Where There Be Dragons – Chasing Komodo’s

With some incredible diving under my belt already I decided the final day of validity in my park pass was going to be used for some Dragon chasing. I met a nice French couple who were going to share the boat with me on the day of to visit the dragons on Rinca Island.

Komodo National Park is made up of hundreds of dry barren islands but the main two are Rinca and Komodo and both offer a chance to see dragons. Rinca is much closer to Labuanbajo and is the best choice for a day trip. Rinca’s Savannah-like landscape makes it much easier to find dragons than the thick bush on Komodo island but also makes the experience all the more sweaty.

We started out with a short introduction to our Ranger armed with a forked stick to keep any curious dragons at bay and set off walking towards the kitchen. We immediately saw about 8 large dragons sitting out front lured by the smell of the rangers cooking lunch. Most seemed pretty docile and comatose in the mid day heat but we were instructed not to get too close for a single bite from one of these animals could kill an animal as big as a buffalo due to the neuro toxins in the creatures mouth.

When our hike actually started, we were told it was sometimes very difficult to see the dragons away from the bait of the kitchen as they were often laying low in the grass but not more than 10 minutes it we caught a glimpse of our first dragon scampering away down a riverbed.

The remainder of the 2 hour hike we came across some buffalo wallowing in their water holes as well as a few dragon dens which are used when the mother is laying eggs. The landscape can only be described as prehistoric and had a Tyrannosaurus Rex came down the path I would not have acted surprised. Sweaty and dehydrated we arrived back at the ranger station and said farewell to our guide.

Not wanting to simply fly back to Bali I had signed up for a boat trip with Perama tours which is a common way to get across the islands from Lombok to Flores. I still had a day to kill on the tiny beaches around Labuanbajo which was a relaxing and pleasent day to spend although the beaches are a little on the dirty side. I showed up for the boat trip that night just in time for the welcoming party and was surprised to find many people who had arrived on the boat that night were also doing the return trip back to Lombok. The boat wasn’t full for there were about 18 travelers aboard which made sleeping on the deck a comfortable experience instead of being crammed in beside one another. We were lucky for both nights were clear without rain and those of us with sleeping bags could lay out on the roof and stare out at the stars before falling asleep.

Our boat trip was not simply a direct route to Lombok and there were many scheduled stops along the way for snorkeling and swimming as well as my second time around trekking on Rinca Island. This time we started hiking at 7am and were rewarded with the dragons being much livelier and on our hike we came across 7 dragons moving around the grasslands including a few encounters which were probably a little too close.

The wildlife spotting didn’t stop there for the 2 days on the boat we saw literally too many dolphins too count, often throwing themselves completely out of the water. It came to the point when someone would call out “dolphins” and no one cared to even get up and look. We arrived late at night two days later in Lombok and I must say that although Perama has had some bad reviews on the conditions of the boat being basic, I found the trip from Labuanbajo to Lombok great and the food as well as the staff of the boat really made the experience. I would highly recommend it although it is surely no luxury cruise.

I spent a night in Sengiggi, Lombok before spending my final few days on Gili Trawangan. A lot of people I had talked to seemed disappointed with Gili T as it is affectionately named. How this could be I just couldn’t come to grips with. It may not be the perfect idyllic island with perfect beaches but a more laid back and slow paced place I had not come across. Aside from the large parties every third night there is next to nothing to do here which may have been many peoples reasoning for complaining. It was the perfect place to end my 9 months in Asia and I certainly did nothing more than drink more cocktails than I had in the past months and try as hard as I could to put back all the weight I had lost. The days flew by and the end was near but when I left Gili T that morning as I headed to the airport for my flight back to Canada, I had no regrets for I got to see some of the most incredible sites this world has to offer with the girl I love most over the 6 months we spent together and even got to challenge myself on some wild adventures to some truly remote places in the 3 months I spent traveling alone. I certainly enjoyed writing these blogs and hope everyone enjoyed reading them but I really don’t think this is the end of anything, in fact I really believe its really just the beginning.