A week in Komodo (Indonesia) - Take 1

KennethT · 2026-01-06T15:48:33Z

Hey everybody, happy new year and welcome to yet another KennethT SE Asia foodblog. This time around, we went to an area of Indonesia called Komodo, a collection of small islands that are home to the Komodo Dragon as well as some spectacular scuba diving. Unfortunately, this trip was besieged by bad luck practically from start to finish, so I hope this report won't be too disappointing for you to read... although it was disappointing for us, but I think we made the best of it. The good news is that this was another illness free trip! A Festivus miracle!

As usual lately, we flew via Singapore Airlines direct from NYC to Singapore on what is constantly touted as the "world's longest flight" - about 9500 miles. The plane is broken up into only 2 classes - business and premium economy. Since we've racked up a bunch of miles lately, we wound up getting their frequenty flyer program Gold Status, which allowed us entry to the Capital One lounge in NY's JFK airport. We wanted to be in there, primarily, as it would be less crowded than the terminal itself and we've been quarantining for over a month to make sure that we arrived healthy.

We found a relatively secluded spot in the lounge and you could order snacks, via your phone and a QR code, that would be delivered to your table:

Short rib sliders with meat from Pat LaFrida (a well known butcher here in NYC).

Food on the flight to Singapore can be found here, here, here and here. Unfortunately, we didn't have a very long layover, shortened even more as we landed a little late... so we didn't get a chance to get chicken rice while in Terminal 2.... instead, we used the brief opportunity to try something that I've been wanting to try for many years but never had the chance to do so.

Bee Cheng Hiang is a well known purveyor of bakkwa (started in 1933 in Singapore and have grown to over 300 locations in 11 countries) - a Malaysian/Singaporean barbequed jerky, typically made from pork, but they had a LOT of options. Here's just a few:

The meat is first dried into jerky, then coated with some kind of sweet sauce and then grilled. We only tried the classic, original version, but it was delicious and addictive. If we weren't relatively full from the flight before and knowing we would be fed again on our next flight, and then eat again in the airport, etc, we could have gorged ourselves! But instead, we just got 100g to share while sitting outside the gate for the next flight.

It's not so easy to get to the Komodo area - there are very few direct flights - most connect through Bali, which is an island just to the west. The Flores Sea is just to the north of Komodo - named for one of the islands of the area. Here is a map of the kinda-sorta western half of Indonesia:

The food on the flight to Bali can be found here.

Here's the beginning of our bad luck - our flight from Singapore to Bali landed around 11AM, and we had originally scheduled the connection to the Komodo area (the main city called Labuan Bajo) to leave around 1:30, arriving around 2:30... A few months ago, the local airline decided to cancel the flight to Labuan Bajo and we were bumped to the flight leaving Bali at 5PM, landing at 6:15. So that means that we now have 6 hours in the Bali airport, after already flying for over 20 hours with a couple hour layover in between, plus we were working all day on the day we left... so to say we were tired by the time we got to Bali is understating things. The Bali airport has a capsule style "hotel" - it's basically a couple walls full of pods about the size of coffins that you can rent in 6 hour chunks. I neglected to take photos of it, but it's pretty accurately depicted on their website: https://passgo-digital-airport-hotel-bali.kutahotel.net/en/ It's pretty inexpensive and, while not very comfortable, it's definitely better than nothing.

After attempting to take a few hour nap, we went to lunch at a Balinese restaurant in the airport, Made's Warung. A warung is a kind of road-side restaurant. They started in south Bali in 1969 and have now expanded to 8 restaurants - 2 in the airport (one in the domestic terminal, one in the international).

This is the location in the international terminal, probably around 3PM, hence why it's not so busy. The basket on the table holds a bunch of kerupuk, or Indonesian crackers, of various kinds. There was a tempe based one, a fish based one and a vegetable based one.

Lime juice...

A Balinese specialty - ayam (chicken) betutu. For being in the airport, it was quite good. Served with a chicken sate lillet (on the stick) which is a minced chicken sate, fried chicken skin, lawar - which is a kind of cooked vegetable salad made with shredded coconut, peanuts and sambal matah - a "raw" sambal common in Bali.

Fried chicken, served with sambal matah and sambal terasi (a fried chilli sauce made with shrimp paste) and was served with

Some vegetables on the side.

Then, finally, the local airline to Labuan Bajo, food from which can be found here.

By the time we landed and collected our bags (which was surprisingly fast), and got to the hotel about 20 minutes away, we were so tired we weren't really hungry so we decided not to bother having dinner.

**ElsieD** · 2026-01-06T15:59:18Z

I am so looking forward to reading more!

KennethT · 2026-01-06T17:57:05Z

We were in Labuan Bajo for 2 days. Most tourists use the city as the jumping off point for excursions for snorkeling/diving around the area, going to Komodo or Rinca island to see the dragons (those are the only two places they live in the wild) as well as hiking on Padar island for amazing views and a unique pink sand beach. Our plan was to have a relatively sedate first day - visiting a local market in Labuan Bajo, eating some local food and basically just resting a bit after the long travel to get there so we can be well rested for diving in a few days. The 2nd day was to be excursions to see the dragons and hike Padar island. To get to any of the excursion areas, you need to take a boat - most excursions companies use small speed boats that can take 6-8 people, although the area is frequented by tons of what are called "liveaboards" which are boats that hold about 25 people and are like floating hotels - they go throughout the area and the customers can scuba dive or snorkel 4-5 times a day, so they're constantly changing locations. December is the time when the weather starts to shift from the dry season to the rainy season. The weather isn't usually too bad - just some isolated showers from time to time. So we brought our wet weather hiking gear (be prepared!).

Breakfast was included in our hotel room rate. The breakfast buffet at this hotel was pretty good, although there were some funny idiosyncracies....

DIY Soto ayam - chicken soup - station... tempe crackers on top...

Pandan kuih

Really good pineapple

Here's where it gets funny - they made a point to have nasi kunyit - yellow rice - but it's usually served with a bunch of sides like a Malaysian nasi lemak or Indonesian nasi campur but with yellow rice - but there were no typical sides! Just the rice... weird.... anyway, also available were some kind of mashed potato tater-tot type thing, fried noodles, chicken sausage, and shrimp chips.

They also had sambal ijo (green) and sambal merah (red) which are typically from the Padang region. My wife has a mild sambal ijo addiction and had tons of it with a plate full of shrimp chips. They also had plenty of options that western travelers typically enjoy - yogurt/cereal/egg station/salad, etc.

After breakfast, we decided to talk to the excursion desk about a trip for the next day and found out that all excursions were currently canceled. They didn't mention why at the time, but we found out later that there was a boat accident the evening before and they closed the whole area for search and rescue. It turned out that a coach for the female Valencia football team and his family were on a boat which capsized. The crew of 4, tour guide, his wife and youngest daughter survived, but the coach and 3 other children were missing. This is a huge tragedy - but many of the locals were very unhappy as they said that this kind of thing happens from time to time to locals and the government never shuts anything down for search and rescue, but because it happened to a western tourist (who is somewhat famous), there was a lot of international pressure to make it look like they were doing something about it.

One thing to note is that the Komodo area is known for having very strong currents, so the probability of finding anyone after an accident like that is very small. One of the children was found a few days later by a local person near a mostly uninhabited island (there are a lot of small islands that only have one house or a very small village in this area). News reports say another body was found a day or so ago, leaving two still missing.

As of now, I gather that the whole area is still shut down as the search continues. While many of the locals we spoke to were saddened by the tragedy, they were also upset at the loss of their livelihood. Tourism is the main economy of the area, and while the waterways are shut down, no tourism can happen - so many tourists who were supposed to stay there for a week or so wound up cutting their trip short, or went to Bali or another area. At the time we were there, there was no visibility as to when the waterways would reopen - everything was changing day by day and hour by hour - so we decided to stay and make the best of it.

So, we decided to hang around the resort the first day, and then go to the market area on the second day in Labuan Bajo. Getting around the area is not convenient - there is no real taxi service, Uber, Grab or otherwise. The only Grab they have is motorbike taxis but we are definitely too nervous to ride on the back of a motorbike. So the only option was using the hotel shuttle which drops people off either at the airport or at the marina area of Labuan Bajo. It also turned out that I forgot the underwater housing for my GoPro camera, so we decided to head into Labuan Bajo to a dive store to get a new one. There isn't much to see in the downtown of Labuan Bajo - mostly stores/restaurants geared to tourists - Starbucks, KFC, dive shops, etc.

We did take a look around the marina area:

view of some of the closer islands and boats parked in the marina - the larger boats in the center of the photo are liveaboard dive boats.

This is a strip of night market stalls - most of them selling grilled fish/seafood in the evening. We were only in Labuan Bajo for the first couple of days when we get really tired early, so we never made it to see it at night. Most blogs I've read about it say that it's nothing special - but it still would have been nice to see.

This is the back side of the night market area - lots of picnic table seating for the grilled fish.

KennethT · 2026-01-06T18:07:40Z

Back at the hotel for lunch....

Typical cake-bread served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar

I thought I asked for a lime juice, but got some iced tea with lime.

Grilled garupa with a sliced shallot/tomato sambal and fried sambal merah. There's rice under the leaf cone.

Ayam (chicken) betutu typically from Bali, served with sambal matah, tempe cooked in sweet soy sauce and boiled singkong (cassava) leaves. It was pretty good, but I'm sorry to say that the airport version had a lot more flavor.

**Smithy** · 2026-01-06T18:18:18Z

8 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Back at the hotel for lunch....

Typical cake-bread served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar

I like that oil and vinegar dispenser. It looks like it would be a nightmare to clean, though. Better to leave it in the hands of a restaurant with rapid turnover?

KennethT · 2026-01-06T18:19:42Z

Early dinner at the hotel:

part of the menu, prices are in Indonesian Rupiah (thousands). So the 180 is 180,000 IDR or about $11 at the current rate of exchange (16,700 IDR to 1 USD). So food prices, even at the resort are not expensive.

non-cakey bread with seaweed butter

This was supposed to be the local baronang fish, but they said that it wasn't very fresh today so they substituted a different fish - I'm not sure what it was but it tasted a little like mackerel. The sambal made with young mango (mangga muda) is traditional from the region and one of the things I had wanted to try while here.

This was served with:

Cassava leaves in coconut milk with smoked beef and rice with corn in it. Both the corn and cassava leaf dish is typical in the region. The coconut milk dish was so smoky - it was fantastic.

This is the se'i babi (pork), another of the traditional foods of the area. These two dishes are basically the majority of the specialties of the region. The se'i here was ok - some had a bit of grizzle and it wasn't really that smoky.

Dessert menu

A traditional dessert - this is the kelepon gula merah. Gula merah is the name for local palm sugar. Here, the green mochi-like skin (made from sticky rice) is stuffed with palm sugar and steamed. Then coated with fresh shredded coconut, with a palm sugar/coconut sauce. I could have eaten 5 of these!

KennethT · 2026-01-06T19:46:59Z

Breakfast the next morning:

Fried noodles, squid stew (really tender) with sambal ijo

Beef rendang, sambal ijo, boiled cassava leaves, shrimp chips

Really good pineapple

After breakfast, we decided to hire a car/guide as we wanted to go to a local market and then a local restaurant to try a non-hotel version of se'i. Since there are no non-motorbike taxis in the area, we would have had to have the hotel call some kind of car for us to take us to one place, then again when we're finished to go to the next place, and then one more time to go back to the hotel - at 150,000IDR each trip. For 600,000 total, we could have a car with guide for a half day. So, for the extra $10, we thought the guide was a great deal, plus we wouldn't have to wait around in between.

It turns out that our guide's father has a pork stall in the market and his cousin has a vegetable stall! So he was very happy to give us a tour and he had a ton of information which we were really happy about.

Some vendors outside the market:

My wife was able to get some video walking through the market - the beginning felt like a horror movie!

You can see that a lot of the stalls are empty - our guide was saying that a lot of vendors don't want to pay the market fee and have been setting up outside the market instead.

Some more market shots:

Fruit - unfortunately, no one had any unripe mango (mangga muda) that the region is known for

Above - kaffir limes, below - cabe merah besar (big red chillies). The small chillies don't have a name in Bahasa, only a name in the local language as it's only grown there. They are supposed to be really really spicy and are featured in a sambal called sambal lu'at - which we'll see later.

I didn't realize that parrotfish (the blue-ish ones) were edible but I guess they are... also note the lack of ice around anywhere....

Dried fish area

Live ayam kampung (village chickens). These chickens have gotten a lot of exercise so they are flavorful but tough... they're commonly stewed for over an hour before either served as is, or drained and then fried, or drained and grilled.

Next stop was a local se'i restaurant. Se'i is a local specialty - years ago, it was made with deer meat as they live all over these islands - even the uninhabited ones. Nowadays, it's made with pork since it's considered tastier and juicier, or beef for those who are halal. There are two very popular se'i restaurants - the most famous one was closed that afternoon, so we went to the next best:

Se'i babi (pork) Om Bai

Some menu shots:

There's a sink outdoors by the parking lot to wash your hands....

A common drink there - orange juice on ice - our beloved lime juice is not common in Indonesia.

This is the se'i with sambal lu'at. Holy crap that stuff was spicy. Served with boiled papaya leaves and

A soup made with kidney beans, pork stock and some of the smoked pork.

All in all, this was really good - much better than the hotel's version. Smokier, and a lot less grizzle. Oddly enough, the soup reminded me of my Jewish grandmother's chicken soup - but she used to make her soup with tons of onion and parsnips which gave it quite a bit of sweetness, and this soup was the same - I'm sure they weren't using parsnips, but it could have had a lot of onion and they also could have just added sugar - that would not be surprising.

The boiled papaya leaves were also interesting - they had a nice bitterness to them, and it went well with the smoked meat and sweet-ish soup.

This was on the table - we couldn't resist.... pork rinds.... We only finished about half of it and wound up taking the rest with us to finish over the next couple of days.

Here's a view of the harbor while on the way back to the hotel:

Most of the boats in the harbor wouldn't be there normally - most of them are liveaboards that are empty due to the search and rescue.

KennethT · 2026-01-06T20:13:12Z

Dinner back at the hotel:

More menu

Non-cake bread with seaweed butter

This is the manuk butuk from the "local specialties" section of the menu. The chicken is marinated in a spice paste with turmeric, shallots, etc., then wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. I definitely need to make this at home - it was delicious. It was served with:

and now a shot under the cone:

Rice with corn. I've never seen this anywhere else so far in Indonesia - it seems to be a local thing here.

Fried duck with mixed vegetables, sambal ijo and sambal merah.

This is the other local dessert from the area:

Serabe kinca - little puffs of rice flour dough (like a round pancake) with shredded coconut and palm sugar syrup. This reminded me of a street item we had in North Bali years ago - we were visiting a waterfall in the middle of nowhere and on the trail coming up from the bottom was a woman sitting off to the side with a charcoal brazier and a pancake pan (looked like an takoyaki pan) where she made these little pandan flavored pancakes that she covered with some shredded coconut and palm sugar syrup. So simple, but so good.

KennethT · 2026-01-06T20:44:33Z

Breakfast the next morning:

I found it interesting that one of the featured dishes is from Jakarta, not from the local area.... but it was good nonetheless...

Uduk rice (center) and starting at 11:00 going clockwise: braised tofu, tempe cooked in sweet soy sauce, fried chicken, shrimp chips, sambal terasi (made with shrimp paste)

More great pineapple

I'll take palm sugar in any form I can get it!

After breakfast, we had to pack and get ready to transfer to the dive hotel which was located on an otherwise uninhabited island right near the Komodo national park.

MaryIsobel · 2026-01-07T02:21:57Z

Wow - thanks so much for all the time you put into sharing your incredible journeys with us. Visiting local (not in tourist areas) markets is one of my favourite things to do on holiday. Years ago, when our daughters were about 10, we went way off the beaten track in Mexico and I hyped the kids up about going to a market and finding cool things to try. When a fish vendor held out a still wriggling fish to us and proceeded to slice a piece off for us to taste, one of my daughters began to gag and fell to her knees. The poor guy was devastated and kept apologizing. Fortunately, she has grown into a very adventurous cook and eater! And we did buy that fish!

**Smithy** · 2026-01-07T14:40:29Z

Yes, thank you for all the detailed information, and your beautiful posts. I have a few questions (selected carefully from many I could ask!):

Way back here:

20 hours ago, KennethT said:

Early dinner at the hotel:

This was supposed to be the local baronang fish, but they said that it wasn't very fresh today so they substituted a different fish - I'm not sure what it was but it tasted a little like mackerel. The sambal made with young mango (mangga muda) is traditional from the region and one of the things I had wanted to try while here.

The tomato slices look rather like what we'd see in the northern US states at this time of year (i.e. not very ripe or flavorful), and I don't think I'm seeing much by way of tomatoes in your other pictures although I may have spotted some in a market photo. Was that mostly window-dressing for tourists, or have you encountered tomatoes in the cookery elsewhere there? How were those tomatoes, if you remember?

The leaf cones that rice comes served in are pretty and seem ubiquitous. Do you know if they're considered reusable? Does anyone reuse them, or are they a one-and-done sort of thing?

What do you mean by "non-cake bread"?

Finally, for now: what is the seaweed butter like that went with a non-cake bread above? Is it like a compound butter? Salty? Small chunks of seaweed -- and soft, or hard? I'm eyeing some of my seaweed packets and thinking...hmmm!

KennethT · 2026-01-07T16:48:42Z

2 hours ago, Smithy said:

Yes, thank you for all the detailed information, and your beautiful posts. I have a few questions (selected carefully from many I could ask!):

Way back here:

The tomato slices look rather like what we'd see in the northern US states at this time of year (i.e. not very ripe or flavorful), and I don't think I'm seeing much by way of tomatoes in your other pictures although I may have spotted some in a market photo. Was that mostly window-dressing for tourists, or have you encountered tomatoes in the cookery elsewhere there? How were those tomatoes, if you remember?

The leaf cones that rice comes served in are pretty and seem ubiquitous. Do you know if they're considered reusable? Does anyone reuse them, or are they a one-and-done sort of thing?

What do you mean by "non-cake bread"?

Finally, for now: what is the seaweed butter like that went with a non-cake bread above? Is it like a compound butter? Salty? Small chunks of seaweed -- and soft, or hard? I'm eyeing some of my seaweed packets and thinking...hmmm!

Tomatoes are pretty common in Indonesian food - but mainly as an acidic component - so I've never seen them used ripe. They're either just barely red or even still slightly green, or used completely green as it is a component of the sambal ijo - which is green chillies, green tomatoes, shallots and garlic. Tomatoes served as garnish is probably for the tourist thing.

I have no idea about the leaf cones - again, I suspect that's for the tourists - I've never seen them in local restaurants, but have seen them in restaurants geared towards (and priced for) tourists.

non-cake bread is my little joke. Much of the bread in SE Asia has a texture that resembles cake. It's rare to find bread that has actual bread-like texture and crust.

The seaweed butter is a compound butter but I have no idea if they used fresh seaweed or rehydrated dried seaweed - there were no hard pieces or anything like that, but to tell the truth, if I had my eyes closed, I wouldn't even know it was there. It tasted like normal butter. I think they were using it just trying to be fancy.

KennethT · 2026-01-07T17:06:23Z

The dive hotel sent a car to pick us up from our hotel just before noon, and then proceeded to take us to the marina to meet the hotel's speedboat. After pickup up a few other groups, we got to the hotel around 1PM, so they brought us to their restaurant for lunch before check in. The hotel is small - maybe only 20-25 rooms set up as separate cottages along the beach on an otherwise uninhabited island. Since you're pretty much stuck there and there are no other options, the room rate includes full board - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast had menu choices plus a buffet with fruit, cereal and pastries. Lunch was main dish plus dessert while dinner was appetizer, main dish then dessert.

Lunch menu - they put prices on it just in case someone isn't getting the full board thing I guess...

I got (no surprise here) the soto ayam (chicken soup):

My wife got the fried rice, which she'll get for lunch every day....

It came with a couple pieces of chicken sate.

Dessert menu:

They didn't have any mango, so I got pineapple with sticky rice...

and tiramisu which was very light and had no alcohol

At one point, one of the guests said with some kind of slavic accent (there was at least one couple that were russian who we spoke to, but several other couples had similar accents but we never wound up talking to them so I don't know where they were from) that a tiramisu typically has cherry vodka in it but he understood that they wouldn't put alcohol in it since many people there are Muslim.

KennethT · 2026-01-07T17:15:02Z

The rest of the afternoon was spent unpacking, getting our dive equipment set up, etc.

As we were seated for dinner, we had a few wild guests join us...

I got the tuna tatake for an appetizer - only realizing midway through that most fish in the area is not kept on ice in the market so probably not the best idea, but I never got sick, so whew!

Prawn spring rolls

I was hoping that the hotel would have a lot of traditionally grilled fish, but no....

Fried squid, a single prawn (I think it was fried also) and more grilled tuna. Served with a tomato/shallot/chilli mixture and a sambal goreng (normal fried sambal).

The beef rendang, which was probably closer to gulai than rendang but it was pretty good - definitely not like a true Padang rendang though. On the side is a very small piece of eggplant covered in sambal - that's about as much vegetable as we get here!!!

We forgot to take photos of dessert.

KennethT · 2026-01-07T17:49:39Z

Breakfast the next morning - at this point, we were hopeful we'd be able to go out for some dives - there was a plan to leave at 7:45 for a 2 tank dive (1 dive at 8, the next after a 1 hour surface interval on the boat after we surfaced, so probably around 10-10:30).

Good pineapple and dragon fruit

Mie goreng (fried noodles) with chicken sate covered in a sweet-ish peanut sauce. I forgot to take a photo of my wife's poached eggs.

Unfortunately, the morning dives were cancelled as they were not given permission to move the boats by the harbormaster... Instead, they offered us the ability to snorkel the house reef, which was really nice. Due to the constant currants, you shouldn't just jump in the water to snorkel as you'd drift far away and then it's a lot of swimming up the current to get back. So they took us in a zodiac a ways away and dropped us off so we could just have a nice drift snorkel back to the pier.

This shows some of the coral garden and a puffer fish

More coral and a green turtle - when the camera breaks the surface, you can see the turtle's head pop up to take a breath

I had thought this was some kind of grouper, but was later told that it was a lipstick fish

I was so impressed by the coral gardens in this area. So many different types of hard and soft corals - most with only minimal bleaching if any at all.

After the snorkel, it was basically time for lunch.

View from our table

This is the beef wrap. The menu said that it was beef with "capsicum" which I assumed to mean chillies, but no, just bell pepper slices.

Another nasi goreng....

More tiramisu...

And a creme brulee....

KennethT · 2026-01-07T17:59:18Z

After lunch, we were told that they'd be able to take us on a dive of the house reef around 3PM....

Spotted stingray....

Batfish

This looked like a hawksbill turtle

For dinner a few hours later:

We both got the prawn spring roll....

Nasi campur - next to the rice ball are two corn fritters, on the stick are two chicken sate lillet (really dry) and two pieces of chicken with some fried tempe with sweet soy sauce and some tempeh chips

This was kinda like a Thai red curry with chicken

Ice cream - it was a little icy, like it had melted a bit and then refroze - not surprising as it had to survive going from the store to the car to the boat then a 30+ minute boat ride, then to the pier and then finally to the kitchen all in 85-90degF....

Fruit platter - pineapple, watermelon, dragonfruit

C. sapidus · 2026-01-07T18:12:16Z

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

The dive hotel . . .

This threw me for a loop. I am more familiar with a different kind of dive hotel . . . :laugh:

Thank you so much for taking us along on your travels. Now you just need to figure out how to send rendang (or even gulai) through the internet. 😋

**Shelby** · 2026-01-07T18:47:31Z

On 1/6/2026 at 9:48 AM, KennethT said:

bakkwa

I wonder if anyone here in the states makes this?

On 1/6/2026 at 11:57 AM, KennethT said:

we found out later that there was a boat accident the evening before and they closed the whole area for search and rescue.

Oh that's just awful

On 1/6/2026 at 11:57 AM, KennethT said:

Just curious...are the trees without leaves dead or? Seems odd to just leave them if they're dead......

22 hours ago, KennethT said:

squid stew (really tender) with sambal ijo

This made me drool.

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

My wife got the fried rice, which she'll get for lunch every day....

I can't get the picture to post but the cute little "bowl" on her plate is for a dipping sauce or?

LOVING this. I'm having a vacation in my kitchen and I don't even have to shower or take a plane

**Shelby** · 2026-01-07T18:52:41Z

Gives new meaning to sleeping with the fishes......

23 hours ago, KennethT said:

our beloved lime juice is not common in Indonesia.

Not that I know anything about any of this but that surprises me.

KennethT · 2026-01-07T19:01:32Z

7 minutes ago, Shelby said:

I wonder if anyone here in the states makes this?

I think I've walked past a place in NYC that makes it, but I've never tried it. Next time I'm in Chinatown, I'll try to take one for the team... for research purposes only, of course....

7 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Just curious...are the trees without leaves dead or? Seems odd to just leave them if they're dead......

Funny - I never noticed it when I was there, but looking at the photos now, it seems like all the trees in the pots are dead... I can't imagine them being dormant, like we get in winter - how would the trees know when winter was? It's always hot, the amount of sunshine varies by like +/- 20 minutes all year since it's so close to the equator... maybe they go dormant during the rainy season? I've never heard of trees that did that but who knows... Everywhere else was so green....

7 minutes ago, Shelby said:

This made me drool.

I can't get the picture to post but the cute little "bowl" on her plate is for a dipping sauce or?

I think it had sweet soy sauce in it - that would be common in Indonesia, but since the hotel catered to mostly Europeans, who knows, it could have been balsamic vinegar!!! Ha! But we didn't try it, so I don't know for sure....

7 minutes ago, Shelby said:

LOVING this. I'm having a vacation in my kitchen and I don't even have to shower or take a plane

Ha, more like 3 planes! For those outside of NYC, LA, SF or Seattle, probably 4 at least!!

KennethT · 2026-01-07T19:05:34Z

8 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Gives new meaning to sleeping with the fishes......

Ha! Yeah, we thought that was hilarious - but definitely not the first time we've seen something like that. I don't know how she could sleep with that smell though... I guess you can get used to anything.

8 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Not that I know anything about any of this but that surprises me.

Yeah, it's funny how certain things are so common in one place, and then in another so close by, it's like they've never even heard of it. Lime juice (it's really a limeaid, but called lime juice) is so common in Singapore and Malaysia. The fact that it's so rare in most of Indonesia is interesting. I guess it's kind of like sweet tea or grits being a big thing in the south US, but no one has ever heard of it (except on TV or in books) in NY.

KennethT · 2026-01-07T19:43:55Z

I somehow neglected to take photos of breakfast the next morning - my wife had 2 poached eggs and I think I had pancakes with (gasp) maple syrup!! Really, they couldn't make some palm sugar syrup!?! How much did it cost to bring maple syrup over there!?!

We got the ok to be able to dive the house reef that morning. There isn't a lot to see there, but I looked at it as a chance to practice my buoyancy, and they were using the opportunity to get us to help them do some reef cleaning - aka picking up trash that finds its way in there...

Reef with puffer fish

Colorful reef shot

More reef aquarium.....

Lunch after the dive:

This was the wonton noodle soup... I think they said that it was from Shanghai or something... dishes on the side had soy sauce and sesame oil.

Do I have to say what this was?

For context, here's some shots from the beach....

Most of these surrounding islands are uninhabited or barely habited.

KennethT · 2026-01-07T20:55:27Z

After lunch, we didn't have much to do, so we basically just lay around... I don't think that agreed with me because my stomach started feeling not so great as dinner time rolled around... I think eating all those desserts and not getting much activity was getting to me... who knows... Anyway, that was NYE and of course, they'd have a special menu...

After seeing the fish in the local market, we decided that the sushi platter was not a great idea. Yes, I know, chances are that it would have been fine and they weren't getting their fish from the local market, but we really didn't want to take any chances, plus I wasn't feeling 100% and my wife didn't really want to eat that much either... I also didn't think my stomach was up for the Chicken Kiev so I asked for some ginger tea and some plain grilled chicken....

Ginger tea - interestingly, they added some lime juice to it

Plain grilled chicken with some vegetables

Chicken Kiev

We decided to not get dessert either, but they wouldn't let us leave before getting the special fruit platter:

Snake fruit, bananas and mandarins. Mandarins are a NY tradition for Chinese (usually lunar new year) and Russian NY, evidently. The snake fruit (salak) is similar in Indonesia. I'll stand by what I said years ago, I still haven't found a snake fruit that I enjoyed.

The next morning, I woke up feeling better - not 100%, but at least 90. So, breakfast...

pineapple and a pandan chiffon cake - I think the green was food coloring - there was no pandan flavor evident

More ginger tea

Slightly eaten pancakes... my wife's poached eggs not pictured....

After breakfast, and more ginger tea, I was feeling quite a bit better, so we decided to do another house reef snorkel right after breakfast, when the current was going in the other direction, so we'd see the other side of the house reef. As you'll see, the current was a bit strong that morning - as you see things going by, we were just floating - not kicking at all....

Soft corals waving in the current

Lots of fish under the dock.....

Afterwards, lunch....

More ginger tea... just in case....

I had the chicken burger - it seemed to be the same chicken cutlets that they served me for dinner the night before

More nasi goreng

I had the creme brulee - but only had about 1/3 of it

KennethT · 2026-01-07T21:16:24Z

After lunch, they were able to take us to a dive site close by, but not the house reef. It was a nice dive, but I didn't film anything too different from what I've shown already, so I won't bother posting any video. If anyone wants to see some, let me know and I'll put a few up for kicks....

Just before dinner, a nice sunset:

We both got the prawn spring rolls

We also both got the beef rendang...

I found it interesting the lack of vegetables served, so I asked if we could get a side of stir fried vegetables - like the bok choy they had in the soup for lunch, or some water spinach (how I missed you!) or some cassava leaves (more common in that area) and they brought:

Oh well.... better than nothing....

Dessert:

No dragonfruit that night

KennethT · 2026-01-07T21:46:45Z

The next day was our last day before flying home - so this means no diving as you really shouldn't dive 24 hours before flying. This is where the last of bad luck happened. Originally, our flight from Labuan Bajo to Bali was supposed to leave around 1:30 in the afternoon, but that flight was changed to leave around 3:30 which would cause us to miss our connection in Bali to Singapore. So instead, we had to rebook the flight to one that left at 9:50AM. If we had been able to take the original flight, the plan would have been to dive in the morning since we'd be on the surface long before the 24 hours cutoff.

One of the reasons we came to Komodo was to see manta rays - they are huge - 10 feet across and gracefully glide through the water and are practically everywhere in Komodo this time of year as it's on their migration path. There are some dive sites where you'd see 10-20 of them lazily circling around.... So, of course, the hotel was able to get permission to go back to the same place we dove the day before that morning, but this time, it was early enough to do 2 dives at slightly different sites in the same area - and, of course, they saw a few manta rays!!!!!

Anyway, we didn't hear about this until the boat got back in time for lunch, so in the meantime, we had breakfast:

Jasmine tea - finally! I hadn't had any since we were in Labuan Bajo as I like to stay as hydrated as possible when diving so I stay away from caffeine.

pineapple and I think this cake was chocolate flavored, but I'm not 100% sure....

The last of the pancakes

The last of the poached eggs

After breakfast, we decided to take a short hike to the top of the island - the hotel put in a "panoramic viewpoint" which is really a 1 square meter slab of concrete....

View from the panorama

After getting back and changing out of our now sweaty clothes, it was time for lunch: