Blogs from Sulawesi, Indonesia, Asia - page 7

So here is another of the two hundred reasons why we keep returning to Asia. I have elaborated many other reasons that I will soon be posting on my next travel blog. But here is a little story I would like to share. In February, when we were in the airport in Manado, Sulawesi, Indonesia, looking for a cup of Espresso, we came across a coffee shop that had a guitar, but alas, no espresso machine. One of the staff escorted me to another shop where we bought our espresso. (Where does that happen?) I promised to return to their shop later and sing a song with them. When I did, the entire staff was waiting, stood up and cheered, and then brought out the guitar and we shared songs. Today, two months later, once again ... read more

As I reported in my last post, getting to this remote destination on the planet was not easy, and I suppose if it were, the atmosphere might not be the same. We enjoyed the quiet, the calmness, and the island mentality still predominant even though there are a few dive resorts on the island. Really there is nothing else to do here. People come here to dive. Period. But what a stunning experience it is to dive the Bunaken Marine Park - and we barely scratched the surface, as there are about fifty dive sights spread around three islands, and we only dived nine of them. We have dived several locations in Indonesia, including the outstanding Komodo Marine Park near Flores where we swam last year with the oceanic giant manta rays, but never before have ... read more

Our mission was to get from Ko Tao, a small island in southern Thailand, to Bunaken Island, a tiny remote island off the Northeast coast of Sulawesi, in Northern Indonesia. We had already invested one day of travel getting from the island of Ko Tao to Chumphon, on the mainland, and knew that the last leg of travel would involve a short boat transfer from Sulawesi to Bunaken island. We weighed out the pros and cons of getting the largest segment of the journey - which involved connecting with an international flight and going through both exit and entry customs - completed with one gruelling day of travel, and decided to do the full meal deal and get it all done in one long day. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and we ... read more

LEMBEH This was a funny trip. My flight to Indonesia from Santiago, Chile was routed through Seattle. I had a fourteen hour layover, not time enough to drive all the way home, then back to the airport. I asked my daughter, Lauren to come visit with me and to bring me a pair of pedal pushers; I lost my brand new ones in Costa Rica on our river run. I could catch up with what was happening at home, and since I would only be diving on this part of my trip I could send some stuff home and travel lighter. Lauren and Mike met me in the airport but when I went to the luggage carousel my luggage wasn’t there. I checked with the airline and it was locked up in a room waiting to ... read more

Getting to and from the Togean Islands in Indonesia requires a serious amount of effort and a serious amount of time. The reward at the end of the journey are stunning and isolated tropical islands surrounded by massive coral reefs amid crystal clear turquoise waters and golden sun kissed beaches. This place is awesome. From Toraja I took a 16 hour bus ride from hell complete with farm animals on my lap and all manner of crops under my feet to the lakeside town of Tentena for a day of recovery amid some nice scenery and some fresh water swimming. From Tentena it was another 8 hours to the port town of Ampana in North Sulawesi. From here it was a three hour ferry ride to The Togeans. I had arrived at Poya Lisa Island and ... read more