Flores - Komodo Islands

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The trip to the Komodo Islands is one of the most beautiful trips to do in Indonesia. It is a long and tiring journey, but the landscapes are just unique! We started the trip from Bali, hoped to Lombok via ferry, and from Lombok, made the 4 days sea-trip to Labuan Bajo, stopping many times on the way for treks, dives, beaches, waterfalls, and of course, to see the infamous Komodo dragons! Once in Labuan Bajo, we continued our trip onwards towards Ende on Flores islands, crossing spectacular landscapes made of semi-deserts and unique rice terraces. We ended our trip in Ende, where we visited the 3-multicolored lakes of the Kelimutu Volcano.

Here are some info and tips for this trip:

Air Asia has a flight from Singapore, departing at 9pm to Bali-Denpasar arriving at 11:30pm. From the Airport, it is a drive of 1h30 to Padang Bai Harbour (Taxi costs around 200 000IDR). At Padang Bai, there are Ferry running 24/24h, 7/7d. Cost is very minimal (40000 IDR) and the crossing takes 4 hours with a good weather. The Ferry is large and relatively Confortable with drinks & food to purchase onboard. The Ferry's destination is the Harbour of Lembar. Lembar has nothing to do with Padang Bai, which is a nice town with restaurants and home stays. The main harbour on Lombok has next to nothing but harassers. Transport from Lembar to Singiggi takes a bit more than 2 hours through a beautiful road next to the sea. Concerning our trip, we left Bali-Denpasar Airport at 12:00 PM on a friday night, reached Padang Bai at 2:00am, reached Lembar at 6:30am, and arrived at Singiggi around 9am.

From Sengiggi, I arranged a boat-trip all the way to Labuan Bajo (near the Komodo Islands) via a local company called Kencana. The company is quite famous in Indonesia, and there isn't actually much choice to do this trip. The sea-voyage is quite long, and the sea can be quite rough, so it is recommended to take a recognized company! The trip cost us 2,500,000 IDR for 4 days.

The first day on the trip is basically spent driving through the whole of Lombok to reach the docks on the east side of the island and board the boat. The boat accomodates 4-5 crew, and 20 tourists... Overall, the quality of the trip was satisfactory. The boat was quite comfortable, and altough complains could be made on the food, one can't ask too much to the sailors-improvised cooks. The sea was not perticularily rough but the lonely plant does state that the "Komodo waters are the worst in Indonesia because of high winds and fast currents, created by the merge of cold and hot waters", and the small boat did get pretty bumpy at times. Sleeping on the boat can be very relaxing (even with a salty body due to the lack of showers), as long as the boat is not in mouvement... which has hardly been the case. Trying to sleep at night, surrounded by the low frequency, low pitch but very noisy sound of the engine is a feat, a challenge made even tougher by the constant rocking of the boat of significant angles from front to back or left to right. The slippery matress were hardly enough to prevent us from slipping from one end to the other of the cabin and the sudden shock of the boat hitting the sea could get quite disruptive... An awesome experience anyhow!

The boat stops quite often to enjoy the landscape, and enjoy the spectacular underwater activity!

Komodo Dragons are located on just a few islands, the largest population of them being on Rinca Island, and Komodo Island. The Komodo Dragons are very anciant creatures, which are dangerous because they are really fast, and host alot of bacteries in their mouths. Of course, at no point during the little trek on these islands are visitors put in danger, and you can actually approach them ! We actually managed to see quite a few Komodo dragons, as well as deers, wild boars, monkeys and plenty of various birds. Its quite a thing to learn than young Komodo dragons have to hide in trees so that their parents won't kill and eat them, but its quite another to realise how much this is not bullshit, and those big reptiles can actually make their way up to tall trees and hide!

After the trip, regaining the land and enjoying the first shower in 4 days, as well as the first proper meal is a real treat! Labuan Bajo is a small town, but is a perfect basecamp for all the marine activity which can be done around Komodo.

After a good night's sleep in a non-moving bed, we met Adi, our driver for the next 3 days, who would drive us trough the few hundreds of kilometers between Labuan Bajo and Ende, on the east part of Flores. As can be seen on the pictures, Flores is a truly amazing island. Some parts are made of very dense jungle hidding away hundreds of small hills. Progress through the island is difficult because the road is made of successions of turns and keeps going up and down the hills, but the landscape made of villages, rice paddies, rice terraces, jungle, hills and volcanoes makes the trip quite short! Near Rentang, one of the sights offered by the island are the spider-web rice terraces, and the traditional villages. Flores is mostly inhabited by christian, but contains a lot of different ethnic groups, from Bugis and Ngadas to Liao and Sikkanese, all with their different beliefs and rites. Visiting the remote villages where visitors are always greeted by the relentless smiles of hundreds of kids is fabulous! The trip on the small roads of Flores, is a show in itself, reveiling people walking from mysterious places to even more mysterious places, kids going to school or bringing back wood for the fire, scouts on their way to rallys, womens working on lush green rice terraces, white-butted cows chewing their meal, calm and philosophical dogs watching passers-by, all with a background changing from tall inspiring volcanoes, incredible green valleys organised around rice fields,to beautiful coastline scenaries

After visiting many villages and driving the driver crazy by all our stops on the way to take pictures, the key of the trip was finally reached: Kelimutu volcano!

The volcano is reached from Moni village, before dawn, after about 1 hour drive. No hike is necessary, and no equipment other than a torchlight and warm clothes. The walk takes hardly 30 minutes to reach the top, were 3 lakes stay hidden under the darkness. The sunrise is an amazing sight on the hills and forests surrounding the volcano, but the best is to watch the curtain unfold from the craters progressively, as the sun goes up. The true color of the 3 lakes is slowly revealed as the shade disappears, and before the clouds come in, absolutly stunning view on the volcano's 3 craters are possible. The 3 lakes are almost perfect cirlces dug in the volcano, and smoke and sulphur are visible on the surface of the liquid. The pictures can hardly convey the great sense of wonder that one can feel while standing on the crater rim, some few meters to the lakes. One of the lake was a bright blue, similar to the color of the lake in Kawah Idjen-Java. The other was blue-grey, with big patches of floating yellow substances. The last one, further ouest, was brown-red.

As so often with volcanoes in Indonesia, coming 8-9am, the clouds come in shadowing again the craters. An amazing show indeed!!

It is worth staying around Moni to hike in the rice fields, as reaching Ende early is quite useless, considering the insignificant amount of things to see in this small town!

The flight back to Denpasar from Ende is operated by Wings Air, a company of LionAir, with ATR 72-500. The flight is relatively expensive (as much as the 4 days boat trip from Lombok to Flores), but offers amazing views on Flores and the rice terraces, on the hundreds of paradise-islands surrounded by white beaches and corals-full waters, as well as on dozens of volcanoes, including the huge volcano Gunung Tambora on Sambawa island, as well as Gunung Rinjani on Lombok.