Indonesia: Bali and Labuan Bajo: Summer 2019

From my hostel in Labuan Bajo

Back in the summer I decided to take on Indonesia in all it's island hopping glory. I only had a little over three weeks after taking out some VISA complications and my Taiwan obligations so I had to prioritize. I ended up with a pretty decent introduction to the country with a much longer list of places that I want to go to than I had before.

As almost all flights from Kunming went through Bali after a stop somewhere else (in my case Bangkok and KL on the way back)

Very old dragon. 

I decided to turn a stop over into a few days. I had low expectations for Bali so I hadn't really heard much in the way of good things said about the place. I was expecting an Australian Malaga and I got an Australian Malaga. One the bright side the food was excellent, lots of BBQ steak and sausages everywhere. After several months of not having eaten anything but Kunming's selection, the break was fantastic.

Pirate Dive Camp Jeti

My hotel was described as beach front which when I asked where the beach was, they took me out onto the road and pointed at a tiny slither of blue about 400 meters away. The guy looked very happy and said "see, the sea, all good."

In all fairness, it was quite a nice bech but nothing like the postcard island paradises I was expecting. Kuta city is amazing for meat, seafood and shopping and not much else. My three or four days were plenty.


From Bali it was off to the main event, the whole reason for my trip. Komodo and the hunt for dragons! Seeing these huge beasts has been bucket list item for me for a very long time and I had heard rumors that the government were going to close the island so I jumped on what could be my last chance. (Update: Indonesian government now charging $1000 for a year long membership to the park instead of a single person/ entry ticket of $35) Very glad I did as there is no way I would pay $1000 to go once.)

My "house" on the beach

Komodo itself is actually a small group of Islands off the coast of Labuan Bajo so I stopped there for a night before my splurge stop. I booked a few nights on a "pirate dive camp" which was pretty much what it sounds like. It's a small privately owned island about half way between the mainland and Komodo Park which was both a good thing and a bad thing. We were first to arrive on the island, we weren't woken up by the sunrise calls to prayer and we weren't overrun with people however, we were however stuck with the truly terrible food and bathrooms that were so "rustic" bears would have gone somewhere else.

I was staying in a small "pirate hut" right on the beach so I could lay in bed and hear the waves. I was bliss!

Pinkish if you squint beach

I decided (or rather had no choice but to) go with the camp for the dragon tour. It quickly turned into one of the best days in recent memory. We got to Komodo and met our guide, walked for a few hours looking for dragons without mcc luck. As we were heading back to the boat feeling a little disheartened we turned a corner but the restaurant and ran into three massive males and a baby. They were hiding from us in the open. They even looked smug about it!
A few thousand photos were taken before we went back to the boat and off to Pink Beach and some snorkeling.

Dive camp from the water

I figured as I am a pretty good swimmer and have been diving before, that snorkeling would be easy. I was very wrong. It is a for of very slow drownig that takes a fair amount of time to get used to. For me, it was about the time for my guide to disappear. Pink beach is not actually very pink, a better name would be "Slightly pinkish if you squint beach". Regardless, it was stunning, we nearly had the place to ourselves over a very busy and active coral reef. I gave up trying to snorkel and just sort of floated over the fish. Truly incredible.

There be dragons!

From pink beach, we thought we were heading back to the island but our captain surprised us with a stop at Manta Point. The weather was a bit blowy here so my newfound snorkeling skills were really not up to scratch. A guy was stood on top of our boat then when he shouted and pointed we jumped and searched for an illusive ray. I jumped in with another and we were searching below us, which was actually dauntingly deep, only to glance over and see two huge rays floating about 10 meters away from us just under the surface.

Before we got back in the boat and went back to the island we had seen three and a half dragons, millions of fish and 7 manta rays. A very good day for the bucket list!

My last night on the island and Indonesia really put on a show. The whole trip was filled with stunning sunsets but never had one been over the sea with a volcano rumbling away in the background.
From the island I went back to the mainland for the best pizza of my life!

As if to show off, My last night. A volcanic eruption over the sea at sunset.