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Published: September 28th 2008
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At Anchor
Anchoring for a swim at a little island near Rinca Greetings from Senggigi in
Pulau Lombok, the easternmost island in the Nusa Tenggara chain. I left Labuanbajo on the island of Pulau Flores by boat where I booked a 4-day passage aboard a tiny deathtrap named the
Tiga Putra, which means "three brothers" in Bahasa Indonesian. I asked our ever-cheerful captain, Iman, if any of the brothers who owned the boat were aboard for the trip: They weren't. Apparently they knew better than to go to sea in this rickety bucket. In fairness, even though the boat lacked even the most basic safety features (like fire extinguishers, liferaft, flares, radio, and compass, to name a few) it was pretty solidly built, and we stayed pretty close to shore the entire time. Our captain, who described himself within the first five minutes of our time onboard as a "crazy Muslim" was good guy and always in good spirits, and he got us safely to our destination, so I guess that's what matters. The boat was really just a stripped out, wooden, coastal freight carrier of less than 60-ft in length. I as well as Gilles (the only other passenger onboard) slept on rolled out mats on top of the wheelhouse. A luxury
LabuanBajo Harbor
A nice little town on the west coast of Pulau Flores. It was from here that we caught the boat to Komodo and Lombok cruise, this was not, but we did manage to go to and see some pretty incredible stuff along the way. Gilles, my travel companion for the trip, is a 32-year old guy from Fribourg, Switzerland (the French part, as I learned); a really down-to earth guy, and whom I really enjoyed hanging out with on the trip. Interestingly, Gilles has a little bit of a self-confessed destructive streak which I learned about: His partial resume includes, but is by no means limited to, the destruction of a large window (700 euros), crystal lamp, expensive camara (600 euros), his brother's arm, a bed, and at least 30 plastic lawn chairs including three chairs in on day,by his ownadmission. In my brief acquaintance with him, I witnessed him destroy a tea mug and a plate. He was just using the plate the same way I was using mine, but somehow, he broke his (?). Regardless, He's a good guy and I'd be happy to travel with him again, although I probably wouldn't lend him my Ipod.
Along the trip, we visited several crystal-clear coral reefs where the snorkeling was spectacular.
Red Beach, an amazingly colorful and healthy coral reef was the
A Face Only a Mother Could Love
Well, that's not exactly true since Komodo dragons actually are cannibalistic. best snorkeling that I've ever encountered, with a wide array of the most colorful sea life I've ever seen. I now know why Indonesia is held as the holy grail of scuba destinations. I was really blown away by it, even just snorkeling. We also paid a visit to the islands of Rinca and Komodo which comprise the
Komodo Islands National Park - home of the infamous and quite scary looking Komodo dragon. Now, what one must realize, as I was made instantly and alarmingly aware, is that there are no controls or barriers as to where the dragons may roam... and they go everywhere. The best way to put it is that when you step foot onto Komodo or Rinca Island, you effectively enter the food chain, although the last confirmed human fatality by a dragon was about 1-yr ago. Gilles and I left the boat as it moored up to the ranger station dock on Rinca Island and approached the little rangers' hut: A little house perched on 2-meter stilts so as to prevent the dragons from entering their living quarters. As we were less than 6 feet away from the hut, a ranger casually said to us,
Water Buffalo
Imagine our surprise when we met this guy on the path! 1500-lb water buffalo are the main staple of dragons' diet. "Be careful." We stopped in our tracks and realized that we had almost walked right on top of a group of five dragons lying concealed in the shade underneath the hut. These dragons were all between 6-b ft long. We beat a controlled but hasty retreat up the ladder and into the hut, eyes as wide as saucers. Gilles, who was less than 4-ft from a 7-8 ft dragon reflected on how close he was to becoming lunch meat and nervously lit a cigarette. I'm not saying that I panicked or anything, but I could definitely feel where a little bit of pee had escaped from me during the whole episode. I just hope that I didn't make any girlish yelping/whimpering noises. If I did, no one mentioned anything about it. At this point, I was fully ready to walk (e.g. run screaming) back to the boat... forget about taking a tour of the island; but I as well as Gilles manned up to do the 5-km tour through dragon country. Our guide (you'd have to have a deathwish to walk into the island without a guide) carried an 8-ft staff that he said would be used for bonking any
What, Me Worry?!
This is about as close as would dare go to one of these dragons. This one (top right of photo) was about 7-8 ft long, stalking an injured buffalo that was also nearby. aggressive dragons in the snout, which apparently is pretty effective of thwarting an attack. I would have prefered that he had a shotgun though. Actually, I would have prefered that I had had a shotgun, to be honest. Nonetheless, my confidence grew as we trekked inward once I realized that I would not really ever have to worry about out-running a dragon if one attacked - as I understand they can run pretty fast - I'd just have to outrun Gilles. Sorry Gilles. But, alas, we didn't get eaten and saw some pretty amazing wildlife including dragons, water buffalo, macacks, deer, wild boar, cockatoos, eagles,and a bunch of other critters, all in their natural environments. We even came within about 5 meters of one dragon stalking an injured buffalo. The dragons will often attack a prey, inflicting a wound which almost always leads to infection and death of the animal days/weeks later due to the infectious bacteria that the dragon cultures in its mouth. The dragon will follow the animal through smell (they can sense an injured animal at up to 3-km) and will literally wait for it to drop before tucking in for a big feast. During the trek
Macack Scampering
Although these guys are pretty cagey, they too occasionally get gobbled up by dragons. we also learned that the islands are home to cobras and pit vipers. We didn't see either species, although I'm pretty sure some of them saw us as we tramped through their back yards.
I'm holed up in Senggigi for a few more days where I plan to hike up Ganung Rinjani, a 3700-meter volcanic peak and the 2nd highest summit in Indonesia. It will be a 3-day trek and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll have to wait here for a few days before beginning as it's the end of Ramadan today and apparently everything sort of shuts down as everyone celebrates being able to eat, drink,smoke, etc...the stuff that they had to forego (from sunrise to sunset, atleast) when Ramadan began. I've been told that this place will really come alive as the end of Ramadan is a big celebration and one where local families take time to get away and blow off a little bit of steam. Should be interesting, and hopefully it will also mean the end of the muezzlins' morning call to prayer that goes off like an air-raid siren every morning at 4:30 and again throughout the entire night (atleast until the
Dragon Near the Beach
This guy was just sunning himself for a while. early hours).
On another note, I'm beginning to realize that one could spend a year in Indonesia and still not see nearly everything. Since I've really enjoyed my trip through this diverse country very much so far, I've decided to alter my plans a little bit and basically cut Malaysia out of the picture, except for my transit up to Bangkok for my flight to Nepal in about a month. I'll just have to play it by ear. Thanks for checking in on me. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
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Gilles
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Hey Ken !!! I just saw you're blog entry about the Rinjani trek (looks gorgeous.. i'll fix my knee problem and try to do it when i come back with Anais !). We had some nice quiet days on Gili Meno with Vianney and Kevin). Now i'm in Ubud for the last week (finally no more muezzins ;-)). One more thing to notice. As i was one more time testing Newton's Law on Physics, i broke a glass ful of Arak on our terrasse in Gili Meno. But i'm quite proud i didn't anything else in between (even the plastics chairs for the Ledong danses yesterday) I hope you could arrange your visa problem !!! Hasta la vista hombre ! Cheers Gilles