truly fascinating sight to behold. This marine life was so rich and densely populated it made our ultimate snorkelling experience off Mantigue island in the Philippines look rather bland. We bobbed about for the best part of two hours the whole time experiencing new fish, more coral and an altogether more exciting underwater world than I’d ever known. I know I am guilty of repeatedly saying that whatever I am doing is the “best I’ve ever done” but I really mean it when I say it, this trip has gone from strength to strength and just as I thought I’d seen the best of the world in the Philippines it was fast becoming apparent that Indonesia was about to go one level up. We enjoyed our time at this site so much that we actually ran out of time to visit the second island we had planned, maybe it would be better still but after spending the day in this landscape, seeing wild Komodo Dragons and having such a breath-taking underwater experience my senses were well and truly overloaded. We cruised back to the mainland and departed at Labuanbajo, climbed the brutally steep hill towards our guesthouse, showered and crashed out.

With our Labuanbajo bucket list well and truly fulfilled we spend the next day lounging about, our guesthouse offers superb views out across the harbour and so its no choir at all to sit on the balcony with a book.

For lunch we head into the small town to a place on the front called Mediteraneo, Hatty orders a raw Tuna salad and I have the triple decker Barracuda steak with potatoes and veg, its delicious and afterwards we continue our day of slumber. We lay back on our beanbag chairs and enjoy a large glass of very fruity sangria, soundtrack of the ocean and a cool breeze flowing through the open sided restaurant. It’s a hard life we live.

The day runs away and its soon time for dinner, we pick Made in Italy as our evening hangout not simply because of the brilliant pizzas they do but also for its vantage point for sunset. As we share a fresh pizza and sip on ice cold lime juice the sky begins to fill with oranges, pinks, reds, they dance around the sky, highlight clouds and volcanoes and create an altogether magical end to what will be a truly memorable few days.

The following morning we start at 5.30am with a quick breakfast and then a nail biting ride to the marina on the back of a motorbike, complete with backpacks. We sit in line waiting for the ticket office to open to buy our boat tickets to Lombok. We have a 30 hour journey ahead of us but for that story you’ll just have to wait.

As always thanks for reading.