This is the arc of islands extending east from Bali towards northern Australia. The islands are from west to east: Lombok, Sumbaya, Komodo, Rinca, Sumba, Flores, the four tiny Pulaus: Solor, Adonara, Lembuta, Panta, and ending on the large island of Timor, now divided into Indonesian West Timor and the separate country of Timor-Leste.
Bali is used as the gateway to the area. The Gili Islands off Lombok see the bulk of tourism, it gets more adventuresome as you head east to Flores to explore Komodo, and from there the crowds and creature comforts are thin on the ground.
LOMBOK
THE GILIS
It was a fast trip from Kuta – an easy one hour bus and then a 1½ hour fast boat to Gili Twawangan, the most western, largest and most hedonistic of the three Gili Islands – next is Gili Meno (mellow, up-scale resorts) and then Gili Air. We had planned on going to Gili Meno but a private boat was 350,000Rp and the public boat leaves only at 9 and 4. The islands are laced with roads, shops, bars, restaurants and small hotels. Besides coming for the party, a main draw are the surrounding coral reefs providing good diving and snorkeling. Apparently sharks, rays and turtles abound and there is lots of little stuff. Around full moon (now), bumphead parrotfish congregate to mate. Another draw is the complete lack of motorized traffic which is more than made up for by the ‘thousands’ of car tire equipped carts drawn by little horses. They are much more dangerous than scooters and all have poop-bags so horse shit is not a problem in the muddy lanes. Back to Islam and the five-times-a-day call to prayer from the nearby mosque. For a religion that does not allow heathens to enter the premises, they certainly have no problem waking you up at 4AM. It was time to catch up on my reading and relaxation.
Gili Trawangan is not so bad a place and we decided to stay. Our guesthouse is on a quiet side street so there was no noise at night and our next-door neighbors were quiet. There is a great selection of restaurants and eating is pleasant. A snorkel trip took us to three sites. Coral was variable from all dead to mediocre and the fish received the same verdict. With no sharks, mantas or any big fish, the variety is dull. It was more entertaining watching the Indonesians snorkel. All the women had fully covering bathing suits and waterproof headscarves. I wonder how the men deal with all the bikini-clad Westerners and don’t go into a sexual frenzy. They opt for the bright orange snorkel vests that keep them too high in the water and so they dog paddle around and don’t look into the water much. But for $10 including rental and a meal, it was still a great deal. I decided to not dive and save my money for elsewhere in Indonesia. We climbed the hill on the southwest corner for good sunset views over Bali and its huge volcanoes.
I always thought that the North American English accent was the easiest to understand as we enunciate words completely with no clipping. But everyone understands Gala much better than me. Her English is OK but she has grammatical problems, a limited vocabulary and a Ukrainian/Russian accent. There goes another myth. I do best by putting on an accent that I think sounds Indonesian. Indonesia is also interesting in that there are virtually no English signs, brands, store names or announcements on trains or buses in English. English knowledge is better here than anywhere else I have been this winter (except maybe Hong Kong) but is still limited.
Moving onward to Flores became a huge problem. Our first choice was a 4-day boat trip but it was monsoon season, the seas are rough, and all boats stopped running until April! Overland involves 3 short ferries and 19 hours of buses on rough roads with interminable views of jungle. Booking a plane drove me crazy. The web sites for Indonesian domestic planes are terminally slow, constantly kick you off, and just when the booking is almost complete, I run out of time. Lion Air does not accept credit cards less than 48hrs before the flight, but I did not realize this and kept repeating the booking process for 2hrs. Finally we booked a flight on Garuda (the Indonesian national airline) for 3,047,000 or US$122 each. In order to make the flight we took the boat from the Gilis to Lombok at 08:00, then a minivan to Kuta on the south shore of Lombok for the night.
KUTA, Lombok
On the south-central shore of Lumbok, Kuta is a small piece of paradise. It is surrounded by low deforested mountains. On the drive in, some viewpoints give panoramic views of the town, beaches, headlands and big surf breaking off the reefs far out from shore. This is a surfers heaven and the town is full of tourists on scooters with surfboard racks. Most of the good surf breaks require a boat ride to reach. But it is still a great place for the nonsurfer who wants a respite from the craziness of Kuta, Bali and the Gilis. The town itself has a big golden sand beach. We rented a scooter and drove east to Tanjung Aan, a large horseshoe shaped bay with big headlands on each end, a perfect hard-packed white sand beach (zero garbage) and sublime swimming. Just past it is Gerupak, a small fishing village fronting a bay full of ?shellfish farms but no fish and no foreigners. We then went over the mountain and road west to Mawi, a big surf spot and Mawan, another nice swimming beach. With plentiful cheap accommodation and good restaurants, this would be a wonderful place to come to chill out for a few days or weeks. Our nice hotel had a pool and restaurant with a good free breakfast for 150,000 ($15). I even had a pretty descent burger for dinner in town.
The next morning we were off at 07:30 to take a taxi to the Lombok airport 30 minutes away. The flight stopped back at Bali. I had 4 hours to go into Kuta, Bali to buy a new charger for my Macbook that I had foolishly left in the Gilis. It was then a 1 hour flight to Labuan Bajo on the eastern end of Flores Island.
FLORES
The biggest island in the chain, it offers beaches, bay islands, exceptional diving and snorkeling near Labuan Bajo, an interior of perfectly shaped volcanoes, jungle, rice fields and the only access to Komodo National Park and its famous Komodo dragons. The Portuguese named it “Flowers” when they colonized it in the 16th century. Then name stuck as did Catholicism.
Labuan Bajo (pop 15,000)
This town has a particularly unattractive one-way main street separated from the harbor by shacks and a container port. The narrow strip of pavement is flanked by a strips of muddy dirt, an open sewer on one side, piles of dirt, ramshackle guesthouses, restaurants, shops and 32 dive shops.
On our first day we took a tour that involved two dives and a visit to Rinca, one of the two main islands that form Komodo National Park. The first dive was average but the second on a slope of coral debris leading down to dull brown soft corals was a mecca for “small things”: cuttlefish, a flying gunnard, tiny striped pipefish, lionfish, and the sweetest harlequin sweetlips (a tiny white fish with brown spots and lobed fins fluttering in a small coral patch). Rinca is the best place to see komodo dragons as 20 or so animals congregate in the small national park headquarters. The rangers carry a forked stick they can use to fend off an attack from the scary-as-hell small dinosaurs. We saw dragons from baby 18 inch ones to monster 2m long ones. It was then a 1 hour walk past a nest and up a hill for panoramic views of the island. There are two and three-hour walks but I see little need for more than what we did. The rangers are a treasure-trove of information.
On day 2, we rented a scooter and visited an large, inactive limestone cave ten minutes from town (bats and large hopping spiders) and then one of the many waterfalls outside of town. It was a fun one hour drive on new pavement that twisted and switchbacked into the mountains, down a dodgy gravel road that ended in a village with a church and then a 30-minute hike through the jungle down to a river. After swimming across the river, we scramble over the rocks for a view of the nice waterfall at the end of a canyon. Jason, an American guy climbed down the cliff into the canyon, checked the depth of the water and I jumped off the cliff into the warm green water for a swim down the canyon. Gorgeous.
On day 3, we had two dives again in the park and saw many giant mantas.
Komodo National Park
Komodo National Park is identified by WWF and Conservation International as a global conservation priority area, was established in 1980 and declared a World Heritage Site and a Man and Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1986. The park was initially established to conserve the unique Komodo Dragon and its habitat, first discovered in 1910. Since then conservation goals have expanded to protecting its entire biodiversity, both marine and terrestrial. It is located in the center of the Indonesian archipelago, between the islands of Sumbawa and Flores. It was named one of the New 7 Wonders of the World in the 2011 poll.
Komodo National Park includes three major islands: Komodo, Rinca and Padar, as well as 72 smaller islands creating a total surface area (marine and land) of more than 1,800 km2.
The majority of the people in and around the Park are fishermen originally from Bima on the island of Sumbawa, and from Manggarai, South Flores, and South Sulawesi. Descendants of the original people of Komodo, still live in Komodo, but there are no pure blood people left and their culture and language is slowly being integrated.
Flora and fauna
The number of terrestrial animal species found in the Park is not high, but the area is important from a conservation perspective as some species are endemic. Many of the mammals are Asiatic in origin. Several of the reptiles and birds are Australian in origin.
The most famous of Komodo National Park’s animals is the Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis). It is the world’s largest living lizard and can reach 3 metres or more in length and weigh over 70kg.
Other animals include the Timor deer, the main prey of the Komodo dragon, wild horses (kuda liar), water buffalo, wild boar (babi liar), long-tailed macaques, palm civets, the endemic Rinca rat (tikus besar Rinca), and fruit bats. All but the rat and bats are introduced species.
Snakes including the cobra and Russel’s pit viper, both of which are extremely dangerous also make the islands home.
As far as the marine fauna is concerned, Komodo National Park includes one of the world’s richest marine environments. It consists of over 260 species of reef building coral, 70 different species of sponges, crustaceans, cartilaginous (incl. manta ray and sharks) and over a 1,000 different species of bony fishes (over 1,000 species), as well as marine reptiles (incl. sea turtles), and marine mammals (dolphins, whales, and dugongs).
Climate. Tropical all year round, the islands are hot and dry in August to September and green in the monsoon from November to April.
Get in
The ferry service (to and from the cities of Sape, on the eastern tip of Sumbawa, and Labuanbajo, on Flores) drops off passengers on Komodo once or twice every week. Travelers coming in from Sape to the west (those traveling overland through Sumbawa and also those arriving at Bima airport) should note that the once-daily ferries from Sape can be suspended indefinitely due to bad weather, so if you want to be sure of your travel arrangements, flying Labuanbajo from Bali is a much safer bet.
Perama Tour, leaves every six days from Lombok. The route travels along the coast and stops in Labuanbajo and Komodo. The cruise is known for poor standards and wrecked in the middle of the night in March 2011, endangering all on board. Price for a cabin is around Rp.4,000,000 deck class
LTA Tour Lombok, also has trips from Lombok to Komodo
Fees/Permits. You need to buy fees and permits that last one day: Entrance fee 20,000 IDR, Area Tax 50,000 IDR, Photo camera fee: 50,000 IDR, Video camera fee: 150,000 IDR, Ranger/guide: 80,000 IDR (per group)
and diving is 225,000 IDR
See. The main reasons to travel to Komodo National Park are the Komodo Dragons, the superb beaches and the unspoilt corals and marine life. The Komodo Dragon has a history of attacking humans. Komodos are extremely dangerous if close enough. They can run faster than humans (and accelerate very quickly), so best not approach if necessary. Jumping into water (as Komodos are often found near the beach too) doesn’t help either, as they can swim faster than humans, can dive, and can also swim against strong currents. Zoologists formerly believed that the main problem was the dragon’s diseased-filled bite from the rampant bacteria residing in their mouth. More recently theories have been put forward that the Komodo Dragon is actually venomous, and that the biggest problem when bitten is shock and massive blood loss due to the ferocity of the bite. Whichever, getting bitten is not a good thing. The Komodo Dragons has no natural predators.
Younger Komodos live in trees. While not as dangerous as their parents, they can still jump off suddenly and cause panic. Snakes, monitor lizards, and other animals are also present and may cause minor problems.There are also wild pigs, monkeys and horses on Pulau Rinca. If you return by sea at night, you can also see legions of flying foxes (fruit bats whose wing span may exceed 4 feet) flying in the twilight sky.
Do. Depending on the time you have available, one or more guided tours on the islands of Rinca and Komodo are easily arranged in Labuan Boja. Komodo are easier to see on Rinca and day trips to Rinca are the most popular. Visiting Komodo Island usually requires overnight stays on the tour boat or in a village on the island. Trips last from 2-6 days. Diving and sea kayaking/camping are also available.