Divine Diving or How to not train a dragon

Nov 21-26 Labuanbajo, Flores, Indonesia; Komodo National Park 

After my great diving experience in North Sumatra people kept telling me that diving in Komodo National Park would be even better. Since that is close to where the Komodo Dragons live – and who would have never dreamed about going to visit some real-life dragons – let's combine some diving and dragon spotting. Komodo is a National Park so there is no residence there – except some extremely high price lonely resorts and a few local villages the best way is to fly to Flores and Labuanbajo is the closest city to the National Park. Of course you could also go via boat from Bali, but since that would take roughly three days, I figure flying is more effective.

So getting up way too early to catch my flight just to be told at the airport that the flight time changed. Yes, that's how it is with local Indonesian airlines, Merpati in that case. The plane is never early or delayed, just the flight time changed. Interesting enough. So I hang out at the airport for hours, finish a book but eventually get to Labuanbajo safe and sound. The airport resembles more like a bus station than an airport. It's a landing strip and one building. When you get out of the plane the open the luggage compartment, take everything out and you can pick your luggage up right there. Very efficient I have to say. Outside the tiny airport building is a war zone of taxi drivers, diving operators and other vendors all waiting right outside a fence that was obviously just erected to keep them out. Very lucky indeed I don't have to deal with them, since my Guesthouse send me a pick-up. Makes avoiding the vendors much easier. Golo Hilltop Hotel, is just that located on a hilltop. The views are fantastic but the heat is scorching.

There's plenty of diving operators in Labuan Bajo serving the National Park. Divine Diving first has a great name and second comes recommended by people I run into here and Tripadvisor as well. Bad news once I get there is that they only do one day trip tomorrow and then leave on a 6 day dive safari. Damn, need to look for another dive operator but torrential rain delays that a bit. I get to talking and turns out there's a few people on the Dive Safari only going on for three days so we'll be brought back here halfway through and also stop at Komodo on the way. People are friendly so that settles it. Spontaneously I sign up for a day of diving and a three day Dive Safari. Cash only means though that I need to pick up several millions. What a nice stack of cash. If that would actually be 'real' money I'd appreciate it even more (except for the fact that I had to give it away right there and then).

Labuan Bajo itself is a town of storefronts cheap houses, looking very much like a shantytown with a few touristy shops and restaurants in between. Another great thing about staying on a boat for three days is also, that I don't have to stay in this town for so long, I may get bored for once.

Waking up really early the next morning for the diving day trip. Great people and great dive sites. Let me just describe you one scene so you can imagine the awesomeness of it all... Jump in the water, see three sharks right away, swim a bit, run into a turtle, follow the turtle until it swims out into the blue and the moment the turtle disappears, a Manta Ray comes in from the other side. I feel like in Underwater Documentary movie. Amazing is all I can say.

There are no underwater pics from me, but you can always check some out here.

Next day the three day Dive Safari starts and we were an amazing group of people. Two lovely couples, one Dutch, one German/French, one Australian, one German Divemaster in Training Matthias, me, the British Diving instructor Joe, French Divemaster, Indonesian Divemaster Juvens, boatcrew. There were also four French, but I'll just ignore them since they weren't very sociable and we were all happy they left on the second day. That's when the real fun started. The days were filled with sunkissed skies, lots of chatter, some naps and lots and lots of diving. Great food in between. We slept on the boat sundeck underneath the night sky. And it was one of the most beautiful skies I have ever seen. No light pollution here. It was so amazing I did not want to fall asleep and just keep looking up into the stars. There may be few remote places left were you can see everything so clear. Aaaaaaaaah.

The boat ride brought us by many islands in the Komodo National Park, most of which were extremely dry, some a bit greener. So it does not rain here all that much it seems. Everywhere you looked was beautiful scenery. The sunrise, the sunset. Just breathtaking. But see for yourself a few impressions.

While we were hanging out in some bays we also saw dolphins jumping out of the water, eagles hunting for their lunch, Mantas swimming by the boat, I may not be able to recall every breathtaking moment I had on this trip. It was just unbelievable.

The last day we started with two dives again and then set off to Rinca Island, one of only two places where you are allowed to go on shore to go see some Komodo Dragons. There were plenty of Dragons, but I guess the reason we saw them there is as they were hiding underneath the kitchen building in the small village there. Always some food coming out of the window there. We also ran into a small dragon on the road just casually talking a walk. Dragons are known to eat everything, horses, buffalos, humans, they eat everything except the skulls, since it is too big to digest. Interestingly enough their pee is white, from the bones they eat. So as goes in Austria where you should not eat yellow snow, don't eat white grass in Komodo. Yikes! They are unpredictable and may attack you at any point so we had to guides with wooden poles to keep them off, should anything happen. But it was early afternoon, the sun was at it's highest and it was scorching hot. Even too hot for the dragons, they were too lazy to move. We did about an hour and a half hike on the island, seeing some nice scenery but not encountering any other dragons. But enjoying the views. We did see an egg nest though. Komodo Dragons eat their babies if they are around and they are too lazy (that's my perception) to go find anything else to eat. Actually they were not as exciting at all. They make them appear much more interesting in all documentaries and photo ops.

Best dive briefings ever. See the Mantas drawn on the pic ;)

White Dragon pee

Nest

What was fun to see on the island were some other tourist groups. They all consisted of oooold people dressed up as if they were in the arctic, wearing long pants, jackets and hats, sweating like mad persons in the heat and walking up the hills. I wonder if they would send a helicopter to airlift them to the nearest hospital if they faint or have a heart attack.

They were still lightly dressed compared to the other group we saw

For us we did pose for a few pictures and got back to the boat to get to a spot were we could jump in and cool down. Aaaaaaaaaaah! Some swimming and snorkeling and for the last evening they had a special treat for us. There is a Mangrove forest from which every evening millions of bat fruit flies set out to feed on Flores. A fantastic sight to see millions of bats fly over our heads into the sunset. Wow! Made for some great pictures.

You can donate money and they will plant a Mangrove in your name

Our Captain!

Alina

 And that's how we passed the time until the Bat Flies did show up....

Ivo shows off 

We also realized that you have to do the "Dance" if you want to see something specific. So it became the ritual to do the 'Turtle Dance', the 'Manta Dance' and the 'Batflly Dance'. It worked every time.

Do the Bat Fly Dance 

More posing.....

Thousands of bats covering the sky 

Then it was farewell and back to Labuanbajo late in the evening. Four of us left the boat while Eva and Ivo our new Dutch friends stayed for another three days of diving (jealous!) but I did have a flight tomorrow morning (or did I?). So on my next Dive Safari (and yes, there will be one for sure) I can just hope to have such great people on the boat again. As the pictures show we had so much fun and the four of us would have loved to continue with the others for 3 more days of diving and fuuuuun! Even the best times have to end so I bunked up with Alina from Australia for the night, my diving buddy and fantastic fun to hang out with and we chatted through half the night.

Flights leaving from here are always accompanied by an interesting story. I did have the same flight booked as the German/French couple Markus and Julie so we asked our Indonesians friends to reconfirm. Which ended up something like that.

Flight tomorrow?

No, no flight tomorrow.

Oh, already confirmed. Ah yes, we may have flight tomorrow. 11:00 am, no, no flight at 11:00 am, only flight at 12:30pm.

So people should come to the airport for 12:30pm flight.

Yes, but maybe, not sure if flight at 12.30 or flight tomorrow. 

Back at the Hotel they had also called to reconfirm my flight (great service). There I was told my 11:00 am flight would now be leaving at 2pm. Welcome to Flores and the regional airlines. Not believing a word of it asked them to call again in the morning. And guess what, there is a flight at 11am but apparently they decided to bump me to 2pm so I should go there at 2pm. Lovely. But since I would prefer to get to back to Thailand today, I have to leave Indonesia anyway tomorrow since my Visa expires, and need to get back since, you may not believe it, but yes university starts again. So bid farewell again to my new friends and set out to the airport to make it to the 11am flight. And guess what, I can get on the flight, no problem. The airport coming in is hilarious. The ancient security scanner is broken so you can just walk in to the airport. The boarding ticket is issued handwritten, wow and that in 2011. Kinda cool. So with my handwritten ticket I walk out again for some last minute shopping outside the terminal (jewelery it is) walk through the non-existent security again and wait in the terminal building, or is it a bus stop, I can't say for sure. How is the building secured? There is a chain lock on the glass front doors and once the plane comes in the chain is removed and you walk out. It may not be fancy but it's still efficient. And the plane is much better than you would expect.

Labuanbajo bus stop.... ääääh Airport

Seems to happen often 

A bit bumpy ride but I have a very interesting seat neighbor. An American girl that has worked in Baghdad for the past three years... as an accountant. She quit and is not traveling the world. Amazing stories to share so the time just flies by. Julie and Markus were also on the flight so another farewell on Bali airport when we get there. And now it's my luck, will I get to Bangkok today or stay in Kuta, Bali for another night? As far as I know there are two daily flights from Bali to Bangkok. Air Asia, in the morning which has already left and Thai Airways in the afternoon, which I am hoping to get.

So I make my way to the International Departures and run into an obstacle. The Thai Airways Ticketing office is in the terminal building and you are only allowed to enter the terminal building once you have a ticket. Catch 22. So a 'friendly' security supervisor offers to accompany me to the Ticketing office since they can't just let me in. Seeing I just arrived on another plane at the same airport I can't be considered much as a security threat but I soon find out why the 'friendly' officer accompanies me. Next out of luck... the ticketing office is closed on Saturdays. But hey, someone is there and while they can't issue a ticket they can call someone to book it for me and I can just go downstairs and check in, but payment in cash only. So back outside again, cash, back upstairs, get my ticket. And the 'friendly' officer keeps talking about 'Help me, Help you'. Essentially he wants to be bribed. By now he annoys me and I just want him to disappear. So for the first time in my life (who would have thought) I am handing out a bribe. He is not happy about the amount but I make it clear he's not gonna get more from me (roughly 4 €) and should leave now. Which disgruntled he does. And I do finally get to check in for my flight back 'home'. Bangkok here I come.