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Published: March 4th 2016
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Sulawesi is one of the four
Greater Sunda Islands, and the
world's eleventh largest island, it is situated between
Borneo and the
Maluku Islandsand has a population of roughly 20 million people.
I had not intended discussing the flights to Makassar but the Melbourne Bali leg was a shocker, not because it was uncomfortable or the food or service were bad, but because our co-travelers were the dregs of bogan society. After five hours of screaming ferals and five more drinking Bintang in the sultry Bali heat our final short flight to Makassar was stress free if incredibly full.
We arrived on a dark rainy evening and I was feeling exhausted and after the argument with the hotel staff about the lack of twin rooms I was grateful to go to bed. Padraic woke up and had a shower at 1am thinking it was 7am but then he slept almost all the way over.
We went for a quick walk along the waterfront after breakfast before returning to the hotel to meet our driver. We decided to go visit Fort Rotterdam one of the few remaining Dutch buildings in Makassar, the fort was built in 1667 and is still in reasonably good shape.
The drive from Makassar to Rantapoa began well and was comfortable until we left the coastal town of Parepare where we had a great lunch. From there onward the road snaked through the mountains for more than four hours, the driver was incredibly agressive and I who rarely gets travel sickness was feeling poorly to say the least by the time we arrive. As we left the hot low lands things got progressively cooler and less Muslim with dogs and churches appearing suddenly and the mosque becoming rarer.
Had a late dinner in a decent cafe before heading back to the guest house and bed I am totally exhausted.
I had a reasonably good nights sleep wakjng around 630am I went for a walk around town the weather is reasonably cool at that hour, I took a few photos before returning to the guesthouse for eggs on toast.
About 930am we went to the village of Lemo where they had some nice traditional Tongkoran houses and some nice cliff graves complete will life size carved Tau-Tau. We then travelled about ten kilometres to a small pretty village where a traditional funeral service was being held, this was
Dutch Church
Fort Rotterdam the main reason to come here but I had forgotten how bloody it would be. There were several hundred people there which was tiny by Tana Toraja standards but they still slaughtered two extremely expensive buffullo and numerous pigs. I can still hear the pigs screaming as I made my way out of the village.
We stopped at the whitey restaurant that was for foreigners and paid three times what a local would pay but still Indonesian are not vegetarian and they usually cook stuff in large amounts that is all the same. Next stop was Londa these were older cave graves although some of the dead were recent, the cave held some rather small coffins and a couple of skulls that had a Romeo and Juliet story attached.
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