Makassar and Toraja – Sulawesi

From Malang, we take our last Javanese train trip to Surabaya.

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Take the train to the plane

(Note: this entry is quite short – we are leaving soon for an island sojourn and will be offline tomorrow. So you’ll have to wait to hear about the Torajan cult of death and other items of interest.)

From Surabaya, we leave the island of Java and fly to the island of Sulawesi by Lion Air.

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Fort Rotterdam

We only spend one day in Makassar, and half of that sleeping. In town, we visit Fort Rotterdam. The next day, we take a 9-hour bus journey to Rantepao, the center of Toraja. We stay at Pia’s Poppies guest house.

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Where the roosters rise at 3:00 AM

We go to Pasar Bolu, the market where pigs and buffalo are purchased for Torajan funerals.

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Cattle call

The whiter cattle are more valuable, for some reason.

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White buffalo

There are also pigs for sale.

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Pork on the hoof
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Swine dreams

We travel around in these ridiculously small microbuses. At least they’re cheap.

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Slightly squished

We also visit the non-cattle market in Bolu.

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Tobacco vendors
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Dried fish vendors
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Coffee vendors

Sight or Insight of the Day – Sulawesi

Do you remember reading Victorian novels and wondering ‘what the heck is an antimacassar?’ Of course you do. Well, turns out it’s to protect furniture from a gentleman’s macassar oil-soaked head. Macassar oil was supposed to be sourced from Makassar. Huh. Who knew?

Out-of-office message

After a two-day drive to Ampana, we are heading to the Togian Islands for a couple of weeks. They’re reputed to be quite nice. But they may not have Internet service. So we may be offline for a while.

When we’re back online, we’ll describe our encounter with a six-metre-plus python last night. Stay tuned!