Experience comparable au woofing au Japon (donc très positive) dans le sens où nous avons pu rencontrer les locaux, vivre comme eux, et sortir des sentiers touristiques. Nous avons visité le village, dit bonjour à tout pleins d’enfants adorables, croisé les animaux du village : poules, coqs, chats et surtout les rats la nuit… Nous y sommes restés 3 nuits et avons pu visiter le parc (terrestre et aquatique) avec un petit bateau privé rien que pour nous deux et bien moins couteux qu’un bateau privé depuis Labuan et avec d’autres touristes. Nous avons aussi mangé du poisson fraîchement pêché chaque jour et bine cuisiné.
Le village est très pauvre, il y a beaucoup de déchets plastiques accumulés sur le bord de plage et dans la rivière desséchée (nous sommes à la fin de la période sèche, les pluies arrivent). Il y a la 4G et donc la TV mais tout le village ne capte pas. Il y a une école primaire et un collège. Un hôpital est aussi en cours de rénovation. Un bateau fait la navette être le village et Labuan (la principale ville alentour) 3 fois par semaine. On a aussi découvert qu’un bateau banque venait régulièrement pour permettre aux habitants de déposer ou retirer de l’argent. Le bateau, une sorte de grand yacht, reste au large aussi il faut y aller en bateau. Le village est 100% Islamiste. Toutes les femmes sont voilées et nous avons le chant du Muezzin (enregistré) à 4h du mat entre autre.
Voici ci dessous le commentaire que nous avons laissé sur Booking pour permettre aux futurs aventuriers de tenter l’expérience. Ce commentaire a malheureusement été tronqué car trop lonh long mais le plus important, à savoir comment trouver le bateau, est passé.

We are a French couple and tried this genuine experience for 3 nights on beg December 2023. We are very happy and recommend it, but we believe it must be clear what to and not to expect. We hope the details below will help other travelers.

First challenge is to contact Jahiding, the lovely host who is also a komodo ranger. You will get his WhatsApp once you book the stay.
Once on the Island, Jahiding will take care of you from A to Z, he stayed with us as the guide during the tours we planed with him and the captain. It’s a private small boat (meaning not big) and you can choose where to go and how long you stay at each spot.
We believe It was a privilege compared to other tours with dozens of people and timed visits.

-Transportation
The main challenge is to get to komodo Island with the « phantom » public boat that nobody knows about. It does exist and is actually located in a separate Harbour. Here is the GPS location : -8.484518,119.876788
The name is « TPI Kampung Ujung port ». There is a smelly fish market to go through, not hard to miss. Price is 100k IDR if captain does not try to charge the tourist fee.
You have to ask people around the boat if it is the correct one as there is no ticket to buy in advance nor any special desk. Just hope on the boat once you are sure it is the right one and pay when you arrive. The boat is mid size and around 20-30 people make the trip. It is not a ferry, it is much smaller, around 20 meters long and 4 meters wide and only one deck with shade.
Transport takes 4h and is noisy (depends on the boat you have), travelers are komodo residents which are all very kind. Be prepared for basic confort, no seat no bench, just boat wood. No toilet break neither.
The boat schedule as Jahiding told us is as such, and you will have to plan your stay based on this.
From Labuan to Komodo
Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Between 9am and 11am.

From Komodo to Labuan
Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday
between 9am and 10am.

Once at the village you will have the private boat with fair price, but it is not as cheap as using grab. Note that you can visit the areas around Komodo Island. It’s not possible to visit areas around Labuan Bajo which are 4h away.

-Accomodation
It is a homestay in a fishermen village, hence we were expecting very basic equipment and were happily surprised to have a bit better than our low expectations.
It is actually a full meal service. Breakfast, lunch and diner are prepared by Jahiding’s wife. It revolves around fresh fishes, not much fruits as it was the dry season, and we often had too much quantity. It was very good and we felt that the family was puting a lot of efforts in it.
Shower and western toilets were basic but working very well and we expected worse.
The room is small, it is a confortable big materess on the ground and little room left for luggages and clothes. There is no Air Conditionner but a fan which does the job at night. Security is absent, but everybody’s house stays open here. There is no robbery and we did not feel worried at all about villagers stealing our stuffs.
The bad point to be aware of is rats. It is a poor city and rats rule it by night. You will hear them. One lesson to learn : if you come with food like bananas, do not store it upstairs and trust it to Jahiding otherwise rats will come for it. There were also a few moskitoes and no net, but this is not worse that on mainland. On the last night I had to use some moskitoes spray and it worked nice.

-Tourism
For us just being able to live in a remote village with no tourists and meet local komodo people (1800 inhabitants) was already the best. And of course Jahiding helped us organize tours to go to marvelous spots around komodo.
Jahiding walked us around the city on the first day and we could say hello to kids and villagers.
Note that if you like soccer, they play it at the end of the day and you may get a chance to play with them (I do not play but was offered a chance to do so) and meet them.
There is not much to do in the village, hence on the 2 full days we stayed there we organized tours with the private boat with Jahiding as guide and the captain and went to the key spots to visit : Padar island, pink beach, turtle point (the best for snorkling in marvelous corals with no current and seing several turtles and nice fishes) and Manta point (but we were no lucky and did not see any Manta rays) where snorkling is also great.
The next day we went early to Komodo National Parc with Jahiding as the ranger and met several dragons. The afternoon we did snorkling again at spots around the village (with no tourists and optimized budget for the boat) but visibility was not so good.

-Value for the money
As for the value for the money, we paid less (significantly but more than half the price if organized at Labuan Bajo) in total than speedboats or 2days/1night cruises and had a private boat and all the time we wanted.
Note that there is no ATM. Prepare cash, and if you have already installed « Wise » it works very well also for bank transfers to Indonesia (western bank transfers to Indonesia with your bank is often complex or not possible to do).
Nb: you must pay a national taxe for each day you visit komodo park and waters, 150k IDR/pers.