Our trip to Komodo National Park
The boat:
I didn't think the boat was not too small when we first saw it. It had a small section outside at the helm although a canoe took up a fair bit of room. There was a bit of a fight for the sun here at times! Under cover was a large plain deck. Just one bench that would hold 3-4 people in front of the captain's quarters. So there was just the wooden floor to sit on or a wooden bench. Comfy! Behind the captain's quarters was a simple toilet and a little kitchen. Above was where we slept. Only high enough for you to crawl around. Overlapping were thin mattresses, a pillow and blanket for everyone. They were very dirty and I have either flea or bed bug bites thanks to them. Upstairs you also rocked around so much more than downstairs. Unless I was sleeping or getting something out of my bag I wouldn't be up here out of choice. There was a kind of 'store room' below deck as well where we kept bags and things.
The Group:
1 x Slovakian & 1 x Polish girl - they live in London and were on holiday. Not sure I saw them without a Bintang or a fag in their hands
Czech & Uruguay couple - the Czech girl got bitten by a snake on day 2 whilst trekking to the waterfall. She was getting a bit of a fever and didn't seem with it at one point, it wasn't looking good but she pulled through
French non-couple. They weren't going out and had been travelling for 2 years. Didn't drink on the boat and then went mental on our leaving night
Dutch couple - on holiday. They had the coolest camera and brightest torch that could do strobe lighting
French girl - on holiday. Started moaning an awful lot at first about 'this and that were on the schedule' but she chilled out after the first day
2 x older Czech rude women. Didn't speak to them really. They were rude to Ben a couple of times apparently. Told us all to be quiet at about 8:30pm on the first night. Also known as the fun police
Sleeping Italian stallion. He broke the record for sleeping for 48 hours straight. A big hairy man with braids. I didn't see him awake for more than an hour at a time until day 3. Even when the waves were incredibly rough, he was asleep clutching onto the side of the boat. I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating but I'm not. It was probably the most expensive place he's paid for to sleep in! He didn't even get off the boat on day 2 to go to the waterfall, just so he could sleep more. First heard him speak on day 3. He asked a ranger on Komodo 'Can I touch a dragon?' 'Do you want to be eaten alive?' replied the ranger. What a cracker. He also had the biggest shoes ever that were what can only be described as bright blue tiger paws
2 x older Canadian women. They didn't know each other until just before booking the trip but coincidentally both went travelling after retiring and now live in the same town in Bali. I was asking one woman if she was scared of the big waves one day, 'No, I love boats, I'm used to sailing'. 'What's the furthest you've sailed?' I asked. 'Around the world.' Pretty far then. They were nice
Estonian man - didn't speak for ages and then on our last night bought a load of Bintang and he more than livened up. We had a boat from the same company never too far from us. It was docked around 40m away that night. We'd ran out of beer and were all up for seeing if they had any more. Estonia thought the question of 'Is this your first time in Indonesia?' screamed at full volume was more fitting. We were all in stitches. Back on dry land he was so drunk at our 'goodbye' party. Rocked out like there was no tomorrow. Also kept taking sneaky pictures of the Polish and Slovakian girls
Swedish doctor man - very quiet until he was called upon for the snake bite. Loved that he took his stethoscope on holiday. He was so drunk at the leaving party and was dancing crazily
2 x Welsh boys - captain Bob Bintang and Mark from Swansea. Spoke to them from day 1 as we had beds next to each other. Definitely alcoholics. They have lived in Oz for 14 months and are doing some of Asia for a couple of months before a visit home. Pretty much the life and soul of the party
The crew - the captain and his wife, a vice captain, Vick our guide, a 17 year old Rafael lookalike and another lad. Apart from Vick they didn't speak much English but they all worked really hard, were really smiley and would help all they could. Vick loved our group, he doesn't drink but said he likes it when people do as they are more fun. He took all our email addresses before we left. Ben was best mates with them all, they loved him
4 x chickens - RIP. They were alive until day 3 when they made a lovely tea
The food:
Apart from day 1 when we had tuna steak and day 3 when we had chicken (RIP) it was all egg and tofu with fried or steamed rice, noodles, veg, fruit and pancakes or toast for breakfast. Fruit and cracker snacks came in the afternoons too. If someone had told me the food would be vegetarian apart from 2 meals, I wouldn't have been very happy, but it was surprisingly good. Maybe it was just because we were on set meals so were always starving but it was good food.
The trip:
Day 1. After waiting for 1.5 hours at the office we booked at and being pretty annoyed that we could have used that time to sleep or eat, the coach finally arrived. It was a few hours to the boat on the opposite side of Lombok. We were joined on the bus by a load of food and 9 live chickens, sticking their heads out of sacks with holes in. I think 5 went onto the other boat as we only had 4 on ours. Everyone else on the bus had travelled from the Gili islands and on the way they had been able to order beer or soft drinks which we missed out on. Maybe it was a good thing. We reached the boat and I was relieved that it wasn't tiny. We had soon chosen beds and set off. It wasn't long until we were being thrown about by the waves and I was scared to death. I tried to film some of it but it doesn't do the size of the waves justice. I was regretting the trip at this point if it was going to be this rough for 4 days. We docked around 8pm but it was still a little rough there. We had an earlyish night and got some sleep before the boat set off at 3am.
Day 2. At about 5am it started getting rough again so we went downstairs and watched sunrise. We managed another hours sleep after breakfast before we reached an island where we would walk to a waterfall for a fresh water shower, our only one on the trip! It was lovely. The only problem was to get onto the island and back to the boat, you had to swim there as the sea was shallow. So much for staying clean!! Our next stop was Mayo island off Sumbawa for snorkelling. It was pretty rough and the equipment wasn't great so I didn't stay in long. On the island there were thousands and thousands of flying foxes. It was unbelievable to watch as the sun went down. I saw a flying fish as well. There was a problem with the engine and we stayed there for a few hours whilst it was fixed. Everyone suddenly got a bit more sociable and came outside for a chat. The Welsh lads donated us a couple of beers, which we later repaid, and they tasted so good! The stars out at sea were amazing. There must have been millions. You could see the North star clearly and apparently the milky way. I also saw a shooting star. The water was phosphorus, I've always wanted to see it after watching 'The Beach'. The water just lights up and glitters after any movement, it's mental. When we set off again on our 15 hour sail through the night we saw dolphins diving up right by the boat playing, and seeing their outline in the phosphorus water was unbelievable. Then the sea got awfully rough and we started to get really wet outside so it was time for bed. I was awake for a long time. It was so scary. You could see the water coming in on the floor below where some people were sleeping and getting wet. Water even got splashed in up to our sleeping bit. I really thought we'd had it and was crying hysterically. I'm not sure whether the sea got a little calmer or if I was just exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before but I dropped off around 3am and didn't wake again until 7. I passed on breakfast to sleep some more.
Day 3. The worst night imaginable was over and we had survived. The dragons were within sight. Our first stop was snorkelling where we would hopefully see the impressive manta rays but it wasn't to be. Big waves didn't keep me out for long as we had no fins to use. We went somewhere else for snorkelling instead and it was much better. We pulled up to Komodo island soon after and it was a beauty. There was a deer padding along the beach, as you do. We had a quick briefing by the rangers-no running away, getting too close or making loud noises. The rangers had long sticks with a fork at the end to fend the dragons off if needed. We trekked off into Komodo on the 'long trek'. We soon saw monkeys and barking deer. It's a little weird having a deer bark at you. One barks and they all bolt. You'd be walking silently through the island, looking around nervously for a dragon and a deer would bark. You'd jump a mile. We went into a clearing towards a watering hole where there were lots of deer and some wild pigs. We were quite near the back of the group so I thought everyone was taking pictures of the deer until I rounded a tree and saw 3 massive dragons a few metres away. Wow were they huge. They were like crocodiles. I thought the monitor lizards we've been seeing were big! They were just unbelievable, really beautiful. They were all chilled out and we got a bit closer. I didn't fancy my chances if one was to get hungry. The rangers were cool and very knowledgable. Dragons eat all of their prey, bones and all. So when a Swiss tourist wandered off from his group 4 years ago, all they found of him was his camera, sunglasses and a lot of blood. Nasty. They were looking around a lot but didn't do much. We continued after a while and found another smaller dragon under a tree. They hang out where the deer and water buffalo will head to for food and water. They're cannibals and baby dragons spend their first few years up in the trees to avoid being eaten by other dragons. We finished the trek with some great views on a hill and of the strange landscape by the island restaurant and a couple of places to stay. There were another 2 dragons there. We couldn't get as close to these ones as they were in camp because of the smell of food which made them more aggressive. They can smell blood from 5km away. I loved Komodo. We were lucky to see the 3 big dragons as Komodo has a lot of cover so it can be hard to spot any dragons. I would have liked to see a dragon walking and maybe even the rangers having to use their sticks though! We stocked up on expensive (obviously) beer for our last night which the locals and crew found hilarious and were taking pictures of us on their phones. We docked that night for a real sleep as we weren't setting off again until 6am. Everyone was in good spirits and fairly drunk before bed.
Day 4. No more nights on the boat, yay! It was an early start on Rinca. Within a minute of walking on the island I got my wish and we walked alongside a dragon. He was on the prowl so he had his tongue flicking in and out which we hadn't seen before. We had 4 rangers with us so we got a little split up before we reached the base camp where our trek would begin. I was kind of caught in between the front of the group where Ben was and the back of the group on my own. I thought I was a bit far away from anyone with a big stick so I tried to hurry up a bit pretty much as the dragon sped up and was heading to cut across our path! I didn't fancy trying to outrun him but I was a little too close and walked backwards a bit! He came between me and the back of the group. It wasn't long until there were dragons everywhere. They were pretty small but we did see some bigger ones by the restaurants sprawled out. We started our 2 hour/5km trek. It was so hot and only 9.20am! We went to a watering hole where a dragon was half submerged, waiting for something to come for a drink. About 10m further down was a massive water buffalo. I like water buffalo a lot but I kind of wanted him to wander downstream and see the dragon in action! We saw another dragon shading near a big rock and it wasn't long before we were finished. Rinca had more dragon sightings-I couldn't keep count and it was great to see them walking around but they weren't as big as the ones on Komodo. I'll never forget walking round a tree and unexpectedly seeing a massive dragon looking at us. Our final stop was a gorgeous tiny island you could have walked around in 10 minutes. It looked like paradise. I had a nice swim and lay on the beach. It was a great way to end the trip. We reached Flores around 3.30pm, found somewhere to stay and had a few hours sleep before meeting up with 90% of the boat again for drinks. It was a great night with a live band and lots of dancing. Slightly sore head today, though. Arak, the local drink, is pretty deadly.
Today we have slept, done washing and played on the internet, planning our final week in Asia (boo hoo). We had to have tea twice as well. In our first restaurant after we'd had a few bites of our food we noticed a rat so big that it was getting a knife and fork out to join us. It scared off 2 cats so we left. I felt a bit snobby leaving lots of food but it made me feel sick.
So, we've got a long week ahead. Here's a small rundown for you:
Tomorrow - 9 hour ferry to Sumbawa and 9 hour overnight bus across Sumbawa
Sunday - ferry to Lombok. Bus across Lombok. Ferry to Bali. Stay overnight somewhere in Bali
Monday - visit famous temple out at sea (from dry land!). Travel across Bali. Get ferry to Java. Stay in Java overnight
Tuesday - see sunrise on the active volcano Mount Bromo on horseback
Wednesday - 9 hour bus to Yogyakarta
Thursday - visit famous temple 2 hours away
Friday - fly from Yogy to Singapore
I hope we don't have any delays or we'll have to cut something out. We fly to Australia the following Monday so we don't have much time to look around Singapore. It's going to be tiring!!!