La Buan Bajo/Komodo National Park

We head from Bali to our furthest southeast destination – La Buan Bajo (red marker on map) on Flores Island. This fishing town is the jumping off point to Komodo National Park – home to the Komodo dragon– the largest breed of lizards in the world.

In reading about the area, like in most undeveloped countries, locals get a raw deal from tourism – it’s mainly the large developers and investors who profit. So it is here and one sees the poverty in and around town.

Renting a scooter for a few hours exploration outside the village seems the best option:

DAY TRIP

We have purchased a day tour to see/experience the area’s renowned highlights.

A highlight of the day is a visit to Pulau Padar (Pada), the third largest island of Komodo National Park.

Back down, the weather starts to change as we head to Komodo Island where one can  observe Komodo Dragons  (Komodo Monitors), the largest lizard of the world.

Clearly these lizards are “paid” to show up but we do our tourist thing. This guy is pretty amazing.

Happy to see movement (many write of seeing dragons only in a semi-comatose state in the dry season).

Unfortunately the Komodo Dragons are an endangered species (human encrouchment+ climate change). Current tab is only 3500 mostly on this island.

Neat facts: the Komodo Dragons use their tongues to find, smell and taste food; they can run almost 20 km/hr; smell blood from nearly 10 kms away, have poor hearing; they may cooperate with each other to hunt prey with their favourite food being Javan Rusa (a type of Indonesian deer); a bite (venom) can kill a human (and has). (globalconservation.org)

Some clever tourism planner clearly decided tourists should be taken on a “jungle walk” before being given a local lunch.

Back in the boat, over the course of the afternoon, we get in four great snorkling opportunities.

After the above stop we are thrilled to snorkle at Manta Point, where we indeed see Manta Ray up close, including an experience Barry had coming face to face with one. Such grace in water. (Unfortunately I do not trust my phone protector).