Jungles, Dragons, Volcanoes & Sharks

Last night at dinner, Stella and I reminisced about the amazing places we’ve been the past month. Our reminiscing took an hour! Please join us for a short summary of our travels through Sabah and Komodo, whose flags are shown above.

From the Philippines, we flew to the northeast corner of Borneo. This is the Malaysian state of Sabah, known for Mount Kinabalu and several endemic species whose habitats have been preserved in some of the wildest jungles left on our planet.

Our first stop in Sabah was the city of Kota Kinabalu. Although this city doesn’t see a lot of foreign tourists, it’s one of my favorite cities. It’s a clean and compact seaport, populated by a variety of Asian cultures that have washed ashore over the centuries. The city is pedestrian friendly with tree-lined streets and wide sidewalks. The prices for food and housing are modest. And it has one my favorite restaurants in the world. Actually, it’s more of a night market than a restaurant. Rain or shine, you can get a fabulous seafood dinner under a big tent by the fishing boats.

To get from Kota Kinabalu to the land of the orangutans, you’ll pass Mount Kinabalu (elev. 4095m). This is the highest peak in southeastern Asia. I climbed this peak back in 2016, during the “dry” season — on one of the muddiest trails I’ve ever hiked. July is the height of the rainy season. We met other climbers who were turned back by severe weather, so we opted not to attempt this climb. The fact that we were able to view the peak for a few minutes was a welcome surprise.

In eastern Sabah, we came to the forest preserves of Sepilok where Orangutans, Proboscis monkeys, Sun Bears and Crocodiles can be found. Tracking and finding wild animals in nature is always exciting — and far better than seeing them in zoos. Although the expansion of palm oil plantations has destroyed almost half of Sabah’s jungles, there are still a few habitats where these beautiful animals can live natural lives.

One of my favorite primates is the Proboscis monkey, featured in our 5-minute video of Sabah. Click above.

There are several ways to get from Malaysia to Indonesia. We took the least traveled route: A $5 ferry from Tawau to Tarakan. Our arrival in Tarakan created quite a stir because the immigration officers had never before seen a Ugandan passport. After lots of curious questions and careful inspection of our e-visas, we were admitted into Indonesia with handshakes and smiles. It helped that I could remember the Bahasa Indonesian that I learned on my previous visits to Indonesia.

Near the east end of Java, south of the town of Probolinggo, is one of the most dramatic and breathtaking vistas on Earth. Mount Bromo is an active volcano in a huge sunken caldera. At dawn, pilgrims and tourists climb Sunrise Peak to watch dawn bathe these volcanoes in photogenic shades of pink, purple and orange.

The caldera itself is about 6-7 kilometers in diameter. Although it’s a long walk across the sea of soft volcanic sand to get to the smoking volcano, I enjoyed the walk barefoot. At 2000 meters elevation, the sand was pleasantly dry and cool, and thoroughly cleaned my calluses.

Mount Bromo is an exhilarating hike and a gorgeous site. The name “Bromo” comes from the Javanese pronunciation of Brahman, the Hindu god of creation. The area around the smoking volcano is a holy site. There’s a staircase to the top of Mount Bromo. Below the peak is a Hindu temple.

Our next stop was Labuan Bajo, gateway to Komodo National Park. Here’s the busy harbor full of Pinisi boats, traditional Indonesian sailing boats used to transport cargo and passengers. Labuan Bajo is a major scuba diving hub in Indonesia. Many of these boats have been converted into dive boats. There are at least 50 dive shops in Labuan Bajo, each of which owns at least one Pinisi boat.

We booked six days and five nights on a Pinisi boat named Jelajahi Laut (meaning “Explore the Seas”). Click the video above to learn about our liveaboard adventure. I love liveaboards — and now so does Stella!

The crew was friendly and professional. The food was fabulous. The weather was perfect. The diving was fabulous. Stella and I found the other 10 guests to be très sympathique. We had a wonderful and memorable cruise.

The ship had two speedboats which were used to shuttle us to the various dive sites.

We dove (or snorkeled) two to four times every day. The waters in these islands is fabulously clear and full of sea life. These underwater photos were taken by my fellow shipmates. They hardly do justice to the fantastic world undersea.

We had four trips ashore. The most significant one was to see the Komodo Dragons. I was last here in 2018 with my children. At that time there were only about 1500 dragons in the park, and we saw only one dragon. Today there are more than 3000 dragons thanks to conservation efforts and limitations on tourist traffic. Stella and I saw eight of these prehistoric monsters strutting around.

We also took a shore excursion to a remote village whose principle occupation is the construction of a gigantic Pinisi cargo ship. Construction of this ship is done entirely by hand without power tools. This is a 2-year project for the people in this village. We also took hikes up two of the peaks on islands where we were anchored.

On our return to Labuan Bajo, we made friends with Stefan Rafael, a local village chief known as “The Plastic Man” of Komodo. His life’s mission is to eradicate Komodo National Park of garbage, which is primarily plastic. We joined Stefan for an afternoon of kayaking and beach clean-up. As Stefan says, people won’t help clean up the garbage unless they’re having fun. So we made a fun afternoon of this project, kayaking around Bajo Bay. Compared to my last dive trip to Komodo NP in 2018, I can attest that there are noticeably fewer plastic bags in the water now than six years ago — thanks to serious efforts by environmentalists like Stefan.

From Labuan Bajo, we’ll continue west. Stella travels with a Ugandan passport, which considerably limits her freedom. The map below shows where Stella can travel without a consular visa.

For those of you with US, Canadian, EU, Australian or Japanese passports, be thankful for your freedom to travel almost everywhere. If you’d like to meet up with us on our travels, we’ll be in one of the green countries in the map above. Hope to see you in India soon!