How to get to Komodo? If you’re going to go to Komodo you need to be prepare yourself for flying domestic in Indonesia, which, based on our trip to Komodo National Park, was a bit of a pain in the ass. No biggie and you just have to deal with things like this when you’re going to far away places that aren’t easy to get to. I guess it’s the price you have to pay for having less people and being in such a natural, relatively untouched environment.
From Hong Kong, we got a midday flight to Denpasar. No issues there, it’s a Cathay Flight that left and arrived pretty much on time. Got this using Asia Miles so no complaints there. No comes the more challenging part of how to get to Komodo. Booked flights on Nusatrip.com on Nam Air, which is supposed to be the “best” ( whatever that means). First up, finding the Nam Air counter is your first challenge.
We went to the Denpasar Domestic Airport information counter to ask but nobody home. Walked around a bit and absolutely not a single Nam Air sign. Eventually found it, it’s actually at one of the Garuda Counters. What a fucking nightmare checking in here at Nam Air. Basically one person on, then when they finally opened more counters, everybody from the back of the queue just piled over. The line wasn’t actually that long but all the washed out hippie 50-60yr something Australian surfers took ages to check in their surfboards.
Basically we took an hour to check-in and we had less than 10 people in front of us. Staff are nice enough but this was the first sign that we shouldn’t have flown Nam Air. What didn’t help was the fact you couldn’t take selfie sticks on board and in this day and age of fuckwits taking selfies everywhere they go (including ourselves!) that’s the most diabolical rule I’ve ever heard. I mean we had electric toothbrushes with sharper points that cause way more damage if that’s what someone wanted to do. Makes no sense but again, you just have to deal with non-sensical rules when flying domestic in many SE Asian countries.
Flight itself was fine, it’s only an hour (so the check in took us more than the actual flight). They serve you some shit pastry thing and a tiny bottle of water. Didn’t expect anything at all so big deal there. You can go an hour without food. Flight took off on time actually and arrived no problems. So the Nam Air actual flight was fine.
On the Lubuan Bajo end, checking in took a minute because we arrived too early, almost 2 hours before the flight. The flight was originally 12:10p.m. We got an email saying it’d been changed to 11:10a.m a few days before. When we got to the airport, the new times was 11:35, they don’t tell you that, it just comes up on the flight information screen. Then at about 11:00, they announce it’s been delayed until 13:30.
Basically we could have stayed at the hotel all morning and had a snorkel and relax. Understand flights can be delayed and I read and was told that flights into and out of Lubuan Bajo are notorious for being delayed, cancelled and rescheduled, with very little notice. I guess that’s why not many take the effort to go down to Komodo. How to get to Komodo is not the challenge, it’s easy, but you just have to expect and anticipate that at least one of your flights will be delayed, or bought forward, with the possibility that you won’t be told.
If I was asked how to get to Komodo National Park, I wouldn’t take Nam Air again, The flights before use on different airlines all left within 30 minutes of their scheduled departure time at both ends. Probably just chance and on any given day any flight might have been cancelled or delayed from any airline. Still, with the check-in debacle at Denpasar and the change in time to earlier, to later, to 2 hours later, can’t really recommend Nam Air if you’re trying to find the best way how to get to Komodo.
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