No trip to Indonesia is complete without a visit to Komodo to see the dragons. Our first stop would be Komodo to see these impressive and slightly scary reptiles. We heard Komodo dragons can follow their prey such as buffalo for up to two weeks and the mothers would even eat their babies. What?! Does this even exist? We set out to find out how to see these crazy dragons on Komodo island.
Our first trip to see the dragons took us to Komodo island, where we went for 90 minute hike and saw two dragons and a rarely seen baby. We walked round with a ranger to see the dragons they were all super chilled and just cooling down in the shade. Interestingly, the rangers have a stick so if one of the Komodo strikes they can prevent an attack quickly. Luckily the dragons didn’t seem that aggressive whilst we were there.
Whilst on the hike the ranger told us some very interesting facts about the Komodo:
1. Males can grow as big as 3 meters long and the female follow short behind at 2 meters.
2. They run as fast as 30km per hour and have a powerful venomous bite so the victim dies a slow death through sepsis. They can follow a buffalo around for weeks slowly killing it with its poison and waiting for the buffalo to die.
3. Baby Komodos dragons spend their first few years living up in the trees to avoid being eaten by their mothers. Cannabalism by adults comprises 10% of mothers diets from consuming its children, so juveniles spend the beginning of their lives living in trees. Their claws make them ideal climbers, but only when young as they become too heavy to climb trees as adults.
As well as the dragons Komodo National park is famous for its underwater paradise. We went diving a couple of times and the variety of marine life is unreal. Komodo is mainly about the big stuff and whilst we weren’t in the best season we saw some amazing creatures from sharks and turtles to a manta ray. A lot of people had said to us Komodo is the pinnacle of diving but we actually saw more marine life in Derawan, an Indonesian Island much less known than Komodo.
We decided for Christmas to head back to Labuan Bajo. We were missing western food and accommodation to/from Komodo was tricky. You can’t stay on Komodo island so having to find the middle ground with limited accommodation options is challenging. There are more tour options from Labuan Bajo so despite the long boat rides we thought it would be nice to treat ourselves and upgrade our accommodation for a day.
We decided on Christmas to do a one day boat tour to see Padar Island, Komodo dragons at Rinca (the best island to see the dragons) and pink beach.
Padar Island
Padar Island offers the most beautiful sight of Indonesia. It was extremely hot on Christmas Day so it was lucky we got there early. We climbed all the way to the top for a panorama view of the incredible beauty of Komodo national park.
Rinca
We decided seeing two dragons at Komodo wasn’t enough for us. Another hot spot to see the dragons is at Rinca. It’s a smaller island so the chances of seeing the dragons many people had told us is greater there.
The Komodo dragons at Rinca all came out on Christmas Day and we saw loads. We had a really engaging guide, much better than at Komodo, who made it a great experience for us
Before going home we then stopped by at pink beach. We have to say pink beach was a bit underwhelming as it didn’t look that pink. That being said we managed to see some incredible coral and some (real) catfish just snorkelling so was a great place to refresh after a hot day.
This was our first Christmas as a married couple and we will always remember this one for its weather and having octopus and barracuda for Christmas dinner instead of the traditional turkey.