Animals in Indonesia

Animals in Indonesia divide, from a visitor's point of view, by whether they chose to be there. In the water they mostly did. Off Lovina on the north coast of Bali, outrigger boats leave at six to find spinner dolphins, and the honest caveat is that on a good morning forty boats are doing it around one wild pod. The reef at Nusa Penida is the steadier bet: reef mantas hold at cleaning stations off the south coast all year, and from July to October the cold upwelling at Crystal Bay brings up the mola mola, a sunfish the size of a door. On land the animals are managed. Bali has no wild elephants of its own, and the ones at the parks around Taro are Sumatran.

That distinction is the useful one when you choose. Boat trips are early, short and at the mercy of the weather: two hours for the dolphins, a full day for the Nusa Penida crossing with two or three stops around the manta site. Parks are the opposite: a fixed address, an opening time, a tram or a walking loop, feeding on a timetable and often a night circuit. Between the two sit the beach horse rides, the only animal contact here sold by the hour. Riding an elephant is on the list, and it is the one item that divides people; the same parks also sell walking and bathing alongside the animals, so read which of the two you are buying.

Practical. the dragons on Komodo and Rinca and the orangutans of Borneo and north Sumatra, the two creatures the country is known for, are each a separate expedition rather than a day out from Bali. Closer to hand, sea days are reliable from April to October; in the wet months the crossing to the Nusa islands is rough and often cancelled. Mantas ignore the season but swell does not, and no boat enters the site in a big one. Nothing wild is guaranteed and nobody refunds a quiet morning. That is the bargain you accept. Take seasickness tablets for the outriggers, and leave sunscreen off before a snorkel, because it kills coral.