Phyllis stayed on board today while I wandered around the port area for about an hour. Not much in the port area. There are several attractions in and around Mataram, an hour away (e.g. Hindu temple, water temple, village, etc.) but we had seen very similar attractions in other parts of Indonesia last year so we skipped the excursions. We set sail at 5pm and were informed that we would be skipping the stop in Exmouth on the northwest coast of Australia. Appar...

It is hot - over 30 and humid. The slow trek to see the Komodo Dragons is about 1 hour. We saw 3 dragons near a man-made water hole (probably built to raise the odds of visitors being able to see one). Also plenty of deer nearby (one of the targets of the dragon) but neither they nor the dragons seemed interested in the other. As our neighbor Keith described the dragon, it is a big lizard. If someone is in the neighbourhood (e.g. on a cruise) it is worth the...