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After a hot night in an airless room, I grope my way out
into dim morning light. I arrived in Sape on the island of Bima, in Indonesia,
the night before, tired and dirty. I'm still tired and dirty now. But there's
little point making much effort to clean up. I have a sweaty boat trip ahead
- bound for the island of Komodo and its dragon inhabitants. My memories of
movies like The Land That Time Forgot viewed from behind the sofa, with their
dodgy stop-go photography and clunky models seem eminently more real to me
than the smooth computer-generated dino-epics today. I remember the gloopy
blood as looking more real, the contours of the horned, fanged beasts more
abrasive and scaly. I wonder if meeting these creatures in the flesh, in all
their lumbering brawn, will have me hiding behind the nearest tree, or merely
looking on in dull detachment?
The Komodo dragon is a pre-historic legacy. Accounts of a huge dragon abounded
in this region centuries ago, but they were only rediscovered in the early
1900s. Stranded on just a handful of islands when tectonic plate activity cut
this area off from Australasia, the dragons remain, restricted by the sea,
a species apart. The largest recorded was over three metres long and reports
of their ferociousness are the stuff of nightmares. Bacteria in their saliva,
to which no antidote is known, means that even a scratch from their teeth results
in slow and painful death. Whilst reports of human deaths are few, there have
been some - notably a Swiss tourist in 1974, who wandered into the bush alone
- all they found were his backpack and his sunglasses.
My dragon hunt begins in less dramatic fashion. The ferry to Komodo is one
of the rust buckets that keep Indonesia afloat, but only just remain so themselves.
Everything - cars, trucks laden with food, bicycles, animals and people, hundreds
of them, are crammed on. The boat only halts briefly at Komodo, most people
are bound for the next big island of Flores. I sit for an eternity, slumped
on a small patch of space on the upper deck, mercifully distant from the bedlam
in the covered decks behind me. The trade-off is the unrelenting scorching
from the sun.
Six hours later, dazed by the glare, my brain dulled by the constant clanking
of the diesel engine, I take a while to notice a small boat bump against the
side. People shout, 'Komodo, Komodo, Komodo'. It's time to jump ship. We're
all a little unsteady on our feet as we climb down a precarious rope ladder
into the tiny out-rigger. As always it's packed to virtual sinking and we have
to sit carefully to balance it. We chug away from the mother ship. Soon it
has rounded a headland, leaving us at the mercy of this strange island and
its inhabitants.
There's a small compound for tourists comprising basic huts and a restaurant.
We discover at supper that although the menu looks impressive it's Gado Gado
(fried rice and veg) or nothing. Struggling to get off to sleep, I hear something
in my rucksack eating my stash of biscuits and the rustlings and squeakings
leave me restless and on edge all night long.
We rise at 6.30am as we have a serious trek ahead of us before the sun gets
too hot. There are ten of us in our small group. Before we go anywhere, some
of us are given stout sticks with a v-shape at one end. There's a laughable
demo about how to fend off a charging dragon - apparently they can move surprisingly
fast. We tramp along the dry, dusty paths pushing aside thorny scrub. Even
now the heat is beginning to build. There's a sudden rustling in the bushes
very nearby and my heart misses a beat. I'm more jittery than I expected after
my interrupted night's sleep. It's just a deer foraging for food.
Still no dragons though. Maybe two hours later we come to a shallow clearing.
There is a sign. It's blunt, but oddly amusing: "Dangerous Area. Watch
out. Komodo Crossing." Still no dragons though. My back is sticky with
sweat. We walk on, more quietly. There's a sudden hissing from the guide and
he's pointing to a tree across the clearing. The camouflage is surprisingly
effective. At first I don't see it. Then I can't believe how I missed the thing.
It's huge. Because it's early morning, the cold-blooded beast is motionless,
cold and slow. Mouth shut and eyes a little glazed, it doesn't look that scary.
The tail is huge, almost as long as the trunk of its body, which is covered
in horny scales, a muddy greyish brown in colour. It has a strange collar of
flabbier skin protecting the back of the head and neck. Each foot has big,
sharp-looking claws on it.
We skirt around and congregate inside a small stockade. From the safety of
our enclosure, the guide makes bleating noises like an injured goat. More creatures
come lumbering out of the undergrowth. They seem cumbersome, placing each huge
foot down with mechanical care. Their big scabby snouts are raised skywards,
scenting the air; one has a huge forked rubbery tongue. It rolls it around
its lips, as if licking them ready for food. A little later we file back out
of the enclosure and our guide goads a smaller dragon that has hung around
with his stick. It opens its huge pink mouth and hisses at him. Using his forked
stick he holds its claws back, pushing it away. I'm not going to get any closer.
An angry Komodo dragon is not something to get near to.
A couple of hours later, we arrive back at camp, tired and hot. It's been quite
an experience, but the monsters haven't quite lived up to my expectations.
They're just a little too used to human contact. It's only when you see them
move that you get a real sensation of their brute force and strength. And then
to our surprise, within the camp compound are two of the biggest dragons we've
seen. Ironically, from our perch in the restaurant, we get a better view than
ever we got in the sweaty bush. I wonder how safe we'd been in our fragile
huts the night before. Perhaps that's what all the commotion outside was. We
look at them: they look at us. There's no fear in their glassy eyes. The dragons
remain kings of Komodo, we are just trespassers on their territory.
The Land That Time Forgot
Jeremy Head gets a little too close to the legendary dragons of Komodo