Indonesia: There Be Dragons!

Some background on Indonesia, called The Asian Tiger: The fourth largest country in the world, three times the size of Texas, it is comprised of 17,000+ islands — and 76 active volcanoes. Its 261 million people speak more than 700 languages, and, besides the 6 official religions (modernist Islam and traditional Islam predominate), they practice 245 non-official religions. The average income is $12,500. Contrast that with Malaysia ($29,000), Australia ($50,000)… then there’s Singapore ($91,000).

Though the Portuguese had been dominant here in the 15th century, by the next century it was the English and the Dutch who vied for control of this huge island nation and all its natural wealth. The Brits founded the English East India Company in 1601… the Dutch founded the Dutch East India Company in 1603 — and maintained control for more than 300 years. Holland granted Indonesia its independence in 1949. Incidentally, the Dutch East India Co. was the first to issue shares in a business, and [Wiki] ‘The VOC monogram was possibly the first globally recognized corporate logo.’

Why? The wealth they were after was Spices. Starting with black pepper and cinnamon, then nutmeg, cloves, mace (made from the shell of the nutmeg), followed by coffee, tea, rubber, sugar… and opium. More on the Spice Trade later, since I just heard a terrific lecture on it.

The Japanese occupied Indonesia during WWII, and the Indonesians welcomed them because it meant the end of Dutch rule. I had heard of Sukarno (the first president, leading up to and after independence, 1945-1967), but I didn’t recall his successor Suharto (1967-1998) — who (according to our onboard lecturer) turned out to be the single most corrupt politician ever: he embezzled the US equivalent of somewhere between 15 and 35 billion dollars. But, On to other predators…

(Below) Arriving on Komodo Island yesterday morning. We didn’t see any commercial establishments, but our island guide told us they do have a grocery store and a kindergarten, elementary and junior high school.

While we were warned that wildlife sightings can never be guaranteed, we did see a wild boar. And there were some birds, more heard than seen. Plus moths and butterflies. We saw hoof prints of the Timor deer, but missed the wild horses. Fortunately, we also missed the poisonous green viper and blue viper.

But mostly, There Be Dragons. Komodo Dragons, the largest lizard in the world, exist only on Komodo Island. They can grow to 10 feet, 275 pounds. These weren’t that big.

They eat boar and deer. Their venom is poisonous but more dangerous is the bacteria in their mouths. It can be fatal to humans. They can smell blood up to two miles away — we were warned that if we had an open sore, or had nicked ourselves shaving and certainly if we were menstruating (not much chance of that on this ship, but there are younger excursion staff who go with us), we would not be allowed on the island. There was a story that a park ranger was upstairs in the park building and a dragon climbed the stairs and got him. End of ranger.

The forked stick is for dragon control. When we were near them, they were surrounded by rangers with sticks, who didn’t need to do more then poke a couple in the neck to keep them from advancing on all the camera-clicking Viking passengers. I left people in the dragon photo above for scale.

Lucky, our guide, and our park ranger Jackie (with the stick) talked about trees, orchids, mushrooms and other plants, including the one Lucky is holding. Don’t know the name, but locals crumble the leaves and wipe them on a wound as an antiseptic. They add leaves to hot water for a tea to treat diabetes (the incidence is increasing even on this tropical island). And, when in the bush, they use the leaves as toilet paper.

The scene as we were tendering back home...