Indonesia: How to meet a Komodo dragon
- Where To Go Next By I&P
- Nov 25, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 2, 2022
After Bali, we flew to Labuan Bajo (LBJ), the main town in Flores, an Indonesian island east of Bali and Lombok. LBJ is famous for being the closest port to go to Komodo Island and see the legendary Komodo dragons.
Flying from Bali to LBJ should normally take 1h15. But for us, it took 4h and our flight was not even delayed at first. When we were about to land at LBJ, because of the lack of visibility due to low clouds and heavy rain, the pilot interrupted the landing mid-way and pulled up to go around and try again. However, after a few minutes he told us that we would need to go to Lombok and wait there until the weather gets better. We're starting to know Lombok's tarmac pretty well, without ever leaving the plane!
Once in LBJ, we just had time to have dinner before going to bed, as our day trip would start at 6am the next day to go to Komodo National Park.
We booked a day tour with the Ocean Queen, a very nice speed boat for 30 people and a helpful and competent crew of 5.
The tour included 6 stops:
The first was Padar Island - here you will see a beautiful scenery with 3 beaches on one single island. But you have to earn the right to see that beautiful view with a steep climb of more than 800 steps. But once you're up there, even if it is crowded with tourists and one of the beaches is filled with trash, the view is still amazing.
Then we went to 4 different places to swim and snorkel:
Long Pink Beach, where reddish sand makes part of the beach look pink - there you can see some beautiful corals and bright colored fish very close to the beach.
Taka Makassar Island, which is a tiny sandbank surrounded by very low depth waters. It was the most beautiful spot we visited! We saw a sea turtle from the boat and, once in the water, we saw beautiful corals as we moved into deeper waters and a lot of big starfish.
Manta Point, as the name suggests, is the spot to see manta rays. Unfortunately, there were none that day but it was still a unique experience! The waters were so deep that all you saw was a dark blue void. And while swimming you could feel something weird all over your body, like small, electric, needle-like pinches. We later found out that we were being stung by small jellyfish!! 😳 And once we were back on the boat, we could see them in the water! But don't worry, these are not deadly and leave no marks. It was the strangest feeling though!
Lastly, Kanawa Island. Unfortunately, this was the most disappointing of the stops as the island was very dirty. You could see some pretty fish next to the pier as people were feeding them but that was about it.
Of course we were snorkeling so no photos of fish and corals for you, sorry!
But we saved the best for last - Komodo Island! More than 1700 Komodo dragons supposedly live there, and I am sure there were at least 30 tourists around each of those dragons. 😆
We were lucky to see 5 of those legendary beasts (2 adults and 3 youngsters). I say luck because they live alone and hidden away as they are cannibals - it would be a shame to eat your friend or your sibling, no? In addition to their own kind, they eat mostly deer, buffalo and sometimes a tourist or two. I am mostly joking but in the past 50 years, they reported 24 attacks on humans, including 5 deaths (the ranger said three Swiss tourists strayed from the marked trail and were completely devoured). We saw some abandoned flip flops while walking through the forest...maybe there was a 6th victim? 🤭
So you have to be very careful and can only go on the island accompanied by rangers and during the hot hours of the day when the dragons are lethargic. If they come for you, you can always climb a tree or run in a zigzag pattern, as the adults can run up to 20km/h but only in a straight line.
The following day we went to visit Labuan Bajo.
LBJ is a small and hilly port town hit hard by the heat during the day and geared towards tourism related to the Komodo National Park and Overland tours (crossing the whole island of Flores).
But it is also a nice community of people. On Sunday, while walking around town, we heard some music and decided to go see what was happening. We found a local community event with karaoke and food to commemorate an older person. They immediately came to us, explained what the event was and invited us to join them for a meal. Unfortunately, we had just had lunch and really wanted to explore the rest of the town, so we politely declined and thanked them for their kindness.
We continued visiting LBJ and found a really nice restaurant serving fish and chips, called Buddy Cafe de Tree. During dinner, we kept hearing something falling on the rooftop (made of a simple plastic sheeting). Turns out the noise came from bits of fruit falling from the tree above the restaurant, after being eaten by small "flying foxes", a.k.a. bats!
We were very lucky to have found such a good restaurant with bats flying and eating just above us! Dinner and a show!
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