Here be Dragons
Before we left for Lombok, we provisionally booked a place on a boat trip to Flores and back – the big attraction was going to be a trip to Komodo Island to see the dragons, but we reckoned the journey itself would be a bit of craic and there were going to be thirty others on the boat so it would be a good opportunity to make some new friends.
After our week of lazing about on Gili Trawangan, we took the boat back to Lombok and set off by bus to the other side of the island we’re we would board the good ship ratcockroachtinycabinbutlovelyfood – this was going to be interesting! It actually turned out to be a fantastic few days – we’d sail (mostly motor) through the night and spend the days island hopping. The route went around Sumbawa, over to Flores and back again (the full itinerary is here).
Most of the islands we landed on didn’t have much to them, but some had villages and the locals would usually come down to the beach to have a good gander at us. They’re very smiley people the Indonesians, especially the kids who love practicing their two or three sentences of english (usually “hello”, and “where are you going!?”). We did a lot of snorkelling, but most of the coral was dead, killed by a combination of El Nino and dynamite fishing (which is the method of choice for many over here!) – it wasn’t all bad though, the reefs around Komodo were untouched because of its national park status so they had lot of life about them (all sorts of reef fish, turtles and in some places the biggest clams I’ve ever seen!). While some of us spent our time looking at fish, Neil from Australia preferred to hook them; he caught us one nice big Mackerel for dinner on the last night, which went down a treat!
On the third morning, we arrived at Komodo island and went on our first dragon hunt, but as we were in the middle of the mating season they we all off getting jiggy with it so we didn’t even get a glimpse of one. It was a little disappointing, but the following day we went to Rinca island (which is the other main island in Komodo national park) and spotted one within a few minutes. We then saw some more on a hike into the island; they’re impressive creatures and have picked off a few of the locals living on the island over the years. You wouldn’t think it by looking at them, but apparently they can run at up to 30 mph and count buffalo as one of their favourite snacks!
After a couple more days of sailing, snorkelling, sun-bathing, chatting, singing, reading and island stops we said goodbye to the wonderful Perama crew and all the lovely people we’d met and went back to Bali to get a bit more surfing in. If we’re ever back in Indonesia we’ll probably do this boat trip all over again as it was a great way of seeing parts of Indonesia that are otherwise difficult to get to and it was probably the most enjoyable thing we’ve done on this trip so far.
Tags: Indonesia, Komodo Dragons, Komodo National Park, Lombok, Perama Boat Trip, Rinca island, Snorkelling, Wildlife