park, indonesia, feel much like bali did back in day-with world-class diving
Batu Bolong doesn't look much – it's a nondescript rock jutting out of the ocean off the north coast of Komodo island. But it has become almost as much of a tourist attraction as the giant lizards that made this mini archipelago in eastern Indonesia famous.
It's not the bit above the water that's important here, but the rest of it – a steep underwater wall of rock descending 20m to a seabed that is positively riotous with marine life. Our Italian guide, Stefano Piazza, calls this one of the best dive sites in the world.
It may well be, but diving here isn't for everyone. "This is the deadliest dive site in Komodo," Stefano says cheerfully. Apparently, divers who stray past the wall's edge risk being dragged to the bottom by powerful downward currents.
Intrepid divers, and dragon chasers, have been coming to Komodo since the 1980s, but it's only in the past few years that the islands' more mainstream pleasures have attracted attention. The number of foreign arrivals on Flores Island, gateway to the Komodo national park, topped 60,000 in 2013, up 20% on the year before.
Being named one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature in 2011, by conservation body the New7Wonders Foundation, no doubt helped. But this area also has colourful fishing villages, coral cays and deserted beaches of pale pink sand.
As well as the above, it's got dragons, world-class diving, ragged volcanic islands straight out of King Kong (the films were inspired by American millionaire W Douglas Burden's expedition here in 1932). Plus it has the kind of laidback vibe (and budget) that appeals to backpackers on the hunt for the next undiscovered destination – along the lines of Bali but 15 years ago. Flights to Flores from Bali cost about £85 return, and take an hour and a half. What's not to love?
"Three years ago, there was hardly any interest in Flores and Komodo – we were really lucky to get this place," Stefano says as, after a day's diving, we pull up to the wooden jetty on his private island, Sebayur Besar, between Komodo and the north-western end of Flores.
Undulating hills of russet grass descend to a dazzling white beach, with a fringing reef visible beneath the limpid water. It's here that, in April last year, Stefano opened the Komodo Resort Diving Club. Thatched beach bungalows perch on stilts along the shoreline and a cluster of curved bamboo pavilions serve as the restaurant, dive centre and lounge.
Over an excellent five-course dinner – authentic melt-in-the-mouth Italian gnocchi and spicy Indonesian-style fish – Stefano tells me he has spent the past 18 years leading expeditions into the remoter parts of Papua New Guinea. But, he muses, without a trace of irony: "I thought it was time to settle somewhere a bit less remote."
The diving club is 200m from the edge of the national park, which stretches several kilometres offshore around the islands of Komodo, Rintja and Padar. Land-based resorts aren't allowed inside it. More than 20 world-class dive sites are within easy reach of the resort, which is also an hour by speedboat from Labuan Bajo, the ramshackle harbour town on Flores where the airport is.
Stefano's is the third offshore resort to have sprung up on the park's borders over the past four years – luxury eco-resort Angel Island, about 3km from Labuan Bajo, opened in 2010, and backpacker favourite Kanawa Beach Bungalows, on the island of the same name a little further north, a year later.
If Komodo Resort has the après-scuba down pat (think giant bean bags and iced drinks on the dive boat's snazzy sun deck), Kanawa Beach has…well, a beach. And the kind of island vibe you get by combining said stretch of sugary white sand with excellent snorkelling off the jetty, pared-down beach bungalows (there are tents for committed Robinson Crusoes) wood-fired pizzas, cold beer and reggae that sounds like it's being played on a blown guitar amp.
There I meet a French free-diving enthusiast who has been here for eight days "to unwind". It turns out she lives on Koh Tao, the serene palm-fringed island in Thailand.
It's hard not to succumb to a sort of tropical torpor in such idyllic surroundings. But I'm roused by the prospect of swimming with manta rays. Brit Ed Statham, whose swarthy complexion and random tattoos are testament to his commitment to the lifestyle, has opened an independent dive outfit on Kanawa, taking people to Manta Point, another legendary dive site which is also shallow enough to snorkel. When six shadowy shapes materialise out of the deep blue, I'm struck by their sheer size – their wingspans must be four or five metres. They oscillate gently to counter the current while tiny fish nibble the parasites off their skin.
And, of course, you have to see the world's largest living lizards. On Komodo Island a few years ago I had to hightail it out of the forest with five slavering dragons in hot pursuit after a park ranger deprived them of the goat they were hoping to devour. It had been hung from a tree as a lure and when it was pulled out of their reach they turned their reptilian gaze on me.
They've held a strange fascination ever since. I head to Rinca, an hour by boat from Labuan Bajo, where spindly lontar palms punctuate a savannah-like landscape. But we arrive late, and at midday they are doing pretty much what all lizards do when the sun is high – snoozing. So I head back to my hammock at Kanawa and follow suit.
• A three-day full-board package with six dives at Komodo Resort Diving Club (+62 385 42095, komodoresort.com) costs from €495 including transfers from Labuan Bajo. Kanawa Island Resort (+62 3854 1252, kanawaislandresort.com) has beach bungalows for two from £18 a night. A one-day, two-dive package with Kanawa Island Diving (+62 82144 802882, kanawaislanddiving.com) costs £45. A day trip to see the dragons and snorkel costs £20pp. Qatar Airways (0333 320 2454,qatarairways.com flies from Heathrow to Bali from £600 return. Lion Air (+62 21 632 6038, lionair.co.id) flies from Bali to Flores from $130 return. Entrance toKomodo national park costs £12.50pp, plus £2.50 for cameras
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/feb/07/komodo-islands-indonesia-diving-new-balihttp://www.komododragonislands.com/
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