When I landed into Indonesia, Flores was nowhere near the top of my bucket list. All I had heard about the island was the Komodo National park and the Kelimutu lakes and in all fairness, it certainly wasn’t enough to spark my interest enough to fly myself off to a place that was gonna be packed with tourists in the middle of Indonesia’s high season in mid-August.
But as unexpected as solo travelling is, just after finishing my Bromo hike in Java, I met a dear friend called Alina who somehow managed to convince me to join her for the tour to the Komodo National park for a terrifying meet up with the vicious Komodo dragons.
Next thing I know, I’m on a flight from Denpasar, Bali to Labuan Bajo, Flores which was the base for our Komodo tour. I was excited, but not so much about the actual dragons if I must be honest but about seeing my new friend again. At that time, the idea of meeting someone and connecting with them so quickly was still very new and very intriguing!
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FINDING THE RIGHT KOMODO TOUR
As soon as we found each other at the airport, we jumped in a taxi to our shared room in a place right outside of the main area in Labuan Bajo. We checked into a pretty rusty room but we really didn’t care all that much. We had flown in for the adventure and the lack of hot water and the few bugs here and there didn’t seem to matter all that much.
Excited to go out and get ourselves booked into a Komodo tour for the next day, we dropped our backpacks off and headed right into Labuan Bajo’s centre.
To my surprise, Labuan Bajo is actually a pretty small place. The main area is just one long street flooded with tour agent offices on both sides of the busy road and locals shouting to grab the tourists’ attention. The vibe was actually pretty unpleasant to put it lightly. Quite evidently, most locals in Labuan Bajo make a living from selling various tour packages so the competition is so fierce that more times than I could count, people were getting so angry you could see the rage taking over their entire facial expression.
We were hopping from agent to agent trying to see what tours were on offer and to negotiate a reasonable price. What completely blew my mind was how unwilling to negotiate almost everyone was. People were quoting us in the millions for 1-2 day trips. A lot of them didn’t even want to tell us what boat they were using for the trip or give us much information about the actual package they were selling. They just kept repeating that the boats were expensive during the busy season and they had to charge a lot! Fair enough …
After talking to at least 20 different shops, pretty outraged and kinda worried as it was getting late and we still had nothing arrange, we decided to just go on a daily Komodo tour to push down the price and relieve some of my friend’s worry about boat safety and potentially getting sea sick.
At around 10 pm having completely changed our plan to do a 2-3 day liveaboard trip, we bumped into the shop of Kayana Tour & Travel. At that point, a smile and a somewhat reasonable price were all that we needed to be sold. We were tired of haggling, getting shouted at, being told “No” every time we politely asked for more information about boat safety and package details. The owner Leonard was a lovely, chatty guy who didn’t seem to be able to explain much since his English was just about enough to cover the basics but it was good enough to explain what time the boat was boarding 😀 , that food was included (with a veggie option for me and my friend), and that we would hop at 5 different locations on a daily Komodo tour for just IDR 500k on what was meant to be a slow boat. For that price (compared to the other offers in the millions), I knew it was going to be a pretty crappy tour but hey, I didn’t want great service, just to get to the nature sites and maybe get some food 😀 ! Pretty easy to please right.
So in the morning at around 6 am, we got picked up by Leonardo from our place (VIP service or whaaaat 😀 ) and headed to harbor.
KOMODO TOUR STOPS
Depending on how many days you decide to tour around the Komodo
archipelago, the places you stop at might differ slightly. In general, most tours would include a stop at either Rinca or Komodo Island (both part of the Komodo National park and home to the legendary Komodo dragons) and a mixture of Padar Island, Pink beach, Manta point, Kanawa, Taka Maksar and one or two other smaller islands where you could swim and snorkel. The number of stops will also largely depend on whether you choose to go on a slow or a fast boat but again this will reflect pretty heavily on the price too since the fast boat is usually at least double the price of a slow boat trip.
Our daily Komodo tour made the following stops:
Padar Island
As we hopped on board, the sun was rising and we were rewarded by a beautiful sunrise as we headed towards Padar Island. The island is about an hour from Labuan Bajo and was once home to the Komodo dragons before they decided to leave the land to give space for tourism to take over 😀 Sadly it was actually lack of food and hunting which drove the big lizards away from the island and into the larger Komodo and Rinca islands where they can be found today.
Hand to my heart, Padar island is the single most scenic island I have ever stepped foot on in my entire life so far. I was so immensely impressed by the views, the colours and the tranquillity when I reached the top, that I dedicated a whole post to it and the many photos I took during and after our short 30 min hike to the summit of one of Padar island’s main hills.
Rinca Island
At first when we were told that we weren’t actually going to the Komodo island we were majorly put off. How come we’re going to the Komodo National park but not the Komodo island? It sounded strange at first.
Then we realised that actually, Komodo National park is the combined name for a total of some 29 islands, the biggest of which are Komodo, Padar and Rinca. So suddenly, it all made sense. We were further relieved when we got reassured that “YES, you WILL see Komodo dragons” 😀 That was all we needed to know.
When we got to Rinca we had to pay the entrance fee for the park which at the time of writing is IDR 380k. Then welcomed by our lifeguard (yes, an actual lifeguard ready to take down any Komodo dragons wanting to lunch with us 😀 ), we headed into the rather deserted island to look for some dragons.
Two Snorkelling points
Sadly, when we did the tour we were told that it wasn’t season for the Manta rays so we couldn’t snorkel at the Manta point like we were originally hoping to. Instead, we made two stops, at Kanawa and another little island, for swimming and snorkelling. We saw quite a lot of coral and fish but sadly no giant turtles that I was secretly hoping to swim with. Needless to say, the snorkelling was pretty relaxing and was coming right on time after we were just about to get completely roasted by the strong sun hitting right into us as we were leisurely chilling on the upper deck of the boat.
Having checked with Leonardo from Kayana, the daily tour now includes a stop at Pink beach which it didn’t back when I did the tour so you might be able to lay down your towel for an hour or so on a pink beach even if you just do a quick 1-day only Komodo tour.
Just to clear though, I’m not trying to promote Kayana here at all. In all fairness, the only good thing about them was the price and Leonardo’s friendliness so if you’re very budget sensitive and don’t care about the actual service, go for them (message me and I can link you up with Leonardo) but if you want a proper experience with good service, decent food and maybe some English communication 😀 then walk away when you get to Kayana’s little shop in Labuan Bajo.
WHAT IS INCLUDED IN MOST KOMODO TOURS
Depending on how many days of adventure you go on for, what is included will differ slightly but for the most part the following will definitely be included in the price:
- Pick up from your accommodation in Labuan Bajo
- Snorkeling gear
- Diving equipment (only if you go on a diving specific trip)
- Lunch (the liveaboard trips would include breakfast and dinner as well)
- Mineral water
- Tea/ coffee
Please note that the entrance fee for the Komodo park is almost certainly never included in the quoted price so you would have to budget for that separately. At the time of writing, the fee is IDR 380k.
THINGS TO HAVE IN MIND BEFORE YOU BOOK YOUR KOMODO TOUR
Safety
Locals in Indonesia tend to be somewhat negligent when it comes to safety at least when you compare with Europe and most of the Western world. This is not to say that you should worry about getting on the tour but asking a few questions before deciding on your tour of choice would be helpful, such as “Do you have life vests” haha (pretty essential), “How big is the boat”. As a general rule the bigger the boat, the better.
Some people had even advised me to physically go and see the tour before booking my tour but any time I tried to ask for that, I was looked at with an evident ridicule 😀 so I wouldn’t rely on seeing the boat if I were you.
Food
If you are vegetarian/ vegan or have any other dietary requirements, make sure to repeat them again and again and again. Both me and Alina are vegetarian, yet all that was available on our boat was chicken and of course plain rice and noodles so you can imagine that a bowl of BOTH rice and noodles for lunch may not please everyone 😀 We were never provided with the promised breakfast so you can imagine how happy we were by the sight of the bowl of rice and noodles which we managed to fight for after numerous struggles to explain that we don’t eat chicken 😀
Language struggles
And on that note, don’t expect a perfect (or any) English communication 😀 Every company will be different but from my experience from the 4 locals who were on our boat, not a single one of them spoke a word of English. All communication was done through me messaging Leonard and him texting back the guys on the boat. It was pretty funny but also quite annoying because the communication was literally zero 😀 !
This also meant that we couldn’t learn anything from the guys on the boat which was a shame. They were basically there just to transport us to the various places and provide us with the bowl of rice come lunchtime haha! Again, for the price that we paid it was probably to be expected but in all honesty, I really wouldn’t expect the other companies to be that much better at this so have that in mind.
Looking for more articles on Indonesia
- Don’t attempt the hike to the Kelimutu Lakes before reading this
- Adventure itinerary across Indonesia’s Flores Island
