Notes from Stephen, Wan, Kweilin, and Li

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Labuan Bajo, Rinca, Ikan Terbang: Komodo Dragon hike

We saw many Komodo Dragons today. The Komodo Dragon is the largest lizard in the world and it only lives on the islands of Komodo, Rinca, and Flores. We took two-hour boat trip to Rinca and hiked around the island.

Jerome told us yesterday that one sees more wildlife early in the morning, so we arranged for a boat to pick us up at the hotel at 6 am. The boat cost 250,000 rupiah (US$25) for the back-and-forth journey. I think we probably would have seen the same number of animals even if we'd left later. We're still glad we left when we did because, as hot as our hike was, it probably would have been hotter if we'd started later. We got back to Labuan Bajo at 2:30 pm, so it's really a full-day trip.

We had a spacious boat all to ourselves for the journey to Rinca island. We saw a sea turtle and some dolphins on the way over.

As soon as we docked, Kweilin and I saw two pretty big dragons. Kweilin pointed to the dragons and asked a local, "Big or small?" "Small," he answered.

Indeed, we saw dragons twice as large by the resting hut where we found our guide. A handful of people live in houses near the resting hut and dragons bask in the sun around the houses, just a few feet from where people walk. These dragons were just about the only ones we saw on the two-hour hike. Maybe the locals feed the dragons to keep them where the tourists can see them.

We paid a few fees upon arriving at the resting hut. One is required to hike with a guide, so that we don't disturb the animals or get eaten by one. The guide's fee is 40,000 rupiah (US$4) and we tipped him 6,000 rupiah. We paid to carry a camera: 25,000 rupiah. And we paid what was probably a park entrance fee for the boat and ourselves (I forget the amount).

We learned on our hike that Rinca has a few hundred or maybe a thousand dragons. Henry, our guide, told us that the largest males we saw were 40-50 years old. Males outnumber females three-to-one for some reason. Males fight for the opportunity to mate in June and July but the rest of the year the dragons live in solitude. It's June now, but we didn't see any fighting or mating.

We saw dragons, water buffalo, deer, and monkeys during our hike. That might be the first time I've seen wild water buffalo. I've only seen them ploughing a field until now.

The lizards might have crawled out of the sea onto the islands (Henry said they can swim), but how did the deer and water buffalo and monkeys get there? Kweilin suggested that the islands in the archipelago were connected by land before the last Ice Age. The animals might have gotten isolated on the island when the ice melted.

We needed more water and snacks for our hike. We had emptied our water bottle and were famished by the time we returned to the resting hut.

We'll sleep on Jerome's boat tonight (Ikan Terbang), so that we can leave early tomorrow morning to start our three-day diving trip.

We ate dinner at the Gardena restaurant tonight with Jerome and Maurice (his father). We talked about Indonesian culture and some of Jerome's and Maurice's experiences in Indonesia.

Maurice built two boats several years ago in Sulawesi, one of which is Ikan Terbang, the one we'll be diving off of. Maurice only meant to build one boat but he inherited another one when a friend of his returned to France.

Maurice and Jerome love Indonesian people. Maurice and Jerome have traveled all over the world and have chosen to settle in Indonesia because they feel most comfortable with Indonesians.

Maurice and Jerome crossed from Bali to Sulawesi in a terrible storm in August 2003. They fought for their lives for three days and three nights, alone on the boat. Jerome manned the tiller while Maurice fixed the engine. Threesomes of five-meter waves punctuated relatively calm waters. Jerome guided the boat through each wave, descending at a right angle and ascending at a 45-degree angle. Two ferries sank in the same storm and many people died.

Jerome almost died during a dive in dangerous currents a couple years ago. He was diving with a couple Belgians in east Flores along a wall. They apparently got too close to the end of the wall where the current changed. A downward current suddenly plunged Jerome and his friends from a depth of 20 meters to a depth of 60 meters. Jerome discarded his weight belt and inflated his BCD to no avail. He was lucky that the current stopped or he would be dead.

One experienced diver was less lucky than Jerome and died last year. He was diving at a dangerous spot in Flores and was observing fish swimming in a current. He got too close and got sucked into the current. Tourist boats, local fishing boats, and police searched for the diver for three or four days but couldn't find him. The current might have taken him down so far that he drowned and then got eaten by sharks.

On the boat tonight, Kweilin and I sang several songs with the guitar we borrowed from the hotel we stayed at in Labuan Bajo. Jerome sang along to "Homeward Bound."

We continued talking with Jerome and Maurice and learned more about them and the boat.

Maurice is a champion fisherman. He took seventh place in the World Fishing Championship. The hard part, he said, is reeling in the fish softly and patiently. A fish only bites if you use a thin line that it can't see, so you have to reel it in slowly so that the fish doesn't break the line.

The boat is made of teak wood from Sulawesi and it is 20 meters long. Maurice and Jerome gave another length: 14 meters. I'm not sure what that measures.

Maurice was a member of the "Pompiers de Paris," which I think means "Paris Firemen." It's a military unit that fights fires as well. He did gymnastics to keep fit while he was a member of the unit.

posted by Li at 4:00 AM