Flores to Bali via Komodo and Gili T.

We spent our last couple of weeks in Indonesia in Nusa Tenggara, travelling from Flores to Lombok and then back to Bali before flying to Perth.

We flew to Labuan Bajo, a town in western Flores, Nusa Tenggara. This is one of the main gateways to the Komodo National Park, where you can find some of the best diving in the world. Only problem is, the diving here is not easy due to strong currents and requires it a lot of experience, which we obviously do not have. One diver we met described it very good when he said that a mountain climber would not think about climbing Everest as one of the first climbs. 

But even if you are not diving, the western tip of the island of Flores and the islands of Komodo and Rinca have a lot to offer. The most obvious attraction would be the Komodo dragon, the largest lizard in the world.

Lucky as we were, we met Céline and Sébastien a really nice French couple at the airport and shared the ride in to Labuan Bajo with them. Upon arrival in the harbour town, we went straight to the jetty to hire a local boat for a two-day trip to Komodo and Rinca. It didn't take very long to find a boat and the price was really ok in the end, 1,8 million for all four of us after negotiations. The asking price was just over 2 million Rp, which is roughly 180 €.

We set off early the following morning, or that was the plan. Arrivng at the boat at 6:45, the boatman told us that we had to wait for his friend to come from church before we could go. That's how Indonesia works though, you can never be sure that any kind of transport will leave on time. After a while you get used to it. At eight o'clock, the friend arrived with the food and we were ready to go.

First stop was Rinca, one of the two larger islands in the Komodo National Park and home to 1,300 Komodo dragons. It was almost midday and really hot, so we didn't expect seeing any of the famous Komodo dragons in the wild. Luckily for us, a deer had died close to the camp that very morning and a little dragon had been seen eating it. The dragon was still eating when we arrived there. Even though it was just a small one, this was not an animal that you would go too close to. It is difficult to describe, but just the sight of a Komodo dragon kind of freaked me out. They look very vicious and their claws are long. Knowing that their bites are very bacterious does not really help either or maybe it is a good thing to know that Komodo dragons do not kill you instantly. They bite you and then wait for the bacteria infection to do the job for them. It can take up to three weeks for a water buffalo to die. Luckily, they don't hunt humans that often and the adult dragons only have to eat once a month. And if you should be unfortunate enough and get bitten, antibiotics and cleaning the wound with alcohol will prevent you from dying.

Breakfast, yummy...

The little dragon was the only one we saw in the forest, but we did come across a water buffalo and some megapods (funny looking birds) on our one hour trek. On the way back to the boat, we saw four or five quite large dragons sleeping by the camp kitchen.

On the way from Rinca to Komodo, we did some snorkelling and we went past Batman Island, a small island inhabitated by loads and loads of large bats. When the boat passed by, the boat men started clapping and cheering to get the bats out of the trees. It was really impressive to see the air fill up with bats. After Batman Island, we moored at Komodo fishing village, where we spent the night on the boat.


Next day, we got up early and left for Komodo National Park at seven. We decided to take a two hour trek here and were hoping to see some dragons in the wild. The Komodo dragon is cold blooded and need the sun to warm up, so they leave their sleeping pits in the morning to seek a sunny spot. This is one of the best times to spot them, since they are moving. Later in the day, they will just lay around and be lazy.It proved to be a good choice getting up early, we saw eight dragons that morning, nine if you count the one in the camp as well.

Mr. Latif, our ranger in Komodo was very happy to see so many dragons.

Komodo dragon male

On the way back to Labuan Bajo, we did some more snorkelling (well, the others did. I had an ear infection that didn´t want to go away, so I gave up). At Manta Point, the others got into the water and spotted at least eight manta rays floating in the current. The largest one was around five meters across. Gigantic and very elegant creatures.

Back in Labuan Bajo, we opted out for a couple of days Robinson Crusoe style on Seraya Island, one hour off the coast of Flores. We spent three amazing days here on a beach with nothing more than a couple of basic beach huts and a restaurant. The island had electricity and running water between 6 pm and 10 am, the rest of the time you had to cope with sea water. We had amazing neighbours (Steffen and Regina from Germany/Austria and Thomas and Tony from Germany/US) and spent hours sitting in the restaurant talking with them after each meal. Between the meals, we chilled, read books or snorkelled.

We had decided to go to Lombok by boat to avoid the tedious transportation over the island of Sumbawa, so we booked a boat tour which included a stop in Rinca to see the Komodo dragons, one stop on Mayo Island to go to a waterfall and several snorkelling stops. All in all, the trip to Lombok would take two days. We had a great time on the boat as well and had really nice company.

Going by boat was certainly more relaxing than the shuttle bus/ferry option, which takes only 24 hours from Labuan Bajo in Flores to Sengiggi or Mataram in Lombok, but includes over ten hours bus ride across Sumbawa.

We did not stay in Lombok long though, but went straight for Gili Trawangan, the largest of the Gili Islands, to finally dive again. Because I had caught a light cold on the boat, we did not dive until our third day on the island. The diving was nice, we saw quite a lot of fish and some nice coral, but it was not as good as the Liberty wreck in Tulamben. Somehow, Matthias' mask squeezed on the way up, and a blood vessel in his left eye burst and he looked as if he had been in quite the fight. We decided that this was the sign, we were not supposed to be diving, so we took it to snorkelling instead and spent the last days on the island on the beach. Some of the people from the Flores-Lombok boat trip went to the Gilis as well, so we spent some nice evenings in their company.