Padar and Komodo are a chain of dry savanna islands scattered between Flores and Sumbawa, and the last place on Earth where Komodo dragons live wild. The dragon is the largest lizard alive: big males reach three metres and well over a hundred kilograms, and they walk the beaches and hillsides of Komodo and Rinca in the open. The islands themselves look nothing like the rest of Indonesia. Instead of rainforest there is golden grass over bare volcanic hills, burnt brown for most of the year, with sheer ridges dropping into turquoise water. Padar, the third-largest island, has the view everyone knows: a short steep climb to a saddle where three crescent bays open at once beneath serrated ridges.
You will not meet a dragon on Padar; they died out there generations ago. On Komodo and Rinca you walk their hillsides with a licensed ranger, following three-metre reptiles that flick forked tongues to taste the air. Fewer than 3,400 dragons survive anywhere, two-thirds of them in this park, and since 2021 the species has been listed as Endangered. The sea here is as full as the land. Giant reef manta rays circle cleaning stations year-round at Manta Point, and the reefs below are among the densest in the Coral Triangle. At Pink Beach the sand really does carry a rose blush against turquoise shallows. Currents between the islands run hard and cold, which is why the diving is good and why it is not for beginners. Days usually end from the deck of a phinisi, the wooden schooner most visitors sail on, as the light drops behind Gili Lawa's ridge.