Exploring Indonesia's islands by boat

Exploring Indonesia's islands by boat

Like little Jackie Paper, I've come on a boat to a land of dragons. Our guide, a man who calls himself Brother Lemon, leads the way up a sloping savanna to a prehistoric view.

"Welcome to our Jurassic Park," says Brother Lemon. The grassy hills roll to the horizon, and though there's no herd of brontosauruses in the distance, the scattered palms topped by round moppish tufts do vaguely resemble something from a Dr Seuss book. I'm half expecting a sabre-toothed Cat in the Hat to jump out of the bushes.

There are dragons here on Indonesia's Rinca Island - actual dragons, with forked tongues and fearsome claws - for this is the only place on Earth where the Komodo dragon, the world's biggest lizard, roams free. We're in a part of the Indonesian archipelago called Nusa Tenggara, or the Lesser Sunda Islands, where Komodo National Park provides sanctuary for a beast that, if it did not occur in nature, may well have been invented by a children's author with a streak of the macabre.

We spot the dragons slinking their way through the grass and forests, some of them approaching three metres from head to tail. Slothful but able to sprint short distances, albeit with an exceedingly awkward gait, they're hardly shy of humans. It's wise not to get too close, however. The Komodo dragon subsists mainly on scraps and carrion, plus the occasional whole goat or deer, and its saliva is so septic that its unfortunate prey, once bitten, dies slowly of a blood infection. When it's done swallowing the poor thing in huge chunks, it vomits the hair and horns in a smelly mess.

There are only a few thousand Komodo dragons left in the world, and nearly all of them live here, an area that's a dreamland for wildlife nuts, both above ground and underwater. Off the coasts, the tides between the Flores Sea to the north and the Sawu Sea to the south squeeze through the nearby straits, creating currents that make the corals, many of them shallow enough for snorkellers, teem with sea life.

We almost didn't make it here, for had we been more cautious travellers, we'd probably have taken a pass on this entire journey. In the town of Labuan Bajo, on the western edge of Flores, we met a man named Vigo, a good salesman with a few too many ready answers to every question. Vigo promised us a four-day, three-night live-aboard boat trip from east to west, starting here in Flores and ending in Lombok, where, on the morning of the fourth day, a bus would be waiting to drive us across the island to the Bali ferry.

Included in the package would be three meals a day, cooked up by the boat's own chef, daily stops for snorkelling and visits to the dragon sanctuaries of Rinca and the nearby Komodo Island - the highlights of Nusa Tenggara, in other words, all for about US$164 (Dh600) per person. I agreed with my co-travellers, an American-Irish couple, that this seemed the best way to reach Lombok and the delights of Bali, for the boat would bypass the arduous 11-hour bus journey across Sumbawa Island.

The Bali-Flores boat route has become popular in recent years as Flores and Komodo National Park have risen to must-sees on the Indonesia circuit. Flores natives like Vigo have capitalised accordingly, providing transport options - some cheap, some dear - in a place where tourism is still in its infancy. In Labuan Bajo, real estate prices have gone through the roof. "Ten years ago, land sold for 500,000 rupiah [Dh202] per square metre," Vigo told me. "Now it's 2.5 million [Dh1,006] per square metre."

We were sold on Vigo's boat offer - or so I thought, until my companions went to check their e-mail and came back shaking their heads.

In parts of the world where tourism is still a fresh commodity, a cautious traveller should beware of fly-by-night operations, especially where personal safety is concerned. Apparently, they'd found a post about Vigo and his company on the Lonely Planet message board, calling him a schemer and a liar while raising concerns about the safety of his boats. "This is an outfit you want to avoid," the post says, or rather screams, since it's written in all caps. Next page

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