Island of the Dragons

The Myth of the monster

Dragons conjure up only one image – a fire breathing monster. They have been object of fantasy, folklore and mythology since time immortal. The word ‘dragon’, first entered the English language in the 13th century, derived from the Latin ‘dracōnis’ and the Greek ‘drakōns’.

My tryst with Komodo Dragon

But in real world, it does not spit fire, but a deadly cocktail of bacteria. When sailors saw this massive lizard like creature in some remote part of the world, they thought them to be real dragons. Around 1910, a specimen was captured and taken to lab for study. Scientists identified it as a unique species that most likely evolved in Australia, from a dinosaur called Megalania. It was named as Varanus Komodoensis. For hoi polloi, the fabled dragon got a name- Komodo Dragon.

Komodo dragons are endemic to eastern Indonesia and are currently only found on the northern coast of Flores on the nearby islands of Komodo, Rinca, Gili Motang and Nusa Kode.

Distribution of Komodo Dragons

The long travel

We have grown up seeing images of the Komodo Dragon in Nat Geo and Discovery. I knew that they exist in some remote island in Indonesia. Therefore, when I was taking my family to Bali for vacation, and to compensate for a missed annual trip to Corbett Tiger Reserve, I started exploring possibilities of how to see a dragon in Indonesia. The search led me to island of Labuan Bajo in the Flores region. It was about an hour and half flight from Denpasar Airport, Bali to the island’s airport, aptly named as Komodo Airport. I had booked ticket on Batik Air, directly on their site, as it was giving me decent baggage allowance. Hotel was booked through Agoda. A 12-hour flight from New Delhi to Bali via Singapore; immigration, and overnight halt at Bali, and then another 1 ½ hour domestic flight next morning brought us to Labuan Bajo in the Flores Region of Indonesia. The shortest travel to Bali from India is either via Singapore, or Malaysia or Vietnam. The travel time varies from 12 to 17 hours depending on layovers on the way. For me Singapore Airlines offered the shortest layover, and spending few hours in Changi Airport is never boring.

Ketut Mustika, my guide cum cab guy at Bali put me to his friend Frendo who run a travel agency at Labuan Bajo. The trip itinerary was planned over WhatsApp.

 

At Rengko Cave - a tranquil beach

Batu Cermin and Rangko Caves

On my arrival at Komodo Airport, we found a smiling Frendo waiting for us airport. As I had half a day to spare, he arranged a post lunch trip to Batu Cermin Caves and Rangko Caves. We had a free afternoon and, therefore it was a good option to utilize the time rather than dozing off at hotel after a long travel. Batu Cermin Cave, also known as Mirror Stone Cave is a series of limestone tunnels that rose from sea bed during volcanic eruptions over centuries. The formation was unique where we saw several fossils on the walls, including that of a turtle. The minerals on the walls of the caves shines when you throw torchlight on them. Getting to explore the entire area took some effort in that perspiring heat.

We than travel through hilly terrains passing several remote settlements, and finally arrived at a small fishing village. We were taken to Rengko Caves by a private boat. The boat left after dropping us off with a promise to return after an hour. On arrival, we found that the beautiful white sand beach to our own. There were not any other tourists. We spent some quality time on the beach as waited for the boat to arrive. Each of these scenic locations without any tourists offered us unforgettable experiences.

In the evening, we were taken to a restaurant named Taman Laut for dinner. The restaurant overlooking the bay and harbor, providing an awesome sunset view, was one of the best places to have dinner. We returned to this place for dinner on the second evening as well.  

 

Taman Laut, Labuan Bajo views

Cruise to the dragon land

Next morning we were picked up from hotel at the crack of dawn for onward transportation to harbor where our speed boat Red Whale-II was waiting for onward travel to Komodo National Park- a UNESCO world heritage site, created in 1980 to protect the sacred lizards.

After an hour of cruising, our boat arrived at the first stop - Padar Island. This island is understood to have few individuals, and hence is not considered for tracking the dragon. One is required to climb few steps up the hill to get awesome views of the surroundings. Just to remind you that the view Cabo de Rama in South Gao offers is almost equally stunning. India is also a beautiful country if you explore it the right way.

Post photo sessions, and souvenir hunting, the boat set off. Next stop was Komodo Island.

 

Image  source: www.komodo.indonesia.tourism.com

Tracking the dragon

On our arrival at the Komodo National Park, two forest rangers were assigned to our small group. Safety protocols were conveyed. It would be tracking of the dragon on foot. There was no guarantee of sighting as they are wild animal. We were to stick together as group with one ranger at front and another at back. Rangers were armed with a historic weapon – a tree branch with a fork at one end to protect us from any untoward attack by a dragon. 

Following the rangers command, we set out on a jungle trail in search of the dragon. As the trail progressed, my daughter Swathi said that it was giving a feel of Bijrani in Corbett sans Tiger. But excitement of encountering a predator was same. The added feel of Jurassic Park was thrilling.

To have the vantage position, I was with the leader of the track Habib.  Where are you from, he asked. I said - Mumbai, India. “Oh! Sharukh Khan. Have you seen him. I am a fan of him.” – replied an elated Habib. Hindi films and songs are quite poplar in Indonesia. He started singing a SRK song, which stopped abruptly with a hand gesture to stop. I looked up to see some melee in the group in front of us. A scared Komodo Dragon ran suddenly creating chaos of horrified tourists. We rushed to the spot only to see a glimpse of Komodo Dragon that ran away into bushes. It was like a poor tiger sighting that just ran across the road.

With the hope of a better sighting, we kept tracking ahead. After few minutes we came across a waterhole where a dragon had come to quench its thirst. Habib told that being a hot day, this dragon will spend some time at the waterhole. This was a mid-sized guy about 7-8 feet in size. It gave us ample opportunities to photograph before lazily disappearing into the forest. As few other groups had also arrived, the rangers were managing crowd professionally. Getting to see a Komodo Dragon in wild from such close quarter is going to remain etched in our memory for life. The possibility of coming back so far so see it again is near non-existent. I had one more thing to do ticked off my bucket list. Few more are yet to be ticked off. The journey continues.

Me and wifey for the customary photo with Komodo

On our way back to boat, we saw another small fellow resting under a tree. This one looked more of our regular monitor lizard.

The Komodo island is home to some 500 households who shares it with 1700 odd Komodos for centuries. The people of the area, known as the Ata Modo, believe that Komodo dragons are their siblings, born from the same spiritual mother. In the Komodo language, the dragons are called sebae (twins). Conservation efforts have resulted in displacement of the locals. Proliferation of tourism and ban on fishing has affected their livelihoods. Most locals survive on selling souvenirs to tourists which is not a booming business. I too bought a pair of miniature wooden Komodo fridge magnets. Tourists typically come here on a fully paid trip that includes meals onboard. Therefore, most locals are not earning too much from tourism. Ata Modo wants to live peacefully with dragons’ sans too much tourism. Conservation is always a paradox.

 

Snorkeling at Pink Beach

The trip continued for another stop at Pink Beach. The pink colored sand of the beach was another natural marvel. This exceptional beach gets its striking color from microscopic animals called Foraminifera, which produces a red pigment on the coral reefs. Snorkeling gear was provided by the boat. The water was crystal clear with excellent visibility.

My cuties ready to snorkel at Pink Beach

Swimming with Manta Ray

The final stop of the trip was for Manta Ray watching. Seeing the itinerary, I saw it probably is a gimmick. However, I found that several boats were actually trying to locate Manta Rays in deep sea. Once the boats located two huge Manta Rays; it was literally swimming with Manta Rays for those who dared to jump off. I could not overcome the mental block of jumping into deepwater, and continued watching them from the boat in Cystal clear waters. My daughter and wife who enjoyed the swim kept teasing of what I missed by not getting into the sea.

 

Manta Ray as seen from boat

Postlude

This part of Indonesia located to east of the Wallce Line, itself is a natural wonder. The imaginary Wallce Line is a faunal boundary line drawn in 1859 by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and named by the English biologist T.H. Huxley that separates the biogeographical realms of Asia and 'Wallacea', a transitional zone between Asia and Australia. You find tigers and elephants to the west of Wallace line, and Komodo Dragon east of the Wallace Line. No one stopped them to cross the line by swimming across the sea during evolution.

Packed lunch was offered onboard on our way back. The pain of coming this far was worth every penny spent. 99% of tourists to Indonesia crowds Bali, leaving only 1% coming this far. The nature, environment and beauty are therefore preserved and are still pristine. Give it a thought if have at least 3 spare days and willing to spend a few more bucks.

Our Transport - the Red Whale-II in cystal clear waters

How to reach:

From Delhi I had used Singapore Airlines flight to Denpasar Airport, Bali, with stopover at Singapore. This was the shortest flight of 12 hours. Other options available on Malayasian Airlines and Viet Jet. No direct flights. Price varies from INR 55k to 60K INR. And travel time varies from 12-18 hours. I bokked on cleartrip.com after checking all sites.

From Denpasar, Bali to Komodo Airport, Labuan Bajo was booked directly on Batik Air site. Batik and Lion are sister airlines. This is a domestic flight. Return tickets to Bali costs around INR 14-15K. Pl understand that Indonesian currency IDR is very confusing as everything is quoted in thousands, like 500 Thousands.  So if they say 100, then you need to understand it is 100000. Easy conversion is that INR 500 is approximately IDR 100000.

Your tour operator at Labuan Bajo will arrange for all transport and sightseeing. I paid IDR 750000 per person to Frendo that included airport pick up & drop, local half day sightiseeing and full day trip to Komodo Island by speedbaot with meals.

Where to Stay :

I had booked hotels through Agoda. I had stayed at Luwansa Beach Resort. It is bit far from city centre, but has access to a private beach and pool. There was no time to use the pool. Even the beach was 
accessed only once during out 2 night stay. It has an in-house restaurant, but we had dinner at Taman Laut. Frendo arranged for drop at restaurant for dinner at our convennience which was great service. You can look to stay at city center.

Lovely ambience of Luwansa Beach Resort at Labuan Bajo

Holi Tiger

यदि वन नहीं होता है, तो बाघ मारा जाता है;

यदि बाघ नहीं होता है, तो वन नष्ट हो जाता है|

अतः, बाघ वन की रक्षा करता है एवं वन बाघ की रक्षा करता है|

-महाभारत – उद्योग पर्व : ५.२९.५७

Majestic: a king in his kingdom

John Doe were looking eagerly in the direction where the forest rangers were trying to locate a collared tiger sleeping inside bushes. Suddenly, one gypsy driver shouted- पीछे देखो….बाघ पीछे से आ रहा है (Look back..tiger is coming from the other side). It was another tiger who came looking for her mating partner lying in the bushes. Holy cow! We just had our first tiger sighting at the most unlikely place – Sariska Tiger Reserve, a place that became infamous for wiping out its entire tiger population just few years back. 

Holi : the spirit of celebration

As the cold winter breezes transforms into warm dusty gusts heralding onset of Falguna, the transient period before arrival of spring, the whole of India gets ready for a season of festivals like Teej and Mahashivratri. It also is the time for Holi. Harivansh Rai Bachhan saab had eulogized the spirit of the festival of colors in these beautiful lines:

होली है तो आज अपरिचित से परिचय कर लो, 

होली है तो आज मित्र को पलकों में धर लो, 

भूल शूल से भरे वर्ष के वैर-विरोधों को, 

होली है तो आज शत्रु को बाहों में भर लो !

(On this Holi, let’s forget the differences and, let’s give a warm hug not only to friends, but also to foes)

With time, the way we celebrate holi had transformed so much that it makes one scream - नहीं ये है गुलाल-ए-सुर्ख़ उड़ता हर जगह प्यारे । Silver and golden humanoids, laced with myriad of industrial dyes, moving around reminds one of the notoriety of holi in Delhi. It has become obvious to look for escape routes when holi is around. शत्रुओं को भूल जाओ, मित्रों से भी दूर भागो।

When the holi of 2011 came knocking, we were looking to get away from Delhi. Getting a booking on short notice was not that tough those days. We set out for Sariska, roughly about 200 km from Delhi.

Sariska : the hunting ground

The former hunting grounds of the Maharajas of Alwar, was notified as a Wildlife Reserve in 1955, then a Wildlife Sanctuary in 1958, and finally a Tiger Reserve in 1979. Maharajahs gone, but hunting continued. Notorious poacher Sansar Chand had systematically exterminated all 25+ tigers from the park in collusion with some villagers settled within periphery of the park. By year 2005, only the name remained as Sariska Tiger Reserve, sans any tiger. The furor that Sariska wipe out created led to the first tiger census of India with latest technique in 2006 that pegged the number of remaining tigers at a shocking 1411.

In a renewed conservation effort to revive a prime tiger habitat, the forest authorities decided to reintroduce tigers at Sariska by relocating 5 tigers (2 males and 3 females) from Ranthambhore. The country's first tiger reintroduction programme using an Indian Air Force MI-17 helicopter in 2008 is well documented by Subiah Nallamuthu ji in Tiger Queen. Tigers were named ST (Sariska Tiger) – 1 to 5. Later, one the five relocated tigers, a male ST-1, was also killed.

Despite the dire situations, the nexus was ugly and apathy was unimaginable. Probably a well  thought out plan for relocation of villages and livelihood of displaced villagers was missing to reduce human-animal conflict. Creating a balance has been a paradox. A report of Indian Express found 12 marble mines operating inside core areas of the tiger reserve even in 2014. This was due to disagreement between forest and mining departments. Money over tigers’ survival! Remember, it was the Forest department's denial mode of extermination of all tigers in the park by 2004-05, and they conituned to show tigers on paper, before the lid was blown off.

Ghost of a chance

A Ghost of a Chance points to the near nil possibility scenario. In probability theory, Kolmogorov's zero–one law,  specifies that a certain type of event, namely a tail event, that will either almost surely happen or almost surely not happen; that is, the probability of such an event occurring is zero or one.

The above theorem was a true depiction of the probability of getting to see a tiger in Sariska in 2011. Four relocated tigers were roaming in an 800+ sq km of forest. Map below gives an idea of how erratic the movements of tigers in the park can be. Therefore our trip was not to see a tiger, but to spend some time in the lap of nature rather than getting laced with industrial dyes. Yet, to utilize the available time, we hopped onto a safari gypsy and set out for an afternoon safari in the park. Safaris were easily available as there were hardly any tourist those days.

Movement map of the 4 reintroduced tigers of Sariska in 2011
Source: Wilflife Institute of India

Holy Tiger

Icarus tigris, also known as The Spirit Tiger, or the Holy Tiger, is an elegant, ethereal and mysterious animal in the legendary comics graphic novel Kingdom Kong. This mystery, coupled with power and grace attached with the tiger makes it so special. And getting to see one in the wild roaming majestically get etched in your memory forever. Even after seeing 30+ wild tigers in these years, I can still recall each and every encounters.

the Holy Tiger

As the safari progressed, we could easily comprehend that finding one of the four tigers in an 800+ sq park is like finding a needle in haystack. It indeed was a tail event of probability theory. Forget tiger, even finding other animals was a tough task. We saw remnants of few settlement and free cattle grazing inside park that was a reminder of the hazard to wildlife of the park. A carpeted road passed through the park where private vehicles were allowed.

The forest was set ablaze by blooming of the Palash or the Flame of the Forest with its orange flame-like flowers set against dried trees and fallen leaves. As we watched our vestige of hopes going up in the dust trails behind our gyspsy, our smart driver noticed a speeding gypsy with forest officials holding up a tracking antennae. All four relocated tigers were collared. There were some so called VIP guest in the gyspsy for whom tiger is being tracked. Our driver immediately understood that the forest officials had found some signal. He turned around to follow them. But the speeding forest car had quickly disappeared in the jungle. It was a cat and mouse chase for us looking for sign of dust cloud left by the forest vehicle, which reminded me of a Hindi movie scene. After few minutes of searching, we could locate the forest gypsy. It was trying to get close to a tiger hidden inside bushes. We lesser mortals, the mango people, could just wait and expect the tiger to come out on road. The news of spotting had spread, and all safari gypsys had arrived at the spot.  

Suddenly, one gypsy driver shouted- पीछे देखो….बाघ पीछे से आ रहा है ( look back..tiger is coming from the other side).

The tiger that was sleeping in the bushes was male ST-4. And the tiger, now majestically walking towards us was female ST-2. Within few minutes both tigers were out in the open. 

Voila! We just had our first tiger sighting of life, that too in Sariska. And two out of the four living tigers of a park larger than 800 sq km were walking in front of us. We could not believe our luck. The escape from Holi was made truly colorful by Tiger. In the map above, the movement pattern of ST-2 is shown in RED and ST-4 in BLUE colours. This will give an idea of how the Ghost of a Chance theorem worked in our favour that evening.

This Holi Tiger played an important role in my becoming a nature and wildlife photographer. I had a Canon 350D those days with a 70-200 F4L lens. In those falling light of that evening, I got tiger ST-2 crossing road in front of my gypsy without any background clutter. I kept clicking. Later I found that only one photograph came sharp.  I understood that wildlife photography in variable and low light is a different ballgame from the constant studio lighting for which I was trained. Time to expand learning. Next stop was the Canon India workshop at Bandhavgarh and Kanha with lessons by Shivang Mehta and Uday Shringi. Rest is history.

 

(Images : The one on Top is my tiger image of ST-2 as a novice in 2011. The one on bottom is a tiger from Ranthambhore clicked in much worse light than that of ST-2 in 2011, but with professional knowledge and gear. Now I also see the awkward angle of ST-2 as I shoot standing high)

Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night…..

Relocation of tigers to Sariska has been a success story of conservation efforts. The ST-4 and ST-2 mating we witnessed had produced offspring that propelled next generation. ST-3 and ST-5 died without producing any cubs. Later more tigers were relocated from Ranthambore as that park can hold about 30 tigers only as against 40 of Sariska. Tigers were moving away from Ranthmbhore in search of territory due to over populations. The population started growing at Sariska. A report of 2023, hold the tiger count of Sariska as 30. Each one counts. Humans need to let them flourish. The wisdom from Mahabharata says:

निर्वनो वध्यते व्याघ्रो निर्व्याघ्रं छिद्यते वनम्।

तस्माद्व्याघ्रो वनं रक्षेद्वयं व्याघ्रं च पालयेत् ॥

                                                    -महाभारत – उद्योग पर्व : ५.२९.५७

Meaning in English:

If there is no forest, then the tiger gets killed; if there is no tiger, then the forest gets destroyed. Hence, the tiger protects the forest and the forest guards the tiger!

-Mahabharat– Udyoga Parva: 5.29.57

अतः, यदि वन सुरक्षित रखने हैं, तो बाघों को संरक्षित करना होगा। Let’s do our bits to save the tiger and save forests. And do keep playing Holi…with safe and natural colours.