Ora is the local name for the Komodo dragon, Varanus komodoensis, and seems almost to have been designed to be barked as an alarm call. “A big ora killed a goat here yesterday,” an old man tells me as we walk along the rickety timber jetty into Komodo village. On Komodo, however, people don’t venture into the hills unless strictly necessary. Locals on neighbouring Flores island tap these palms to make a sort of arak with the unlikely name of sophie. They are stubbled with prehistoric-looking lontar palms. Then the sun-burned, savannah hills of Komodo island rise on the horizon, appearing more African than lush Indonesian. Sailing east from Bali across the famous Wallace Line, you pass the jungle-clad peaks of Sumbawa and the soaring cone of Sangeang volcano before entering a tangle of islands that seems to be cut off from the world by the treacherous currents notorious among sailors.ĭespite being world famous for its dragons, the Komodo archipelago boasts dozens of outlying paradise islets that rarely see a human's footprint © Mark Eveleigh It’s as if the islands are trying to live up to the legend of their dragons. Dragon islands - how people live alongside the world's largest venomous reptileĮven on a bright, sunny day there’s something ominous about the Komodo archipelago.

Did people find dragons in north amarca