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Published: February 21st 2009
KOMODO!
Giant beasties!By Fokker to Flores to see the Komodo Dragons Sunday 15th February 2009
We got to Dempasar airport from Padangbai after a two hour journey with a driver who believed that a single white line in the centre of the road approaching a roundabout uphill with heavy oncoming traffic meant one had to overtake! On arrival at the domestic air terminal we asked for two tickets for the midday flight to Labuan Bajo in Flores. The conversation went something like this…
Girl in Booth: “No, you cannot go!”
Me: “Is it fully booked?”
GIB: “Not booked”
Me: “Can we buy two tickets then?”
GIB: “No”
Me: “Why not?”
GIB: “You not go today you go tomorrow”
Me: “We would like to go today, please. There is a flight at 12.10”
GIB: “No”
Me: “Is there a plane flying at 12.10 to Flores?”
GIB: “No”
Me: “Is it cancelled?”
GIB: “Yes, I said so! No today, you go tomorrow’
Me: “OK then, please may we buy tickets for tomorrow?”
GIB: “No, you come tomorrow” ….with which she promptly turned away!
We checked in to a nice hotel near the airport and returned to the airport at 7.45 a.m. this morning
Flores Straight
Taken from the air to try for the 10.00 a.m. flight. Without boring readers with the finer details of the following two nightmarish hours, after being told that we had to pay in cash (even air lines here don‘t take credit cards), having found the ATM not working, after trudging to the International terminal, in about 30 degrees, high humidity and fully loaded rucksacks and backpacks, having told dozens of guys we did not need transport or to buy anything, we found that due to so much recent fraudulent ATM usage at Dempasar airport, both Barclaycard and NatWest had blocked our cards! No money! At this point, for the first time since leaving home last August, I felt that I had had enough of travel, felt suddenly homesick for western civilisation and declared that if we didn’t get to Flores today, I wanted to fly to Heathrow via Singapore! We sat down, had a coffee and a smoke then made phone calls to Barclaycard and NatWest, waited 15 minutes for them to reinstate our cards then got some money; we hurried back to Domestic, dripping with sweat and got to the gate just in time to board a Fokker 50 seat prop plane heading
Labuan Bajo Harbour
Lovely view from the balcony. Shame about the room! for Flores.
It was a great flight! Something positive at last! The jungles in Sumbawa and the coral islands in the Flores Straight look magnificent from the air. We had the usual hassle on arrival with taxi drivers so, as John remarked “Shit before and shit after but thank god the little Fokker was alright!” So, here we are in Flores. Our bungalow, up on a hillside, has dramatic harbour and island views. It isn’t exactly clean, we’ve put our own travel sheets and pillows on the bed, strung up our mosquito nets (because the ones provided are filthy and full of dust), lit the mossie coils and hope that we survive the night (the slow little fan is totally inadequate). Tomorrow we shall find out about visiting Komodo, and get sorted out; we’ll try to find better accommodation, because it is John’s birthday tomorrow, sixty three, so he wants a few creature comforts to celebrate, like a proper loo, or at least a clean one, a shower and with any luck some air con, or at least a decent ceiling fan and clean sheets! We don’t mind basic, but we do mind dirty. Despite this inauspicious start, once
we’ve got sorted and chilled out a bit, we shall enjoy Flores; it is exceedingly beautiful and the seas are calmer than they have been for weeks so conditions are perfect for boat trips (many have been cancelled recently due to the rough seas), for snorkelling and for seeing dragons! There are no ATMs here so the budget is tight, and no internet so this blog will be sent at a later date; it’s all a bit off the radar!
Monday 16th February 2009
John Boy’s birthday; thunder, lightning and torrential rain. We have changed accommodation to a lovely hotel about 3 kilometres south of Labuan Bajo and arranged to go to Komodo tomorrow to see the dragons. Well, we have to be ready to go at 6 a.m. and then we’ll be told if the sea is calm enough after the sudden change in the weather. Fingers crossed!
Giant Komodo, colourful coral, tropical fish; a “Highlight Day”
Tuesday 17th February 2009
Today was special and worth all of the angst getting here. We set the alarm for 5 a.m. and woke to silence i.e. no waves crashing on the beach! Great! We
Captain Asis
Docked at Rinca Island had breakfast at the break of dawn and the promise of a glorious sunny and calm day. Everything about today was special! The boat was old but seaworthy, the captain was cheerful and also, as we discovered later on, a man who enjoyed cooking, and the scenery cruising around the little islands in the Flores Straight in the Komodo National Park, which encompasses the two large islands inhabited by dragons, Rinca and Komodo and dozens of tiny islands and reefs, has to be in the Top Ten of the world’s coastal landscapes. We chartered this boat just for ourselves (John’s birthday treat a day late) and so it was quite exclusive: it was also very cheap.
After two hours cruising we got to Rinca (pronounced Rincha) and met our ranger who was our guide on the dragon hunt. He was really informative, spoke good English, and he carried a big stick! Just in case we met a hungry dragon! The Komodo is not only an awesome predator, at the very top of the food chain (they even kill and eat the huge water buffalo that live here) but also he is cannibalistic. The younger smaller dragons are as wary
Komodo encounter
We were not brave enough to get closer! of the giants (three metres long) as humans and other animals are. A villager was killed here only two years ago. The Komodo bites large prey with its bacteria-filled saliva and then simply waits around for it to die. Nice! We trusted our guide and came to no harm and found the whole experience exhilarating. Our hike was about five kilometres and it was very hot and sticky but worth the discomfort. We saw just one single monkey, but also a snake (venomous viper) a huge centipede about 30 centimetres long, five water buffalo and several dragons; such a wildlife experience!
Back on board we ate a really good lunch of fresh fish, rice, noodles, fruit and veg, cooked by Asis, our captain, and then cruised across to a little uninhabited coral island to snorkel. The coral was rich and colourful and the reef was teeming with tropical fish. We had it all to ourselves! Three hours later on, we moored up back in Labuan Bajo, said our “farewells” and headed back to base. This was another one of our “Highlight Days”. Unforgettable!
We considered travelling further east to see the crater lakes in eastern Flores, but the
Water buffalo
Big boy- with big horns! roads are horrendous due to the rain and it is a very long way. So we are Fokker-ing off back to Bali tomorrow, to try to get online and send some blogs and emails, then we plan to head across the central mountains to the northern Balinese coast.
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