Komodo Dragons Can Make Your Skin Crawl

Sometimes it’s best not to know too much about a place until after you’ve been there. Had I known about the stonefish (whose sharp spines inject an agonizing, deadly venom), the blue-banded octopi (one bite and you’re a goner) or the sea snakes (ditto), I might never have gone to Komodo Island.

Like a protective moat, the encircling seas conspire to shield this prehistoric retreat from the prying eyes of man.

Tides sluicing back and forth between the deep Indian Ocean and the shallow South China Sea surge through the island-studded straits, creating rip currents, boiling rapids and whirlpools capable of swallowing small boats.

Presuming you land safely on Komodo, your problems are far from over. The place is crawling with poisonous snakes. Scorpions, too.

And then there are the dragons--huge, nightmarish creatures with skin like armor and teeth like knives. They are the last of the dinosaurs, top dog on the local food chain. They wouldn’t think twice about killing and eating you or me. But the presence of Komodo dragons is no surprise--that’s why you’re here.

The dragons, known locally as ora , are the talk of Nusa Tenggara, the lonely chain of islands riding the seas east of Bali. A few are slithering around on Flores, a few on other nearby islands: Rinca and Padar. But here on foreboding Komodo, the dragons rule.

These living fossils from the dawn of the Paleocene epoch, 60 million years ago, are the chief villains in one of nature’s longest-running reigns of terror.

The dragons of Komodo slumbered, undisturbed, on their remote island for millennia, more myth than reality. Chinese traders knew of the dragons perhaps as early as the 12th Century, and visited the island to take skins, which were used for native drums.

The Chinese also boiled dragon tails to make medicinal balms for burns and a potion used as “swimming medicine.” Local pearlers, too, stopped at the island.

But it wasn’t until a Dutch pilot en route to Australia crash-landed on Komodo in 1910 that the rest of the world learned of their existence.

Two years later, the Dutch sent a military expedition from Java to investigate. Two dragons were shot and hauled back to Java, where a researcher correctly identified the buaya darat , or land crocodiles, as wildly overgrown monitor lizards.

Despite Komodo’s remoteness (it can be reached only by boat and lies hundreds of miles from Bali, the nearest popular tourist destination), the island attracts a steady trickle of visitors.

Last year, about 5,000 souls braved critters and currents to see these living remnants. Although few visitors find themselves in any real danger, a hint of menace adds an adrenal edge to any outing.

The first glimpse of this island rising from a heaving sea is of a barren and desolate place enclosed by dark, forbidding ramparts. The eroded hulk of an ancient volcano, Komodo--with its black lava towers and ripsaw skyline--looks like some evil fortress. It reeks of sadness, banishment, exile.

Here the luxuriant greenery of Indonesia gives way to a tortured landscape, arid and parched. What precious moisture there is disappears with the scorching, thirsty winds roaring north from the dusty wastes of central Australia. The stingy soil sustains only coarse grass; tangled, tinder-dry thickets, and dried-out scrub.

Skinny lontar palms--their scraggly tops nodding like Medusas--tower overhead. Flying lizards sail through the trees. Giant insects, including foot-long centipedes, skitter along the ground. At dusk, bats dart through the skies, wheeling over the island’s dark outer walls.

A lone village clings to precarious existence on the otherwise uninhabited island. Local fishermen subsist on squid caught from their sleek bagans , twin-hulled sailing craft.

Most visitors coast past the dreary village and drift into Loho Liang Bay, the island’s best anchorage, and moor their hired boats offshore. Dugout canoes ferry them onto the beach. From there it’s a quick walk to the government camp at Loho Liang, where arrangements can be made to visit the interior, lunch on a plate of greasy fried noodles or stay overnight in one of the shabby bungalows in a clearing near the sea.

Warnings are posted everywhere: “Watch for snakes” or “Travel outside visitor centre only with guards.” Not so long ago, an elderly Swiss tourist strayed from his group and disappeared; a search party found only his hat, his Hasselblad camera and a bloody shoe.

“He loved nature throughout his life” reads the epitaph on a commemorative white cross. Apparently, nature loved him back. Nowadays, most visitors stick close to their groups.

The big, twice-weekly event on Komodo is a goat buffet for the dragons, hosted by tourists. Most folks make understandably brief visits to Komodo, and because they want to see dragons in action while there, park rangers schedule regular feedings (held as long as there are tourists to buy the food).

Otherwise, visitors have to stagger about in drop-dead heat looking for a stray ora or two. And even if they spot one, it may just be lazing about in the sun.

And so it was that on a Sunday last September, I found myself a few footsteps behind a wiry islander in shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops, with a live goat slung over his shoulders.

We--that is, myself and 40 or so other visitors from all over the world--plodded along a wide, sandy trail, across dry riverbeds and past a sign pointing the way to the “arena!” After a few kilometers, we approached a primitive corral made of sticks.

Suddenly, there was a rustling in the nearby undergrowth.

Dragons.

At first glance, they didn’t seem threatening. They were smaller than I’d imagined. And they had a funny, lurching gait, like the zombies in “Night of the Living Dead.” It was kind of a letdown.

But there was murderous purpose in their coal-black eyes, and a steady, implacable quality to their approach. Leathery, sagging skin hung over them like baggy suits of chain mail, and their yellow forked tongues skittered over the ground like flickering pale fire. Stiletto claws sprouted from their feet.

The sight of the goat had their saurian brains buzzing. And as buffet regulars, they had little fear of man. Suddenly, they seemed to be coming from every direction, converging on our innocent entourage.

Our clutch of Indonesian guides lit into them with long, forked sticks. Like so many jousting St. Georges, they tried to keep the dragons--now about a dozen strong--at bay while we hurried for sanctuary in the corral.

A stick broke, and dragons surged through the gap in our defensive line. Mild pandemonium followed. A few folks hurdled the stick fence to safety while the rest broke for cover at dignity-damaging speed.

But as it turned out, the reptiles weren’t after us at all. They were scrambling for a spot in a dry, rocky riverbed beneath the stick corral. And, in moments, their rush was rewarded: The skinny goat-bearer whipped out his parang, sliced the goat’s throat, severed its tendons and tossed it--without ceremony--to the waiting eating machines.

The effect was rather like slinging a ball into a rugby scrum. The carnivores closed in, 15 of them, and began shredding the hapless goat. Soon they fused into a single squirming mass, locked in a slow-motion danse macabre as they grappled for a chunk of meat.

Eeriest of all was the near-total silence, broken only by the crunch of bones, the click of cameras and the sharp, whooshing exhalations of the dragons.

With slashing claws, toxic saliva and a serious case of bad breath, the Komodo dragons are adept killers. They run, walk, swim, climb and dig with skill. Their slobbery bite causes horrid infections, and those who escape the initial attack may be hunted down days later, when the stench of festering wounds attracts dragons anew.

But few survive a dragon attack. Honed by millennia of evolution, the Komodo’s modus operandi is frightfully efficient: Hide in ambush, sweep prey off its feet with a powerful lash of the tail, tear open the victim’s stomach with one savage, steam-shovel bite, scatter its entrails, then gulp it down--hoofs, horns, bones and all--in huge chunks.

Their appetites are unspeakably gluttonous; a 300-pound dragon can wolf down almost 250 pounds of victim in a single sitting. They are not dainty eaters.

Nor are they picky. Researcher Walter Auffenberg spent more than a year on the island studying dragons. During his tenure, Komodos snacked on his sleeping bag and chomped on a 14-year-old boy.

Sometimes they eat each other. Mostly, though, they eat deer, wild pigs, feral horses and the occasional buffalo. Young dragons climb trees to snack on monkeys, snatching them off the branches as if they were ripe fruit.

Back in the riverbed, the knot of dragons made short, savage work of the sacrificial goat. Within minutes they crawled off, sated, to loll in the sun. Idle lizards soon surrounded our protective corral.

From one thug’s jaw, a string of intestines dangled like an errant strand of dental floss.

Just then an ugly question arose: How do we get out of here?

GUIDEBOOK

Komodo Island

How to get there: Garuda Indonesia offers direct service from Los Angeles to Indonesia--Biak, Bali or Jakarta, with a stop in Honolulu--three times weekly. Round-trip coach fare is about $1,350.

When to go: The best time to visit Indonesia’s Komodo Island is from May through October, when rain is infrequent and seas are calm.

The luxury route: The most comfortable way to go dragon watching is to board a luxury cruise complete with gourmet food, vintage wine, air-conditioned quarters and lectures by well-versed naturalists. Cruises are offered by outfits such as Society Expeditions Cruises, 3131 Elliot Ave., Suite 700, Seattle, Wash. 98121, (800) 548-8669, or Salen Lindblad Cruising, 333 Ludlow St., P.O. Box 120076, Stamford, Conn. 06912-0076, (800) 223-5688.

Other options: Local travel agencies on Bali can arrange multiday trips from Bali to Komodo and back.

For more information: Two Indonesia-based travel agencies with U.S. offices can provide information for visiting Komodo. Contact either Natrabu Indonesian Travel and Tours, 433 California St., Suite 630, San Francisco 94104, (800) 654-6900, or Vayatours, 3440 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 608, Los Angeles 90010, (213) 487-1433.

Also, contact the Indonesia Tourist Promotion Office, 3457 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 105, Los Angeles 90010, (213) 387-2078.