oFat Mah'sINTERNATIONAL$$
(off Jl Raya Hu'u; mains 40,000-80,000Rp; h6am-11pm)
Lakey's best kitchen turns out creative fare throughout the day and night. Tables sit in a raised bleached-wood house overlooking the beach. There's a bit of style to everything, from the granola and muffins at breakfast, to the juices and cocktails, and on to the sandwiches and nightly seafood and pasta specials.
8Information
There is community wi-fi, although some places offer their own (faster) service.
The nearest ATMs are 37km north in Dompu.
8Getting There & Away
From Dompu there are two daily (slow) buses as far as Hu’u (25,000Rp, 1½ hours), where you can hire an ojek (15,000Rp) to Pantai Lakey. Ojeks to/from Dompu on the trans-Sumba highway cost 150,000Rp.
Try doing this with a surfboard and you’ll see why so many people take a taxi from Bima airport (around 800,000Rp, four people). Buses to/from Bima cost from 50,000Rp (one to two daily).
The ojek cartel is omnipresent in Lakey; rates to the breaks range from 30,000Rp to 80,000Rp.
Bima
%0374 / Pop 149,000
East Sumbawa’s largest metropolitan centre is a conservative Islamic place with few sights, and it's nobody's favourite getaway. The streets can be traffic-choked, the architecture is charmless and crumbling, and the vibe is unappealing after dark. If you're heading to Pantai Lakey there's no need to stop here, but if you want a morning ferry to Flores, you're better off staying here than in Sape, for the greater range of sleeping options alone.
1Sights
Museum Asi MbojoMUSEUM
(Jl Sultan Ibrahim; admission 2000Rp; h8am-5pm Mon-Sat)
The old Sultan’s Palace, former home of Bima’s rulers, still reflects the colonial style of a 1927 renovation. Past the large verandahs, the interior is home to a grab bag of dusty curios, including a royal crown, battle flags and weapons. A modest wooden building next to the palace has an evocative and traditional look. The weedy grounds are large; the area outside the northern fence is a favourite night-time spot for prostitutes.
zFestivals & Events
Horse racing is held four times a year, in May, July, August and December, at the Desa Panda horse stadium, 14km west of town on the trans-Sumbawa highway. There’s a large grandstand, a gaggle of warungs, and plenty of cheering as horses thunder around a dusty track. Action peaks on 17 August as independence fever kicks in.
4Sleeping
Hotel Lila GrahaHOTEL$
(%0374-42740; Jl Lombok 20; r 200,000-350,000Rp; aW)
One of two four-storey, block-long hotels, each with a wide range of rooms; ground-floor suite rooms are newest and nicest. There's wi-fi in the lobby only. It's right in the centre.
oMarina HotelHOTEL$$
(%0374-42072; www.marinabima.com; Jl Sultan Kaharuddin 41; r 390,000-450,000Rp; aW)
Bima's best sleep is very central. The 52 rooms in this three-storey building (there's an elevator) are bright and airy, with large flat-screen TVs, glassed-in showers and plush bed linens. All rooms get plenty of light, though some have more windows than others. There are sweeping views from the common lounge.
5Eating
Pasar MalamMARKET$
(Night Market; Jl Sultan Ibrahaim; h6pm-11pm)
Dine cheaply at the night market: there’s fish and chicken sate (satay), mie goreng (fried noodles) and nasi goreng (fried rice), bakso (meatball soup) and various deep-fried treats, including bananas aplenty.
oRumah Makan Sabar SaburSEAFOOD$
(%0374-646236; Jl Salahudin, Bandara; mains from 20,000Rp; h7am-7pm)
Out by the airport, off the trans-Sumbawa highway, the long wooden tables here are always crowded with locals who come to munch bandeng goreng (a flash-fried freshwater fish). Like herring, you can eat it whole, bones and all. It’s best combined with the fiery crushed-tomato sambal, torn leaves of lemon basil and a bit of rice.
Rumah Makan Arema RayaPADANG$
(%0374-44960; Jl Sultan Hasanuddin; mains 20,000-30,000Rp; h7am-10pm)
The cleanest and most central Padang food depot in town. Pick and mix from an array of curried, baked and fried fish and chicken dishes. Note: it gets quite spicy here. When the day's fresh fare runs out (about 6pm), head upstairs for some just-fair pizza.
Warung TaliwangINDONESIAN$
(Jl Sulawesi; mains 20,000-40,000Rp; h11am-11pm)
On the ground-floor of a building that still has some colonial style, this open-air warung serves up seafood and chicken dishes fresh from the woks. Settle in at the street-side rows of long tables.
8Information
There are plenty of banks and ATMs in Bima, especially along the town's main drag, Jl Sultan Hasanuddin.
PT Man Jaya Executive ToursTRAVEL AGENCY
(%0819 0901 2555; Jl Sultan Kaharuddin 36; h8am-6pm Mon-Sat)
West of the centre and on the main road, this full-service agency is the best place for Pelni and ferry tickets.
Travel Lancar JayaTRAVEL AGENCY
(%0374-43737; Jl Sultan Hasanuddin 11)
Bima's Lion Air agent offers a range of services. It's across from the largest supermarket in the town centre.
8Getting There & Away
Air
Bima is the main airport for travellers to Pantai Lakey. During peak season (June to August), when flights from Labuanbajo (Flores) are often fully booked, you can make the 10-hour ferry and bus trip from Labuanbajo to Bima to find a seat on a less-packed Bima-Bali flight. Services include the following:
ABali Garuda, Lion Air, 1¼ hours, daily
AMakassar (Sulawesi) Garuda, 1½ hours, daily
Boat
Pelni boats travel twice monthly from Bima to Waingapu, Ende and Kupang, Benoa (Bali) and Sulawesi.
Travel agencies in town can organise tickets, since the Pelni office (%0374-42625; Jl Kesatria 2) is at Bima port.
Bus
Buses heading west leave from the Bima bus terminal, a 10-minute walk south along Jl Sultan Kaharuddin from the centre of town. You can buy a ticket in advance from bus company offices on Jl Sultan Kaharuddin. Buses for Sape depart from the Kumbe terminal in Raba (a 3000Rp bemo ride away). Routes include the following:
ADompu 25,000Rp, two hours, almost hourly from 6am to 5pm
AMataram 250,000Rp, 11 to 14 hours, two daily
ASape 35,000, two hours, almost hourly from 6am to 5pm
ASumbawa Besar 80,000, seven hours, several daily
8Getting Around
The airport sits amid salt flats 17km west from the centre on the way to Dompu and the road to Pantai Lakey. You can walk out to the main road and catch a passing bus. Alternatively, taxis meet arrivals, charging 100,000Rp to Bima or 800,000Rp to Pantai Lakey.
A bemo around town costs 3000Rp per person.
Sape
%0374
Sape’s got a tumbledown port-town vibe, perfumed with the conspicuous scent of drying cuttlefish. The outskirts are quilted in rice fields backed by jungled hills, and the streets are busy with benhur (horse-drawn carts) and early morning commerce. There’s decent food and doable lodging here too, so if you are catching a morning ferry, consider this an alternative to Bima.
4Sleeping & Eating
The ferry port is 3km east of Sape's diminutive centre.
Losmen MutiaraGUESTHOUSE$
(%0374-71337; Jl Pelabuhan Sape; r 60,000-160,000Rp; aW)
Despite little competition, Losmen Mutiara, right next to the port gates and last bus stop, is a decent place to stay. Twenty rooms are spread across two floors, with the most expensive having air-con.
Rumah Makan Citra MinangINDONESIAN$
(Jl Pelabuhan Sape; mains 20,000-30,000Rp; h8am-9pm)
The smiling ladies here bring the finest and spiciest Padang dishes to life. The shabby interior belies the quality and flavour of the food. It's mere steps from the boats and last bus stop.
8Getting There & Around
Boat
Regular breakdowns a
nd big water disrupt ferry services – always double-check the latest schedules in Bima and Sape. Ferries from Sape include the following:
ALabuanbajo 60,000Rp, six to seven hours, one to two daily
AWaikelo (Sumba) 65,000Rp, eight hours, two weekly
Bus
Express buses with service to Lombok and Bali meet arriving ferries.
Buses leave every hour for Bima (35,000Rp, two hours), where you can catch local buses to other Sumbawa destinations.
Taxi drivers may claim that buses have stopped running and you must charter their vehicle to Bima (350,000Rp, 1½ hours); this is usually not true.
Komodo & Rinca Islands
Nestled between Sumbawa and Flores, the islands of Komodo and Rinca are the main components of Unesco-recognised Komodo National Park, whose rapidly increasing popularity is helping drive the booming tourism economy of Flores.
The island's jagged hills, carpeted with savannah and fringed with mangroves, are home to the legendary Komodo dragon. The world’s largest lizard, known locally as ora, it can reach over 3m in length. It hunts alone and feeds on animals as large as deer and buffalo, both of which are found here.
These isolated islands are surrounded by some of the most tempestuous waters in Indonesia. The convergence of warm and cold currents breeds nutritious thermal climes, rip tides and whirlpools that attract large schools of pelagics, from dolphins and sharks to manta rays and blue whales. The coral here is mostly pristine. Add it all up and you have some of the best diving in the world, which is why dozens of liveaboards ply these waters between April and September when the water is smooth and the diving at its finest.
Komodo
Spectacular Komodo, its steep hillsides jade in the short wet season, frazzled by the sun and winds to a deep rusty red for most of the year, is the largest island in the national park. A succession of eastern peninsulas spread out like so many fingers, fringed in pink sand, thanks to the abundance of red coral offshore. The main camp of Loh Liang and the PHKA office, where boats dock and guided walks and treks start, is on the east coast.
The fishing village of Kampung Komodo is an hour-long walk south of Loh Liang. It’s a friendly stilted Bugis village that’s full of goats, chickens and children. The inhabitants are said to be descendants of convicts exiled to the island in the 19th century by one of the sultans in Sumbawa. The residents here are used to seeing tourists and you can spend a fair bit of time absorbing village life and gazing out over the water.
VISITING KOMODO NATIONAL PARK
Komodo National Park (www.komodo-park.com), established in 1980, encompasses Komodo, Rinca, several neighbouring islands, and the rich marine ecosystem within its 1817 sq km.
Fees for visitors add up quickly:
ALanding fee per person for Komodo and Rinca islands: 50,000Rp
ABasic guided walk fee per person: 80,000Rp
ADiving fee per person per day: Monday to Saturday/Sunday 175,000/250,000Rp
ASnorkelling fee per person per day: Monday to Saturday/Sunday 165,000/240,000Rp
Tour operators (including dive shops) usually collect the fees in advance. If not, you pay them in the park offices on Komodo or Rinca, or in Labuanbajo.
At both Komodo and Rinca you have a choice of walks, from short to long, which you arrange with a ranger when you arrive at the relevant island's park office.
2Activities
Walking & Trekking
The 80,000Rp entrance fee at Komodo includes a choice of three walks: the short walk (1.5km, 45 minutes), which includes a stop at an artificial waterhole that attracts the diminutive local deer – and of course ora; the medium walk (2.5km, 90 minutes), which includes a hill with sweeping views and a chance to see colourful cockatoos; and the long trek (4km, two hours), which includes the features of the shorter hikes and gets you much further from the peak-season crowds.
You can also negotiate for adventure treks (from 500,000Rp for up to five people). These walks are up to 9km long and can last four or more hours. Bring plenty of water. Highlights can include a climb to the 538m-high Gunung Ara with expansive views from the top. Poreng Valley is another potential dragon haunt, and has an out-in-the-wild feeling. Watch for wildlife such as buffalo, deer, wild boar and Komodo’s rich bird life, including the fabled megapodes.
A great hike goes over Bukit Randolph, passing a memorial to 79-year-old Randolph Von Reding, who disappeared on Komodo in 1974, and on to Loh Sebita. It’s challenging, the sea views are spectacular, you’ll likely see a dragon or two, and you can organise your boat to pick you up in Loh Sebita, so you don’t have to retrace your steps.
Water Sports
Almost everybody who visits Komodo hires a boat in Labuanbajo or visits as part of a liveaboard itinerary. Day trips always offer snorkelling (gear included) as part of the itinerary as well as a stop at an island beach. Many snorkel around the small island of Pulau Lasa near Kampung Komodo, and just off the pink sands of Pantai Merah (Red Beach), which is just an hour’s walk from Loh Liang.
People who stay on Komodo can arrange for kayaking and sunrise dolphin tours.
KOMODO DRAGONS
The Komodo dragon (ora) is a monitor lizard, albeit one on steroids. Growing up to 3m in length and weighing up to 100kg, they are an awesome sight and make a visit to Komodo National Park well worth the effort. Lounging about lethargically in the sun, these are actually as fearsome as their looks imply. Park rangers keep them from attacking tourists; random encounters are a bad idea. Some dragon details:
They are omnivorous, and enjoy eating their young. Juvenile dragons live in trees to avoid becoming a meal for adults.
Ora often rise up on their hind legs just before attacking, and the tail can deliver well-aimed blows that knock down their prey.
Long thought to be a type of bacteria, venom (located in glands between the dragons’ teeth) are their secret weapon. One bite from a dragon leads to septic infections that inevitably kill the victim. The huge lizard lopes along after its victim waiting for it to die, which can take up to two weeks.
Komodos will feed on mammals weighing up to 100kg. They do this at one sitting and then retire for up to a month to digest the massive meal.
On Komodo, ora have been seen chasing deer into the ocean and then waiting on shore while the hapless deer tries to come back ashore. Eventually the exhausted animal staggers onto the beach, where the dragon inflicts its ultimately deadly bite.
There is no accepted reason why the dragons are only found in this small area of Indonesia, although it’s thought that their ancestors came from Australia four million years ago. There are about 4000 in the wild today.
A recent discovery has biologists baffled: female dragons kept isolated from other dragons their entire lives have recently been observed in zoos giving birth to fertilised eggs.
SPOTTING DRAGONS
At both Komodo and Rinca your odds of seeing dragons are very good. Although claims are made that there is no feeding of the ora, invariably you'll see a few specimens hanging around the ranger stations, especially at the kitchens. There are further opportunities on the actual walks, where you are likely to see the animals in purely natural surroundings.
Rangers carry a forked staff as their only protection; you may get quite close to ora. A telephoto lens is handy but not essential. Still, treat the seemingly slow-moving ora with great respect: two villagers have been killed in the last two decades.
Peak months for komodo-spotting are September to December, when both sexes are out and about. The worst months are June to August, which is mating season for the males, which causes the females to go into hiding.
4Sleeping
Although it is easy to visit Komodo on a day trip from Labuanbajo, there are definite advantages to spending the night on the island. In the park you can spot ora during their active postdawn rambles and before the first tour boats arrive at 9am. Late in the afternoon, you can enjoy near-solitude after the day's visitors have left, leaving you to absorb nature's rhyth
m and delight in Komodo's pastoral charms. Any place you stay will provide simple meals.
In the village of Kampung Komodo, you'll find a few very casual homestays that give you a basic bed and some meals. Either just turn up and let locals guide you to one (rooms from about 200,000Rp per night) or arrange your stay in advance with Usman Ranger (%0812 3956 6140; Komodo).
Komodo GuesthouseGUESTHOUSE$$
(%0812 3956 6140; Loh Liang; r from 400,000Rp)
Located inside the park and just five-minutes' walk from the dock, this six-room guesthouse has a long, covered porch that's elevated and offers great views across open space to the ocean. Rooms are basic but have fans (there's electricity 6pm to midnight) and you can arrange with park rangers for meals. Reserve when you arrive on the island or by phone.
It's not uncommon to see Komodo dragons amble past, especially at dawn and dusk. The stars at night and the raw sounds of nature are intoxicating.
8Getting There & Away
Competition for Komodo day trips from Labuanbajo is fierce. Join one of the many tours hawked by operators in town, which cost from 300,000Rp per person and may include a light lunch and stops for beach fun and snorkelling.
You can also charter your own speedboat which will cover the distance to Komodo in under an hour. Prepare to bargain but expect to pay around 7,000,000Rp for up to four people for a full day out (which can include stops at both Komodo and Rinca).
Lonely Planet Indonesia Page 67