Indonesia is like a huge jigsaw puzzle of islands, each piece taken from a different picture and forced into a collective mould under one unifying flag. Every one of its 6000 or so inhabited islands has its own identity, culture and history. The people are Batak first, Torajan first, Komodo first... Indonesian a close second, but second nonetheless. Thats why traveling through these dots of land in the ocean is like navigating many differing countries without all the visa hassle. And Flores was different again, this time not in a particularly nice way. I almost felt like we were back in Egypt, the people openly stared at Amanda as if sizing her up, we were didn't feel particularly welcome, accepted or even ignored (which would have been nice). Instead groups of people would shout 'hello Mr' as you walked past, not intimidating in itself, but annoying after a couple of days. You had to be there.

Our early morning exit from Labuan Bajo turned out to be more like a prolonged wait at the town bus station, until someone eventually told us the Bajawa bus was busted and wouldn't be coming. So much for the 5am start.

We took a bus to Ruteng, which played some of the most obscene (to the point of offensive) 90's rap music I have ever heard. It had Amanda on the verge of tears. The tape ran through and our driver followed it up with some Bahasa love ballads, which most of the old ladies on the bus much preferred. Five hours later we arrived at the bus stop three kilometers outside Ruteng. A nice bus driver told us it should be about 2000 rupeas to town, the tuk-tuk and Bemo drivers were demanding 10,000 each. What followed was the slightly ridiculous scene of two tourists determinedly lugging their backpacks down a long, long road to town, completely surrounded by two dozen or so hassling bikes, taxi's and minibuses, all shouting at them, trying to convince them to pay way over the odds for a lift. Not that they were asking for very much by English standards, at this point it's the principle that matters. Amanda was at the edge of violence pretty early on and were it not for our nice bus driver passing by and offering us a lift things would have gotten very ugly indeed.

The only nice memory of Ruteng

We waited a few hours in Ruteng for the connecting bus, not a great town for it but needs must, and finally arrived in Bajawa by nightfall. Again the taxi mafia had the bus drop off tourists five km from town. After a quick chat we decided to walk again, but picked up a couple of bikes round the corner fro half the price... they must think all tourists are completely stupid.

Knackered and fed up of transport scamsters we stopped at the first place to offer us a room and collapsed into bed.

Apparently there is a volcano somewhere near to Bajawa that someone once told Amanda was worth climbing, come the morning though thoughts like that were banished to the 'wishful thinking' box, and we decided to visit a little ancient country village called Bima instead. We knew there were buses going there from the town market, but finding it amongst all the touts and scam artists proved to be a distinct challenge. Everyone we asked told us that no, there was no bus to Bima, but they/their cousin/mate/mum/hairdressers sister-in-law could take us in air conditioned chartered style there and back for the tiny sum of... It took us nearly an hour, eventually with the help of possibly the only honest man in town to find the real bus stop. Another hour later the bus pulled up, a truck with planks for seats which drove round town for yet another hour picking up people, pigs and farmyard equipment till we eventually got going.

Bima, worth a sore bum to see

It was worth it though. Bima is set amongst the real Flores countryside. Rice terraces and tiny thatched villages forgotten by the rest of the world as their lives plod on, timeless and unchanged for generation after generation. Bima itself is a throwback to a time so ancient that when we asked the age of the place the inhabitants only shrugged, swept their arms round to indicate the graveyard and said "only the dead know". Which is spooky enough to come straight out of a Victorian horror novel. The village is built on three man-made stone levels, like a miniature hill, round the outside at the base sit a circle of wooden and thatch huts, each decorated with totems, bones and other long forgotten mojo. Elaborate graves sit on the highest parts, tall, thin stone obelisks rising from the ground, very reminiscent of superman's home, mark the last resting places of the village dead. Interspersed with these stone tombs are intricately carved posts topped with wide straw umbrellas and small huts, again carved in fabulous designs. This is an anthropologists dream. As it is they only get one or two visitors a day and hold onto their old ways with relative ease.

If you see a big wicker man... run!

Later we asked the man in our hotel how old the village actually was. He said the best estimate he'd heard was about 10,000 years... Maybe only the dead do remember after all.

We met Thomas and Yanne that night, two Dutch travelers cluttering up our favorite Bajawa restaurant. They seemed ok at the time so we decided to go with them the following morning to climb mount Kelimutu. Yanne had adopted a severe tendency to travel sickness whenever she drove anywhere for longer than 20 minutes, which is unfortunate when you're trying to travel the world and twenty hour bus trips are a weekly event. They went by shared cars whenever they could as it was easier to ask the driver to stop and wait for five minutes while you poke your head out of the window and vomit. Thinking about that now I don't really know why we didn't take the bus after all.

Yanne, not throwing up!

The little village we stayed in clung to the side of the volcano desperate for tourists to fill their homestays. More a one horse street with a few houses than an actual settlement, Moni was all we needed for a little peace and quiet (though that afternoon we had forgotten about the ever present fighting cock population of Indonesia). As soon as we arrived a gaggle of touts materialised as if from nowhere to help us choose their 'hotel'. Carrying a rucksack alone and un-molested through any street in Asia is, I am sure a complete impossibility, you might as well paint a target on your backside. We settled for Sylvester's place, mostly because he hadn't harassed us (more like ignored us) and we respected that kind of reverse psychology. It turned out to be the best choice in town, his sister cooked huge buffet dinners for the guests and breakfast was included in the tiny price of the room. OK, we had to sleep next to Thomas and Yanne (I think it was Yanne doing the snoring) but you can't have everything...

Welcomed to the home stay with open arms

Like early morning addicts we were up at four the next morning for a quick jeep ride to the top of Mount Kelimutu. By the time we'd had a cup of tea, dragged our weary feet up the half hour set of steps and emerged, tired but alive at the top the sun was beginning to rise majestically over the horizon. I think it was anyway, our view of it was completely obscured by the heavy layers of dark cloud that wisped ghost-like across the landscape. At least we got sporadic glimpses of Kelimutu's famous coloured lakes as a gap appeared for long enough to take a quick picture.

Cuppa anyone?

Soon enough the sun was strong enough to burn away most of the clouds and we were treated to a full view of the volcanic lakes we'd come to see. The first (the enchanted lake) was a deep black, right next to the lake of young men and maidens which was a rich green. Further up was the lake of old people (where the souls of the dead are said to congregate) which was a dark chocolate brown. Thomas was suddenly struck by a severe attack of vertigo, refusing to get anywhere near the edge and look over. It's amazing the pair of them are traveling at all with their combined phobias and foibles. They truly deserve each other.

Danger!!!!!!

We stayed at the top for for about enough time to annoy the hell out of the hippy couple, desperately trying to meditate while we pushed Thomas to the edge and joked about loudly (sorry). The view once the clouds had gone was magnificent and we drank it in for as long as we could before climbing down. Our bemo had driven off without us but we wanted to walk back anyway... our 'Book' spoke of a short cut back to Moni and we headed off confidently in the morning sunshine.

Just one step back...

Eight hours later, after taking one wrong turn after another, asking mischievous locals (who it turned out had all sent us the wrong way) we finally arrived back to Sylvester's, tired, hot and sunburned. Apparently the very first turn we had taken had sent us through a maze of farms, valleys and villages, we forded two rivers, climbed an unnecessary amount of steep sided hills and nearly got charged by one evil looking bull. Our short cut turned out to be a mini country tour, at least we got to meet the locals and learnt in no uncertain terms that 'gula gula' means 'give me some sweets'. Thomas also tought me a number of interesting Dutch swear words, which are a little too bazaar to repeat in this site.

Last view of Kelimutu

Another huge buffet dinner later, and a quick play on Sylvester's super duper electronic keyboard synthesizer (he's available for weddings, funerals and barmitsva's at very reasonable prices) later and we were ready for an early night. Amanda had bought a hand woven long sarong, sewn together like a sleeping bag with holes at both ends from Sylvesters sister and I wanted to get out of there before she decided she wanted anything else. Yanne had also bought one, so I know Thomas wanted to leave soon too. Our chaufer driven posh car failed to turn up the next morning however so we were forced to take the bus (with the rest of the peasants). Luckily a cockerel had kept us awake for most of the night and Yanne slept most of the way to Maumere without the need to throw up out of the door.

Once again Thomas and Yanne followed us to our hotel when we arrived in town. It looked as though we were going to have to get a boat out to another island in order to shake them. We'd arrived in Maumere several days before we needed to because some annoying Austrian traveler we'd met told Amanda that the Pelni Ferry might not be going to Sulawesi. Terrified that we would miss the chance to visit Sulawesi we had left plenty of time to arrange a contingency plan, but all without need. Nothing short of a major act of god seems capable of stopping the huge Pelni ferries from their scheduled departure. The result was that we had three days to wait in the most boring, dull and lifeless town in the whole of Indonesia. Maumere's one decent restaurant produced food so horrible that we collected the bread for breakfast to eat at lunchtime to avoid going. At night when hunger forced us outside we ordered the same omelette and chips (the safest option) which looked different every time. Food in Indonesia till this point had been consistently great, Maumere changed that unbeaten record. The internet cafe near the port was Maumere's only form of entertainment, the children on the street followed us there and back with their grim 'Hello Mr's' haunting our steps. Pigs rooted through overturned rubbish, uncollected for months and rotting in the street, the Pelni office, the reason we were there, remained closed for days. Our days were hot and long, Thomas and Yanne got out quickly, flying back to Bali to escape the interminable boredom, Amanda and I stuck it out for three whole mind-numbing days before finally being allowed to board the boat.

Goodbye from Little Sylvester

And another island was done. Not my favourite I have to say, worse than the sum of its parts. Komodo, obviously was a fabulous highlight, it was just a shame about the National Park accommodation and the state of Labuan Bajo. Bima was a very interesting place, but getting there was hell itself. Kelimutu, a great volcano, Maumere has to be the dullest place to spend five minutes in the whole world. It had been great to see all the separate things we saw, but we were glad to be leaving. Anyway, Sulawesi promised some extraordinary sights. It was time to leave.

Well off the ancient maps, into `uncharted' waters somewhere near the fabled spice islands of nutmeg and cloves lies a long strip of land named Flores (presumably for its flowers though I didn't actually see much colourful vegetation of any kind). Here (according to those same old cartographers), be dragons... and this time, for once they were absolutely right. Flores and it's smaller cousins Rinca and Komodo are home to the largest lizards left on the planet, beasties so big that they wouldn't even break a sweat whilst having your leg off, monsters so dangerous and viscious that the Indonesian army employs them as first response shock troops in times of national crisis. I'm told they are the most effective crowd control devise that has ever been tested on revolting poor village peasants and dissident students. These creatures are huge, with firey breath and sharp teeth, they can run faster than a number 23 bus and would think nothing of lying in the sun for two full days without a break. These scaley guys may or may not be magic, but they definitely live by the sea. Amanda wasn't sure they existed, I was chomping at the bit to see them in the flesh (though from at least one big sticks distance away). Flores was for all intents and purposes the absolute place to be.

Don't be lulled into a false sense of security

Most of the above is true. Komodo dragons really are very big, and can actually run at about 35 miles an hour, they do not breathe fire however. But they do have very bad halitosis. I have no proof whatsoever that the govenment of Indonesia have even considered using them as a means of social control... but that means nothing does it?

Having landed by ferry in the port town of Labuan Bajo, tired and dehydrated from our two day bus, boat and scamming tout ordeal we were delighted to see that, contrary to the rhetoric in the Lonely Planet the town had no endearing features whatsoever. It was techically by the seaside, but the dusty main street was shielded from a lovely water view by a long row of nasty, dirty concrete buildings. Mostly mobile phone shops, though there were a handfull of really bad restaurants, a couple of rat infested sleazy hotels and a bank whos ATM took a serious dislike to my card. I walked up and down this road (the only one in town) looking for a place I was prepared to stay in. Bearing in mind that the longer I am travelling from A to B the more likely I am to settle on the first flea pit I find as long as they have a bed and a door in the room, the fact that I didnt find anything I was even remotely prepared to stay in gives you some clue as to their delapidated state. We were forced out of town on mopeds to the posh option, high on a hill, overlooking the crystal bay below. We don't often lord it over the peasants, but I think we deserved a bed without the bugs for a while.

We quickly found a company to dive with (the one everyone else seems to choose, must be the lack of rust on their equipment) and explored the possibility of spending the night on Komodo island. "oh no", we were told, "no-body does that". Despite the fact that they actually have National Park accommodation it seems we were the first people ever to ask the dive boat to come back in a few days and pick us up. They had to invent a whole new tour for us. I felt like a pioneer (of sorts).

The latest in wetsuit fashion... Looking good

And so it was at six in the am, a time best suited to binmen, milkmen and crazy overexcited divers, that we chuffed out of the bay on the way to Rinca, and the first of our four utterly incredible dives. The weather by the way was uncharacteristically perfect for the time of year. This was supposed to be the rainy season, boats had been collapsing left right and centre in the previous weeks, waves as big as your house. We picked the week with an ocean as still as a bathtub, wind like a vacuum, blue skies and red necks. It was as though God himself had come to see us off.

The coral in Komodo National Park is astounding. The most colourful, pristine, beautiful riot of reef I have ever seen. There were some sharks, fish and all that, but loads more little stuff than normal, clinging like mad to the reef trying not to get noticed (and eaten). We saw loads of nudibranches (like neon, glow in the dark slugs in fabulous colours) shrimps, crabs and all sorts of the wierd and wonderful. Our dive master seemed to have a knack of finding all the good stuff. Then we arrived at Rinca Island and were able to prove to Amanda once and for all that dragons really do exist.

But Grandma, what a very big tongue you have

A nice National Park officer took us on an hour long stroll through the islands underbrush to hunt out these nasty monsters. We needn't have bothered though, before we even started we spotted about five behind the camps kitchen, attracted by the smell and hoping for scraps. They lay in the shade, reluctant to muster enough energy to even blink as an acknowledgement of our existence. Amanda, faced with concrete evidence got really excited and took about 500 photo's but I was strangely dissapointed, they didn't actually do much. The guide quickly sorted that little problem by poking these eight foot eating machines with a (long) stick. They got a bit shirty but at least they moved a bit.

The little ones can be a bit quick

Out on the island walk we spotted at least five more Komodo's, all lazing about. One or two hoped up and scarpered as we approached, but the others couldn't be bothered, even staying for our close up with the dragon photo's. These guys seriously have to be the laziest species on earth (next to the sloths). They don't even put any effort into their hunting. Inside their gaping, tooth lined mouth they cultivate an astonishing number of nasty bacteria. When something edible comes close enough to their recumbent forms they give it a quick nip, sending it scurrying away with a sore leg. A few days later, having succumbed to the ensuing infection such a cesspit maw provides the poor unexpecting prey dies. All the Komodo dragon has to do is wait a further few day till their dinner is nice and ripe in the tropical heat, follow the smell and dig in.

Not exactly pride of the top predator is it.

Still, they are impressive to get up close to. I was very glad of our guide and his big stick, not that it would make any difference should the beastie I was three feet from (smiling for another picture) decided I was on next weeks menu.

Note the terrified expression (Amanda also looks uncomfortable)

After another awesome dive we ended the day on Komodo Island itself, surprisingly the least visited despite its name. We found out we were the only visitors to stay overnight that week. It wasn't hard to understand why, most of the 'National Park Accommodation' was either falling apart, had already disintergrated, or was being used by the Park staff as a little private palace. They seemed to have expanded across the whole complex.

Ok, not the Park HQ's only visitors that day

The first room they tried to push on us had no lock on the door. The one we eventually settled for hadn't been cleaned since at least 1974 (making it the best of a bad bunch), there was no electricity till 6pm, no running water till the fat bloke in charge decided he wanted a cuppa and no food whatsoever in the canteen. Luckily the lonely planet had advised us to bring some snacks (one of the rare times when its advice has been at least half right). The (chain smoking) chef offered us a choice of plain rice or plain noodles for dinner, which was a bit slack considering we could see the proper food being cooked in the Park staff kitchens. The local Komodo dragons obviously knew where the good food was at as well. None were around the delapidated 'tourist' canteen, at least five big ones lazed the day away under the park mess.

Luxury five star accommodation?

We finished off a packet of crisps, tried unsuccessfully to chat to the park staff (some were park staff anyway, of the 20 or so men making use of the facilities I would say at least ten didn't work there) who all turned out to be burping chain smokers and ignored us completely. Giving up the evening as a bad job we hoped for better the following morning and went to bed.

The power retired before we did.

Komodo Island has one village, the government 'encouraged' the resident tribes people living in the hills to all move to the same place and become fishermen instead when the National Park was formed. It was only an hour along the coast so we decided to go and see if we could find our guide, spot a dragon or two and maybe pick up a souveneer. We'd discovered that the stuff for sale in the National Park had had a mandatory 'skin tax' imposed on it by the local staff. The Park gets this much... the staff get the rest, at least in the village we could barter.

Komodo village

About an hour later, sweating profusely in the intense heat but pleased with ourselves not only for the walk, but also because of te fantastic, picture postcard coastal views we got, we finally arrived at the village. Trailing along close behind were a group of kids who had run to meet us halfway with trinkets and carvings to sell. They had dogged our footsteps with persistant pleas for business and handouts that almost became begging for half and hour till I told them all to bugger off. Running from the village now were a new group, younger and more interested in the strange visitors themselves than what was in their wallets, we had an eager lot of guides who tried very hard to find a Komodo dragon for us near the village, but unfortunately failed.

Our younger (better) guides

We found our guide in the house of a village elder, documenting stories from the old culture of Komodo, now sadly almost extinct. The dragons apparantly are the mythological sister of all the islands inhabitants. It is very frowned upon to harm one or get in its way when it is rooting through your kitchen, which is a good thing when you think about the size of those jaws. Invited in we sat and chatted for a while before re-emerging to an even bigger group of kids and another Komodo dragon hunt.

Back in the Park camp, tired, hot, dusty, sweaty and very smelly we asked if the water could be turned on in our rooms for half an hour so we could have a shower and clean up. "No", was the unequivical answer, "not till tomorrow morning"!

Bearing in mind this place amounted to the most expensive accommodation we had stayed in in the whole of Indonesia we were not at all impressed. An hour later we managed to get our shower (cold of course) but the effort made it less than relaxing. Dinner that night was a little better, a group of new park rangers were arriving for training that night so a few vegetables had been shipped to the camp. Our rice now sported a bit of greenery AND garlic... oh the luxury!

At least the view was five star

In the morning we had completely run out of our own food. A huge breakfast buffet had been laid out for the trainees, omlette, tempe, veggies, coffe, tea, fruit and rice. We asked if we could pay to join in and were given an absolutely not. If we were hungry they were willing to sell us a packet of crackers! So we ate nothing and went for a walk instead, with a park guide who tried to charge us again for his services, something we'd already paid for. Eventually we sorted it out and came upon a platform in the bush where Komodo 'shows' used to be put on for the (then more frequent) tourists. A dead goat was hung from a post each day and various big dragons would come and rip it to pieces for the amusement of all. This was stopped about eight years ago (by some bleeding heart liberals no doubt) but we still held some hope of spotting a dragon in the wild somewhere nearby. No joy that morning however, though we did catch glimpses in the early morning light of groups of flores deer, wild pigs and birds, scattering back into the undergrowth as soon as they caught our scent.

I eventually managed to talk the cook into giving Amanda a banana when we got back to the camp canteen, it took about half an hour of persuading. Our guide turned up, argued for a further twenty minutes on our behalf and at last suceeded in having one plain omlette (single egg) made for us, for the approximate cost of a medium rare sirloin steak and chips on the mainland. Whilst the island of Komodo itself is beautiful, a naturalists dream full of secret coves and hidden bays, it's a bloody nightmare of a place to stay. All the national park staff seem to do all day is smoke and think up more ways to scam cash off the couple of tourists a week that stay there. The rooms are either dirty and musty (like sleeping in your grandads old slippers) with no electricity and no water or occupied by an ever expanding group of staff and their mates. Some of the 'occupied' rooms I saw had satelite TV and hot water while we were forced to sleep by sunset on a bed of ancient spiders webs.

Looks like someone had beaten me to the bath

The camp canteen is a complete joke. Boiled white rice does not create a balanced meal no matter what you do with it. Crackers do not constitute a healthy breakfast, if you ever go to Komodo island I suggest you bring your own food... and a tent.

At least it was good fun watching the local kids harrass the hell out of a couple of Germans out on a day trip, trying to sell them pearl necklaces with ruthless persistance. It turned out they were professional pearl dealers so nothing got sold that day. Amanda did end up with a little Komodo necklace though, it had only taken her two days to successfuly barter for it.

Our merry boat crew was one stronger for the way back to Flores. Fred from Sweden joined us on our two final Indonesia dives. Which were as good as the previous two by the way, if not better. Near the first site we spotted a huge Manta ray in the distance breaching right out of the water. Once we were under we saw him again, gliding effortlessly past with a million times more grace than I manage at 20 metres. There was the by now expected array of pristine coral, colourful fishes and little interesting beasties. I sometimes think we spoil ourselves out here. Where are we going to dive once we get back to England? A quarry pit in the Midlands just won't be the same.

Rinca's coastline

Back in Labuan Bajo we collapsed into the welcome arms of the Golo Hilltop resort, once more lording it over the peasants in our expensive luxury. The first thing we did was order up a big meal, peoper veggies, even some chips! We gave ourselves another day in bed before leaving at 5am to catch the bus to Bajawa in central Flores.

All in all the last few days had been amazing; it was the nights that were the problem. A completely unique experience in a unique part of the world. Komodo dragons are a one off, very special species, ancient and brooding on their tiny island strongholds. The diving is absolutely world class and the scenery is exquisite, but you'd better bring a packed lunch or you're going to end up very, very hungry.