Komo-doh

You know when you are doing a walking trail, and it says “waterfall, 2 hours return” and then you do it in about 45 minutes? We’ve always wondered how they work out the estimated time it will take. Who are these incredibly slow people? Surely people who walk that slowly aren’t actually choosing to walk nature trails?

Well, today we finally found out: they use cruise ship passengers. When our guide told us that our 2 kilometre walk would take two and a half hours, we didn’t believe him. But we should have, because that is exactly how long it took. Suffice to say that it was a very frustrating experience. And involved a very large number of rest stops where he would discuss in-depth many, many plants. 

But turns out they really were pushing themselves to their physical extremes. We saw one lady who had to be carried back into the ship, and all of the oldies we spoke to told us that it was a very difficult trek (subtext: stop complaining it was too slow young people, no one cares). Towards the end of our very slow walk we did get to see a decent number of Komodo dragons. They’re rather fat, appear to drool a lot and can’t walk without sticking their tongues out.

Interestingly, you aren’t allowed on Komodo if you are currently menstruating. Before you get all upset and start writing op eds in The Daily Life about how sexist and backward that is, you aren’t allowed to have open cuts either. Apparently the dragons can smell blood from 10 km away. I guess fortunately for most of our female fellow passengers, the risk of a menstrual blood-inspired Komodo dragon attack had long ceased to be a problem.

While a dragon is easily capable of outrunning a human over short distances, the upside of having an older group tour is that should they have attacked we would have easily out ran everyone else.

You can’t really wander by yourself on Komodo island (because dragons) so we only get a little wander along the beach before heading back to the ship.