Blogs from Sulawesi, Indonesia, Asia - page 11

Monday, 23rd September 2013 The night before, we were still debating whether to hire a car and visit the hill station of Malino. Researching from the internet certainly did not reveal too much information. We were told that there was a waterfall, some tea plantations and probably some cooling weather. Sometime back, we did the tea and strawberry plantations in Bandung and decided it just wasn't too worthwhile to make the 72km winding journey to see the same thing in Malino. Spending half of our time journeying to and from our destination certainly wasn't our cup of tea, at least in Makassar. Finally, our Malino idea was scrapped. Following an idyllic breakfast, we decided to spend some time at the hotel pool as the weather simply grew too hot for us to venture outdoors. After lunch ... read more

Saturday, 21st September 2013 Silkair flight MI142 flew us straight into the city of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. There was plenty to cheer about during the three-hour flight - great service from the friendly stewardess and delicious breakfast choices. It helped to set our holiday mood right from the beginning. Arrival at the modern Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport at 11am this morning, there was not much of a crowd at the customs. Very soon, we hopped on to the taxi for our 21km journey to the hotel. The city of Makassar that greeted us was relatively traffic free on a Saturday morning. The streetscapes were kept reasonably clean. Touting and begging were almost non-existent. The traffic grew heavier as we approached the downtown area. Along the way, the driver was quick to point ... read more

No sooner we came out of the plane in Manado (North Sulawesi) then a worker of the tourist office showed up and asked if we needed an hotel. We did. After all problems we had faced in Papua she was very welcome. A quick taxi brought us to our hotel, the Celebes Hotel, which turned out to be one of the nicest hotels during our trip. Manado and Tangkoko The famous naturalist Alfred Wallace wrote already how much he liked Manado. That was about 150 years ago. A lot has changed since then, but Manado has still that special atmosphere, which makes you feel at home. Nowhere on our trips we have met such a friendly people. There are pleasant restaurants along the sea. There is a big shoppingmall with all kinds of fruits and Indonesian ... read more

Hi everybody, a few weeks has past since my last entry. Sorry about that but the internet conection hasn't been that good as I hoped. But here we go with the latest storries. Kuala Lumpur A city under construction - the headder I've kept in my mind since I saw this city fist. You can not locate a city center right now, betweeen the new well polished skycrapers you can find the old dirty "slums". Not really slums, but not that much better. Beside the Petronas towers it has also nothing special to offer. Riding the metro could be really anoying! Three different lines, opperated by three different companys so you have to buy a new ticket every time you have change headding. But at least they can improve :) I would like to come back ... read more

We have now finished 11 nights staying in Bunaken. Travelling has been a bit of a nightmare because we found out really late that all the locals go travelling 1 week before and 1 week after the end of ramadan which causes everything to be booked out and prices to increase to silly amounts. We decided to just sit it out in Bunaken marine national park which has world renowned diving. We managed to get a room with Matt and Linda which decreased the price a lot cause we had a double bed matress on the floor. We were there 11 nights and had parties on 4 of those nights. Matt and Linda did their Open Water PADI while Connie and I did 6 dives (one of which was a night dive). The diving in Bunaken ... read more