Labuan Bajo was a sleepy fishing village not so long ago, and it is still trying to catch up with its own fame. It sits at the western tip of Flores, in eastern Indonesia, facing a scatter of dry brown islands that rise from a bright blue sea, and it is the gateway to Komodo National Park, a UNESCO site since 1991, home of the Komodo dragon. The largest living lizard on earth, which can grow to about three metres, survives in the wild only on a few islands here, and boat trips from the harbour take visitors to see them on Komodo and Rinca.
The town is bright with the paint of new hotels and dive shops, and the harbour is crowded with wooden boats waiting for the morning tourists. The waters around are famously rich, with manta rays, reef sharks and fast currents that bring a huge amount of marine life past the islands, and divers come from around the world. In the evening the waterfront is the place to be, as the sun sinks behind the islands in streaks of orange and the smell of grilled fish drifts from the night stalls.
For riders, this is the western end of the Trans-Flores Highway, a road that crosses the island for roughly seven hundred kilometres toward Maumere. It begins gently, with a climb out of town into dry hills and then green valleys, but the sections ahead are long and winding. The surface is mostly paved, though potholes, landslides and loose stones appear without warning, and the corners are tight, with buses and trucks taking up more than their share. Take daylight hours seriously, since night riding with animals and unlit vehicles is hazardous. Heat and humidity are constant, with a dry season from about May to October that makes the road easiest.
Fuel is available in town, and you should fill the tank and carry water before heading east, as villages on the way have small stations that may run dry. Guesthouses and restaurants are plentiful, with fresh seafood as the best choice, and a morning coffee from Flores beans is highly recommended. Remember that Indonesian traffic drives on the left, and that people are generally kind to foreign riders, so a smile and a wave solve many problems.