KOMODO ISLAND, INDONESIA

This morning Chris and I met up with Henrik and Smeeta and walked down to the pier to embark on our two-day trip to the islands of Rinca and Komodo. It's just the four of us, plus a crew of two, our captain and his first mate (who creeps me out a little, because he has crazy-person eyes).

And as soon as our boat left the dock, it became evident that we'll be traveling for two days on The Slowest Vessel in Maritime History. No, really--at first I thought the boat was idling because we were in a no-wake zone, but then realized that that was as fast as we could go! Oh lord.

Consequently, it took us over three hours to reach our first destination, the island of Rinca (pronounced rincha), which couldn't have been that far, because we could see it from the harbor before we even left port! I'm sure would have taken less than half the time in a proper motorboat, but whatever. I have to admit, though, that it was a perfect day for a mind-numbingly slow boat ride, with glassy seas, blue skies, and scores of green island peaks surrounding us.

When we arrived at Rinca at noon and jumped off the boat, waiting to greet us at the end of the dock was a seven-foot Komodo dragon! It was just sitting in the shade, watching us, which frankly was a little creepy. Our first mate had a forked walking stick for protection, but I'm not sure if it would have done much good against a big beast like that. (Hmm, creepy vs. creepy--who would win?)

After carefully walking past the dragon "guard" to the Komodo National Park office, we filled in some paperwork and paid our entrance fees, guide fees, "conservation" fees, and god knows what other small sums of money to visit the two islands. Later I was told by a number of people that this is basically a scam--the National Park is actually run by a private American company that collects a good deal of money, but hasn't been able to show any evidence that these "conservation fees" are being used to "conserve" anything. A real shame, but not exactly unusual in a country where government corruption is more or less the rule.

We then walked to the ranger station, a group of cabins on stilts where several guides were having lunch. And below them, three huge Komodo dragons, two males and one female, were just laying on the ground! A minute later, we saw a fourth one (a three-foot juvenile) scampering around in the bushes. Seems they're attracted by the smell of cooking food, and even though the rangers don't feed them, they still like to hang out by the ranger station at lunchtime.

Something seemed a little wrong about standing around at ground level with the big lizards with the guides up in the air out of harm's way, but the dragons didn't really seem aggressive, so we relaxed a bit, took a bunch of pictures, and eventually our assigned guide came down to take us on a short trek around the island.

In contrast to Flores, which is very lush and tropical, the landscape of Rinca is mostly dry grassland dotted with tall palm trees, with a few areas of denser vegetation along the riverbeds. We started in one of these, where we saw some wild pigs, a troop of monkeys (long-tailed macaques, like in the monkey forest), and a water buffalo cooling down in a muddy pond. (All of these make up the primary diet of the dragons, by the way.)

We then climbed to the top of a grassy ridge where we could look down on the west side of the island, and across to Komodo, before heading back to the boat. When we got to the pier, there were now two dragons "guarding" it--eep! But again, they were just sitting there looking rather lazy, so we got a little brave and quickly took some photos of each other with a dragon in the background.

After a lunch of rice and noodles on the boat, we motored sloooooooooowly on to Komodo Island (with plenty of time for a long nap on the way). As we traveled between the islands, I could see that the ocean currents in this region are really crazy--we crossed huge areas of roiling water, whirlpools, and upwellings, which could definitely make things interesting, if not outright deadly, for divers (and possibly mariners)!

We finally made it to Komodo Island around 4pm, where we anchored off a place called Red Beach (named for the red bits of sand there, although that wasn't really apparent from afar). We snorkeled there for an hour or so, over the most incredible variety of hard and soft corals I've ever seen--every inch of space was covered by something growing, and the corals reached right to the surface of the sea. There were thousands of fish swarming there, too, and sea anemones over a meter wide! Just amazing scenery, and a shame we couldn't stay longer, but we were running late, thanks to our slow boat.

After snorkeling, we came aboard to find that while we were gone we had been boarded by pirates! Well, actually, souvenir sellers, who had their wares all laid out on deck: necklaces and carved wooden Komodo dragons and such. I thought that we'd be free of these pests once we went out to sea, but this is Indonesia, I guess! Anyway, we told them we weren't interested, and they got back on their little boat and went to bother some other tourists, I suppose.

Our next stop was to see Rinca's flying foxes, which leave the mangroves every night at dusk to fly around and look for food, so we anchored in a sheltered bay and waited. It ended up being a little disappointing, though: I had been expecting thousands of shrieking bats swarming across the sky, but all we saw were a handful of 'em flapping rather aimlessly over the boat and across the bay (which is pretty much what you see in Indonesia every night when you look up, anyway!). Oh well. We did get to see the full moon rise over the high hills of Komodo, though, which was pretty cool. Then we brought out the arak and played cards--Smeeta and Henrik taught Chris and I how to play "Shithead," which apparently is all the rage among the backpackers. It's a pretty fun game, too, although remembering all of its rules is a bit tricky, especially if you've been drinking!

Indonesia Fun Fact:

• Komodo dragons are the largest lizard in the world, growing up to ten feet long. There are only about 6,000 of them in the world, living on Komodo, Rinca, and a few other islands in Indonesia. They can run as fast as 18 km/hour, and although they're not venomous, they have bacteria in their mouth that will kill any animal they bite if left untreated. They eat large animals like pigs, deer, and water buffalo, and have been known to kill and eat people on occasion--several years ago a Swiss tourist disappeared on Komodo Island, and all the rangers recovered were his hat and camera!