Chartering a skippered boat with outboard motor from Sengkang's town jetty, negotiating a deal with boatman Ahmed (IDR 75,000.- or US$ 8.40 for two hours) and speeding thereafter along Sungai Walanae, greeting the water-villagers in their rickety stilt houses and visiting the floating village of Salotangah in the middle of Danau Tempe, a large and very shallow lake fringed by wetlands with magnificent birdlife (spotting: pairs of common moorhens [Gallinula chloropus], white-winged Javan pond-herons [Ardeola speciosa] and long-necked great egrets [Egretta alba]).
Taking a public minibus aka mikrolet from Sengkang to Watampone (c. 80 km, 3 hours, IDR 25,000.- or US$ 2.80 per person), thereafter another mikrolet from Watampone to Bulu Kumba (c. 140 km, 5 1/2 hours, IDR 45,000.- or US$ 5.05 per person) and, finally, the third mikrolet of the day, from Bulu Kumba to Pantai Bira(c. 50 km, 2 hours, IDR 10,000.- or US$ 1.10 per person), the number one beach destination in Southern Sulawesi(admission for foreign tourists: IDR 5,000.- per person).
Spacious and clean double room, with filling breakfast for two and great mountain views, for IDR 120,000.- or US$ 13.50 per night. Awesome and most helpful staff.
Click below for an interactive road map of the Hotel Wisma Monton in Rantepao, which we would highly recommend, and for directions:
Exploring the secrets of Rantepao’s busy and muddy 6th-day main market aka Pasar Bolu (admission: IDR 10,000.- or US$ 1.10 per innocent abroad, free for locals), a very big social occasion that draws crowds from all over Tana Toraja and which consists of two main sections: (i) a lively livestock market, where the leading lights from the buffalo community are on parade (up to IDR 200,000,000.- or c. US$ 20,000.- for highly-prized albino exemplars), with a few squeaking pigs thrown in for good measure, and (ii) a whole section devoted to the tax-free sale of cloudy toddy (the alcoholic balok aka tuak - local palm wine which comes in a variety of strengths [c. 3 - 8 % alc./vol.], colours [the darker the stronger] and interesting flavours [from soured milk to dirty underwear]) for IDR 8,000.- or c. US$ 0.90 per litre, cheers!
Hiking through Tana Toraja’s stunning scenery of cascading rice fields, precipitous cliffs and soaring tongkonan houses thus visiting unique and awesome places: (i) the quaint village Ke’te Kesu, renowned for its wood carving and stocked with several traditional, distinguishing boat-shaped tongkonan houses, hidden cave tombs and old-as-dirt "hanging graves" (rotting coffins suspended on wooden beams under a rock overhang), (ii) the mountainous countryside between Batutumonga, Pana and Tikala with spectacular panoramas, lush coffee/cocoa/clove plantations and ancient burial sites hewn into rocky outcrops, (iii) the village Lemo with its sheer rock face which has a whole series of balconies for the tau-tau, the life-sized wooden effigies of the deceased, (iv) the pastoral countryside east of Makale, between Tampangallo and Suaya, with ancient baby graves in an old tree, dozens of tau-tau in a cliff overlooking the beautiful green valleys of the Toraja homeland and a large cave burial site which contains a collection of carved coffins, many of them rotted away, with bones scattered and heaped in piles, as well as ca. 30 expressive tau-tauin various galleries, and (v) Londa, an extensive and still active burial cave at the base of a massive cliff face with umpteen effigies of noblemen and high-ranking community leaders that stare out from their suspended balcony like guards.
Experiencing life after death in the mountain village Deri (shared minibus aka bemo from Rantepao’s Terminal Bolu to Deri: c. 20 km of scenic mountain road, 1 hour, IDR 7,000.- or c. US$ -.80 per person) by joining one of Tana Toraja’s elaborate and colourful tomate ceremonies (animist/Christian multi-day funerals with hundreds of guests); during this big and expensive social event, which includes (i) the parading of the oval coffin, (ii) plenty of ritual dancing and chanting, (iii) many very exciting buffalo fights, (iv) generous donations of fresh meat, fresh palm wine and fresh money, as well as (v) the display of nubile debutants to eligible bachelors and their families, as many as nine big buffaloes and innumerable pigs are sacrificed/slaughtered to ferry the souls of the two deceased, Maria Bu’tu and Samuel Sattu, to the afterlife before they are finally buried in the family’s east-oriented rock grave near the village.
“I have from an early age abjured the use of meat,
and the time will come
when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals
Taking a public minibus aka bemo from Rantepao’s Terminal Bolu to Palopo(c. 70 winding km, 2 1/4 hours, IDR 30,000.- or US$ 3.40 per person), an Islamic port on the east cost of the southern peninsula of Sulawesi, and thereafter another bemo from Palopo to the small riverside town of Sengkang (c. 190 km, 6 3/4 hours, IDR 40,000.- or US$ 4.50 per person), the gate to Danau Tempe.
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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 an interactive road map of the Hotel Al Salam II in Sengkang, which we would not recommend, and for directions:
