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From the beauty of Bali to the captivating scenery of Flores and the monsters of Komodo.

Indonesia, part 2

Si_lad
2004-03-26 22:05:22

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Komodo

Next day I left Dibs to rest while I teamed up with a couple in the hotel – An English lad and German girl – and we chartered a fisherman for the day to take us out to Komodo. The price for the whole day was 65000 Rps, which was good. The boat was a simple wooden vessel and the captain and his one-man crew, were a couple of nice, funny local blokes. The day was sunny and the seas were incredibly still – it felt like we were on a pond at times. We weaved our way through small islands, some of which were uninhabited and others had small settlements on the waters edge, for about five hours. It was a fascinating voyage. We saw lots of dolphins and a couple of huge Manta Rays.

On arrival at Komodo Island we paid the "official" for boat mooring and took a guide between us for a walking tour of the island. Komodo is a fairly small island and is the main island (of three) which has the huge Komodo Dragon, as it’s key inhabitant. In fact, the reason people visit Komodo is to get a look at these huge beasts in the wild.

Our guide led us through thick forest en-route to a dry riverbed where he ensured us there would be lots of dragons. On the way we saw some deer, wild pigs and some brightly coloured birds as well as snakes – lots of them. Apparently Komodo is snake-central and after an hour I could believe it. Not only had we seen lots of tree snakes and smaller snakes, but at one stage a King Cobra – at least seven feet long – passed across the path only a few feet in front of us! We all froze, except for our guide who trapped the snake with the v-shaped end of his stick! He then proceeded to let us examine the snake while at the same time telling us how deadly it was, and how if it bit us we’d be dead in a few minutes, and that no anti-venom existed on the island! The snake was getting upset and I didn’t fancy dying on Komodo, so we persuaded him to let it go.

When we arrived ...