Walking with the Dragons in Komodo Island, Indonesia

There were quite a few highlights of my 2 weeks of traipsing around Indonesia. I did some of the must-dos, didn’t do some of the must-dos, did some of the needn’t dos, panicked at some of the mustn’t-dos, walked lots, made lots of friends, consumed lots of beer… a trip like many of my others in the past… I will share more on that in another post… This one I’m going to dedicate to the BIG highlight of my trip – meeting with and walking with the dragons…

I have always been a fan of the dragon series of films – “Enter the Dragon”, “Return of the Dragon”, “the Dragon Returns yet again”, right upto “Will this Dragon never stop Returning”… And the endless list of Kung Fu movies with dragon names…

When I read about the Dragons at Komodo Island, I jumped. And checked out the real dragons at the Komodo Island Sanctuary… Saw quite a few of them – the adults, the kids, the lazy, the frisky, the fat, the thin, the males, the females… in the wild… None of them look like Bruce Lee though… And they don’t look like they can do a back flip, leave alone Kung Fu… But what an experience it was – seeing these beasts in the wild!

A short flight from Bali and I was in Labuan Bajo, a lovely small seaside town with stunning sunsets and beaches. I just sat on the beach with my friend Bintang and stared at the Sun setting in a rather dramatic fashion…

And then the next day I headed out on a boat to the Komodo Island which is a reserved island that harbours about 1500 giant dragons in the jungle. The legend of the dragons is amazing…

Let me tell you the story: So apparently, long ago a princess called Putri Naga (Dragon Princess) lived on Komodo Island. She married a man called Majo and they had twins – a boy and a dragon. She named the boy as Si Gerong and the dragon as Orah. Poor Orah had to be left in the forest. They grew up not knowing each other till one day they faced-off over a hunt. Their mother stopped them, told them of their relationship and asked them to never hurt each other. Hence, even now the Komodo dragons are never hunted by the locals – in fact they go to great lengths to protect them. A fab conservation plan isn’t it? And the dragons! They are fascinating…

Here are some salient facts: They are huge – 6 to 8 feet in length. They look like dinosaurs with short hind legs and forked snake-like tongues. They are cannibalistic and feed on smaller Komodo dragons. Hence the young ones live on trees for the first few years of their life… They eat other animals like deer – their hunting modus, given their unwieldy bulk, is to lie camouflaged and suddenly bite the deer when they come near… and then keep following it to allow the poison to kill the prey before swallowing it whole, sometimes knocking it on a tree to speed up the swallowing process. They lie around practically immobile after a hearty meal and regurgitate the hooves etc. that aren’t digestible.

This is how the young look – I was lucky enough to spot one… They are rarely seen on ground since they form around 10% of the diet of adult dragons…

And hey, they lay eggs in nests dug on the ground – the work of making the nest being allocated to a kind of scrub fowl that are found on the island 😉

And then I bid a reluctant adieu to the Komodos stranded in their island home, maybe yearning to see the rest of the world…

Next stop was the ‘pink beach’ for some snorkelling and beer. It is actually pink! The blue water, the sky, the pink beach, the snorkelling… colour will never be the same for me…

And then back to Labuan Bajo for dinner at a small hole-in-the-wall with delicious food washed down with Sopi the local palm-based drink…

And the next day it was back to Bali and then back home. But with memories of walking with the Komodo dragons… For those wondering how I got so close to the dragon, it is quite simple – they are so long and unwieldy that the turning radius and time taken to turn is quite enough for one to get away.

Wanna trip into extra ordinary this year? Trip to Indonesia!