Indonesia, second stop: Raja Ampat, Papua

 I had never thought that I would one day travel to such an exotic place as Papua, but there we were, in Raja Ampat, after a long and strenuous journey by air, sea and land!

We spent one week at Raja Ampat dive resort ...

The sunsets from the resort were sensational...

We had the chance to make a couple of excursions, the first one to Piaynemo, which was wonderful ...

We also went to the jungle to the Blue River ...

... and we even saw the elusive birds of paradise ...

But of course the real highlights were underwater ...

What can I say? It was just wonderful and now we are planning to go back in 2026, this time to visit another dream place of mine -- Borneo!

Indonesia, here we come - first stop: Komodo National Park

 It took us long enough, but we finally managed to travel to a couple of the thousand islands of Indonesia!

After an uneventful stop in Jakarta, we made our way to Labuan Bajo, where we spent a couple of nights waiting for our boat trip to Komodo ... but we could not stay idle, of course, so we rented a car (and driver!) and had a one-day trip around the area...

Then it was time to embark on the Ayla and sail to the Komodo National Park! By the way, we rented the whole boat, so we were really treated like royalty ...

We saw the dragons (lots of them) on two different locations in the park, we were always pretty lucky as there was no one else there both times ...

 The underwater world was fantastic and the water warm and crystal clear ...

But we also enjoyed the sunsets and very quiet nights on the boat ...

It was hard to say goodbye (also to the crew - they were just amazing!) but we had to make our way to Papua and the second leg of our journey ...