Basically, you don’t.

My wife and I have spent some time on Komodo Island. Her idea. She, for unexplainable reasons, likes Komodo Dragons and wanted to see them up close and film them…something about her father buying her a book she wanted about reptiles when she was a child.

Being bitten by a Komodo Dragon is a truly horrible way to die. Death is caused by a combination of very unpleasant factors. The saliva of the Komodo Dragon contains both venom and anti-clotting agents and so many pathogenic bacteria that the victim’s body becomes overwhelmed dying from a combination of shock and blood loss and infection.

Death occurs within 30 minutes to a few hours. Without immediate medical attention you will die. And the nearest hospital is in Labuan Bajo on the western tip of Flores Island which is 3 to 4 hours away requiring both boat and land transport

The Komodo Dragon will bite you, then, while you are dying, drag you off and bury you to eat your rotting corpse later. Komodo Dragons are not what one might call foodies.

The northern and western region of Komodo Island, the area where the Komodo Dragons are found, is a restricted area. Other than tours led by trained guides, that section of the island is uninhabited. Descendants of former convicts (or rather those convicts who were not eaten by hungry dragons) do live on other parts of the island.

Other than the dragons there is nothing of any interest on the island. The only way onto or off of the island is by boat. There are stories of people who have attempted to illegally stay on the restricted part of the island and were eaten.