Where the dragons are

Published Nov 13, 2013

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Denpasar - I’d tracked tigers on foot deep in two of India’s national parks; looked marine iguanas in the eye in the Galapagos; walked headlong into a moose in a Swedish forest; been chased on a walking trail by a white rhino – now it was time to find the Komodo dragons.

It was off to Bali then, and then to embark on a gorgeous two-masted schooner, the Ombak Putih, thence to sail around some of the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia.

At 2m to 3m long, with poisonous fangs and grotesquely ugly faces that even a mother would find hard to love, unknown to the Western world until 1910, the Komodo dragons, the largest living lizards, are fearsome predators, ambushing deer, pigs, horses and water buffalo (and occasionally humans). The dragons hide along game trails and pounce on their prey as it passes, crippling it by severing tendons in the legs, before finishing it off with a bite to the throat or by ripping out the intestines.

My group of intrepid South African friends and I are given all this information as we stand early one morning on Komodo island (part of the Lesser Sunda group of volcanic islands that comprise Komodo National Park, a World Heritage Site) by our slim young guides who are armed with nothing more than large forked sticks.

I’ve already noticed a faded chart on the rickety office wall that notes the number of people killed in the last few years.

Undeterred, we set off down a dusty path through a forest that is not unlike the lowveld bush.

Suddenly, a huge dragon appears from the bushes, waddles in front of us on the path for about five minutes, and then disappears as suddenly as it came.

We walk on, and then have the most enormous stroke of luck. Even the guides pull out their cameras to take photographs.

A massive dragon has just killed a deer and is feeding voraciously on it, drool and blood dripping from its great jaws as its bright yellow double-forked tongue darts in and out.

“Don’t worry,” whispers our guide. “It is so focused on feeding it notices nothing else.”

As if to prove his point, a young dragon arrives on the scene and also begins feeding, ignored by its huge counterpart. We stay with the kill for a while, taking photographs.

Apparently, when the dragons hatch, rather like the massive sea turtles, only few survive to adulthood as they are vulnerable to predators. The creatures spend the first few years of their lives clambering about the tree tops, only to come down to earth when they become too heavy for the branches to support them.

We climb higher and higher into the rough, hilly, deserted, dry island which, along with other smaller islands, is home to the last dragons on earth. The Komodos probably owe their survival to the inaccessibility of their habitat, the deserted locations of the islands, the fierce currents between them, and the fact they don’t taste good and can’t be turned into handbags.

This sighting was one of the highlights of my trip to Bali and beyond, and we spent two memorable (and incident-free) mornings hiking and finding dragons on Komodo and Rinca islands.

But another highlight was sailing for a week around the Indonesian islands on the two-masted schooner. The Ombak Putih (White Wave), built from ironwood and caulked with bamboo foam, is a beautiful traditional schooner, which revives the days when the waters in and around Indonesia were ruled by the Buginese.

Because it can only sail with the trade winds, it’s known as a “trade wind ship”. Imagine 12 small cabins with tiny en-suite bathrooms, spacious sun decks, blue sails, and an anchor that creaked up and down whenever we felt like stopping.

The weather is perfect, none of the active volcanos erupt (although there was a big eruption in Samoa just after we left), dophins play around the vessel and the pina coladas are great.

The snorkelling, from the boat and also from deserted desert islands in the teeming underwater world with its curtains of fish and technicolour coral reefs, is truly amazing, and the food, cooked by the young enthusiastic crew, is delicious. We all decide that this is one of our best trips ever.

Bali is very commercialised, but even that degree of commercialisation and the thousands of holidaying Australians can’t hide its charm.

The people are gentle, friendly and welcoming to tourists, and everywhere there are daily offerings to the gods and household spirits in the form of flowers, fruit and leaves dotted about pavements, walls and ledges. Every village has banyan trees (draped in special cloth to balance the ying and yang), a palace and a market.

Bali is full of creativity, with abundant art, wood carving, pottery and fabrics (especially batiks) on sale everywhere, and all very affordable – even for cash-strapped South Africans.

And, by the way, I did encounter some other wildlife of a lesser kind.

I had my feet “pedicured” and nibbled by a tank full of tiny fish (Garra rufa or “doctor fish”). I don’t think I’d repeat the experience, but it was better than being devoured by a 3m Komodo dragon. - Sunday Tribune

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