Republic of Indonesia
Hotel Mutiara Sari +62411336068
Clean double room with simple breakfast for IDR 130,000.- or US$ 14.50 per night.
Friendly staff, zero English.
Click below for an interactive road map of the low-budget hotel Mutiara Sari in Makassar, which we would recommend, and for directions:Exploring the rugged, dirty and sprawling city of Makassar aka Ujung Pandang aka “Pandanus Palm Cape” which owes almost nothing to tourism: (i) visiting Rotterdam Castle, one of the best preserved examples of 17th-century CE Dutch fortress architecture in Indonesia, with the Museum Negeri La Galigo (admission IDR 3,000.- per adult, fine displays of old ceramics, coins, paintings, musical instruments and ethnic costumes), and taking a nostalgic look at the museum's exhibition of black-and-white photos from 1915 CE when colonial Makassar appeared to be only sparsely populated, very well-maintained and without any litter (neither heaps of used plastic bags, nor piles of empty plastic water bottles, nor rash of dirty Styrofoam food containers), (ii) strolling along the rugged waterfront and looking with similar nostalgic feelings at the half-dozen cruising yachts at anchor off Losari Bay (amongst them Amanda & Simon's SY "Thyme"), and (iii) pigging out on Makassar’s famous grilled seafood aka ikan bakar at one of the several makeshift fish warung set up every night diagonally opposite Fort Rotterdam and where roaming buskers provide just bearable tableside entertainment.
"Macassar, the great emporium of the East, exporting sandalwood and beeswax from Flores and Timor, trepang from the Gulf of Carpentaria, oil of Cajuputi from Bouru, nutmegs, spices and pepper from the Spice Islands, mussoi bark from New Guinea..."
Catching a blue public minibus aka pete-pete from the mall Makassar Sentral to the new Kompleks Terminal Regional Daya (IDR 4,000.- or US$ -.45 per person) and thereafter taking the rugged non-a/c Pelangi bus (IDR 70,000.- or US$ 7.85 per person for the bumpy 320-km ride) to Rantepao, a prosperous market town on the rocky banks of Sungai Sadan, thus entering the famed “Land of the Heavenly Kings” Tana Toraja, literally Torajaland, a Christian cultural island, hemmed in by mountains on all sides, with (i) distinctive tongkonan houses (the roofs rise at both ends like the bow and stern of a boat and the house panels are exquisitely carved with geometric and animal motifs executed in the sacred colours of white, red, yellow and black), (ii) rather creepy liang (cave graves), (iii) bizarre hanging graves, (iv) true-to-life tau-tau (life-sized wooden puppet effigies) of the dead and (v) a horrible and cruel kerbau carnage (the killing of water buffaloes during the funeral ceremonies) every summer.
Click below for more blog posts about Southern Sulawesi
04 Oct - 05 Oct 2011 Makassar
24 Sep - 01 Oct 2010 Pantai Bira
23 Sep - 24 Sep 2010 Sengkang
08 Sep - 23 Sep 2010 Rantepao
Click below for a summary of this year's travels
2010 Map Konni & Matt
Visit the Konni & Matt Online Albums and order high-res travel photos
Konni & Matt Travel Photos
Visit the Konni & Matt Online Albums and order high-res travel photos
Konni & Matt Travel Photos
Recommended books - click below for your Amazon order from the United States:
