Travel on the Wild Side: Indonesia (2010)-Makassar and Tana Toraja

Makassar, Tana Toraja, and Rantepao

We flew from the island of Papua and landed in Makassar for the 2nd part of our trip. More trekking! We had one night in a Western hotel and boy was it AWESOME to have hot water to shower. mmmm

Makassar is the biggest city in this island and used to be colonized by the Dutch. We landed on a Friday night and our hotel was near the port area which was bustling!

This is the view from our hotel lobby in the morning. The port! The sun rises super early in Indo, around 5?, so this fair gets going at 6am and lasts till 10am. It was PACKED.

Rabbits being sold at the fair. $2 each.

The views from our car during our 8 hour trip to Rantepao. The distance isn't far but the roads are crappy and curvy so it takes forever.

Our hotel! These rooms are modeled after the traditional houses, Tongkonan, of the Toraja people. One theory is that as their descendants were sea faring people, they built the ship of these houses similarly to how boats are shaped.

Standing on the door of our room! You walk under the house and up stairs and push the door UP, there is a latch to keep it open.

Kai is in the bathroom and closet section. There is one main room that is on the one main lower leve, and the two end wings where the ends of the house go up are the bedroom on one end and the bathroom on the other.

We are now in the territory of Tana Toraja. This is an entryway into to a burial site of the Toraja people called Londa.

This guy was getting one of his weekly scrubs. Bulls are sacred to the Toraja people in the sense of needing live ones to sacrifice during funeral ceremonies. The deceased needs the spirit of the bull to carry him to heaven. The bigger the horns and the whiter, the more expensive. A pure albino adult can cost $40,000!

Here are the effigy's of people that have died and have their bones inside this cave. They are called Tau Tau and carved of wood and only the deceased from the upper class get them. They are guarding the entrance to the cave where many of the dead are placed.

A hanging coffin is in the top of this picture. This tradition of hanging or hiding coffins in caves started because grave robbers would come steal the things in the coffins that the deceased would get as gifts for their time in the afterlife.

Inside the cave.

Each square represents a coffin that has been put inside the stone.

Rice terraces.

A Torajan Funeral!

Our guide took us to this funeral. These funerals are a big deal as it is a big send off of the deceased to the afterlife. If you don't do a proper farewell, the ghost of the decease will bring bad luck! This one took months to prepare and they even had to erect these temporary tongkonans. The person who died was high class so they had an elaborate ceremony that lasted a few days. (We came on the second day.)

The people entering are related family members so they form a special procession and sit in a special area. The people in red are the actual family and they greet these relatives.

This is the special seating area for the relatives. Guys and girls are separate and there are so many relatives that these people only sit here for 15 minutes before they get up for another group of relatives.

Yup, those are buffalo skulls laying on the ground. They were killed earlier for their spirit to go with the deceased.

Special entertainment for the event.

This is the pig killing area. Guests bring pigs and buffalo (pigs more for food, buffalo for the spiritual sacrifice) and they just take them behind all the structures and kill them. First time we saw this, they actually do it very efficiently since the pig are totally bound and it's relatively un-messy as they place what looks like a bamboo mat over the pigs heart before they stab it so the blood doesn't go everywhere.

This is an area for the non-VIP guests. There were 100's of people there, and probably 50 tourists. There are no formal invitations. Many people from the surrounding villages come to pay their respects and for the tourists we just try to stand out of the way and bring a gift (in our case a carton of cigarrettes) to the family. The guide assured us that they don't mind!

The letters on the pig are put there by an organizer who keeps track of which guests brought which pigs.

This the ladder that the cave diggers use to climb up to the hole where they are creating a space for a coffin. Made of bamboo. The mini tongkoan below is used for carrying the coffin to the site. After the funeral procession, they leave it there since there is no use for it anymore.

A rich dead person's coffin! This is made all of stone. And there is a dog on the outside since he was a huge lover (and loved by) animals.

We are at Batumonga village, staying at Mentirotiku. This is the view from our room. Awesome!

These guys are getting their cocks ready for a fight later. They put little weights on their legs so they get nimble and during the fight they put razors on the feet which is how they kill each other. Cock fights are illegal but they can happen as part of ceremonies. Lots of betting goes on.

The view at the start of our trek!

More trekking photos. We hiked along the rice terraces for a few hours which was pretty but totally slippery and narrow. At times it felt like walking at a balance beam. If you slip into the mud water it feels like a hot tub!

Still trekking! It started POURING. We had 2 hours of walking in the rain.

Pictures we took while hiding out from the lightining.

Yay! It's the village we are staying at!

Kai celebrating with some beer. We are in Limbong.

This is where we are spending the night. This is the lady's living room. It was dark (they have a generator in the kitchen but no electricity otherwise) but the flash worked well!

Our bedroom. This is the front part of the boat shaped house and is elevated.

Kai giving out candy to the village kids.

View of the village rice terraces.

The outside of the house we stayed at. The woman in blue is the owner. All the buffalo horns are in front of every house and represent richness and prestige.We paid $7 a person for dinner and to stay the night.

After saying bye to the village, we went off to hike to the river to raft.

Funny-the boat wasn't very inflated so very bendy. Lots of waterfalls along the way cuz of the rain the night before.

We docked here and these guys were nice enough to show us how to farm rice. They were collecting the baby rice to move into a bigger pond where they would mature.

FOOD

Seafood restaurnt in Makassar. Fish on the grill

yup, we got TWO fish. YUMMY

Street fair Food-Makassar

steamed meatballs with sauce (not very meaty though)

fried balls with egg

prepared food-all the places like to pile it up prettily

fresh coconut juice on the side of the hwy

Funeral ceremony pigs

Pumpkin soup

Buffalo meat steak (super chewy)

Palm Wine- $5 for this ENTIRE jug! (yes, that is normally used for gasoline.) This was freshly procured (I guess it is stronger if you let it ferment) and we added some beers for carbonation. Drinking with our guide!