So the last boat trip I took was way back in Halong Bay, Vietnam. There were only five of us on the boat, loads of lounging space, great food, nice spacious cabins with showers, etc, etc, etc. I knew it wouldn’t be as nice this time round but I headed off on the boat to Flores.

The journey started with an intro from the cheesiest Tour Guide (just two weeks on the job and full of enthusiasm!!) who gave us the brief and then presented us with “tour” tee-shirts nice bright orange with a black komodo dragon – nice 🙂 (Later to become my PJ’s) Then we headed off on the bus across Lombok. We made a stop to see a village where clay products are made (de-ja-vu of Vietnam)

The company we were travelling with are called Perama, are pretty good to travel with and they are all over Indonesia – buses and boats, etc. So before we set off we had a look at their new boat which should be completed in 6 months or so. Met two very girls from London – Izzy & Harriot.

So we got on and it was pretty obvious that it was going to be pretty cramped but everyone seemed really friendly so it was all good. First stop was Perama Island (yes after the tour company), we did a little sun-baking, snorkelling, followed by a BBQ and a camp fire. It was nice but then we were “greeted” by Mr. Perama!!!!! The dude who started the whole company, somewhat of a god out here!!! So we were heading back to the boat and we were given a display of Indonesian Line Dancing (to house music). It was so cheesy but kinda funny, however, fifteen minutes later they were still dancing – I kid you not. It’s hard to look interested after that long. Now I know how my parents felt sitting through many school concerts and the like. It’s hard to keep that enthusiastic after a while.

So we bedded down for the night and the water had been quite rocky all day but now it was a whole lot worse. The crew said it was completely out of the blue and usually it’s really calm. Took a while to sleep and then I woke up to a lot of shouting at around 4am. Turns out there was a big hole in the boat and we were taking on a lot of water. So the crew were bailing out water and the captain was out in the lifeboat trying to patch things up. I just presumed it’ll be fine – you just do, right?? Everyone else was talking about grabbing passports and life jackets. It should be noted that there were too few life jackets!!!!! Panic was setting in as the waves were coming over the deck but all went okay with the repairs and we survived the night but yes I did sleep with my passport on me!

The next day we were dumped on a deserted island somewhere on Sumbawa while the boat was taken away to be repaired properly. Not a bad place to kill time really……

Lots of people were annoyed with the hassle and were talking about getting to Flores by other means but in the end we all piled back onto the boat. (as we all knew we would) We missed out on a couple of stops because of all the drama which was a pity but tomorrow would bring Komodo and the dragons so I was looking forward to that.

The day dawned and after a good 16 straight hours (to catch up on time) on the boat we headed to Komodo all excited. We were to do a 2 hour trek and hopefully see lots of dragons. (myself and Nicole doing our best dragon impression!!)

We walked for a while, saw a couple of wild boars and some deer.Komodo is dusty, red, hot and arrid.

Then we were shown a young Komodo dragon – they live in trees until they are about 3 years old. It was small and not massively impressive but it was start. Got a video of this guy so hopefully it’s watchable on Flickr.

The rest of the trek was disappointing, we saw a couple of bigger ones but only at a distance and through the trees. One of the rangers pointed one out to me and it kinda went like this…. “do you see him?” So I said “ya I think so” but to be honest it could have been a big log! So boo to Komodo 🙁 We were expected lots of action as we had heard that a Dutch man was killed by a dragon recently. He strayed from the group (come on man, don’t stray – you’ll definetely get killed!!!!) Also the BBC had been filming a documentary there recently where Tom (yacht Tom that looks like Pat Inglesby) was allowed to tag along and had given me lots of details. Anyhoo it was not to be.

We arrived in Labuanbajo, Flores later that day and for the whole trip Nicole, a really chick from Austria, had been persuading me to tour around Flores and get the next boat back instead. I was kinda nervous about it just because my replacement cards were been sent to Lombok and I didn’t any back up plan. Also I had packed two little bags with summery stuff and Flores gets quite mountainous, but as the water was sooooo rough and I really didn’t want to get back on that boat, I decided to stay. On the second Perama boat there was a Swedish chick and two Spanish lads who also wanted to see Flores. So the five of us said we’d rent a car and driver and go around Flores for five days.

To be continued………

More photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157606558056613/