In a stroke of genius branding, Komodo Island is home to the world’s only dragons.
The Komodo dragon is a big – really big – monitor lizard. Up to 3 meters long and with powerful legs and claws, these ruthless beasts devour buffalo, deer, and their own young.
But, they do not fly (obviously) and do not breathe fire (disappointingly). After about 8 am, they mostly lie very still in the shade. Sprawled out, with tourists taking photos from every direction, they don’t look particularly fierce. To be honest, it is quite anti-climatic. They just look like a giant gecko.
We had a hunch that the dragon-spotting trip would be a check-the-box activity that we try so hard to avoid. If you had asked us whether we wanted to go see giant geckos, it would have been easy to make the right decision. But miss our chance to see the world’s only dragons…. How could we?
So, we spent four hours on a boat with a fuming engine on its last leg. We ambled leisurely around Rinca Island for a bit with a ranger paid to protect us with his wooden staff. But, in the end, we saw only a single dragon: as expected, sleeping in the shade of the staff kitchen.
The silver lining of this mis-adventure is that the land of the dragons looks a lot like Northern California, so perhaps we will see them again when we get back home….
On a more serious note, the trip further underscored the toll of Ramadan in this Muslim-majority country. The ranger that escorted us through Komodo National Park was fasting from dawn to dusk, despite a physically demanding job exposed to the elements. The same was true of the entire boat crew on the Jaya – not a drop of water despite the hot sun. This year, Ramadan’s 30 days fall right in the middle of Indonesia’s peak tourism season, an important driver of the national economy.
In Labuanbajo, we frequently woke briefly long before dawn to the call-to-prayer booming over loud speakers. We just rolled over and went back to sleep. But, for the devout, it was beginning of their day, so they could pray, eat, and drink before the sunrise. Though deprived of sleep, food, and water, the people of Labuanbajo were almost always warm, patient, and ready with a smile or laugh. We doubt we would be half as good-natured in their shoes.