Sulawesi

In the time we have been traveling (7 months now!), we each have found little places here and there which we simply can't be bothered to tear ourselves away from. Unfortunately, they have never been the same places; I love the isolated beaches, and Tatyana has a thing for comfy little towns... But for the first time, we both found such simple contentment in one little spot, it was really quite difficult to leave. And now, I can't seem to get it out of my head...

Our introduction to Sulawesi, as you know from the previous entry, was not a pleasant one. The loss of our camera, itself, was no big deal... the loss of the pictures was a devastation for Tatyana, who loves her pictures. Once we got past it (with the help of quite a few "anger beers"), we were able to get on with enjoying what is one of the coolest places we've been to yet. Sulawesi, if one looks it up, resembles a giant octopus in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago. No place on the island is more than 100 kilometers from the ocean. It is beautiful, and diverse, and full of some of the nicest people one will ever come across. Some of the nicest people WE have ever come across. The coastal areas are a sleepy procession of lagoon after lagoon after beach after village after lagoon after lagoon... rice paddies, palm fields, sleepy pastures, all stretching into the interior and its majestic mountain peaks. Shades of every green I've ever seen, and then some. Lush, green and lush, and beautiful. As we drove along the beach from the small fishing village of Mamuju to the larger coastal town of Parepare, it seemed we never at any point left the beach or its many many lagoons.

We spent a few days in Parepare, looking for a suitable replacement for our camera. Having not much luck, we decided we'd have a better chance in the more tourist-friendly town of Rantepao, in the Tanah Torajah region of central Sulawesi.

Rantepao is a throw-back of sorts, where old old customs are held on to firmly and shared openly with those who have an interest in experiencing them. Here, the Tongkonen style of home building still survives, with the most interesting and uniquely strange architecture I've come across -the roofs like the high-brow boats their ancestors are believed to sailed to Sulawesi during their exodus centuries past from Indochina. Customs play a prominent role in daily life, with the summer months being the main season for elaborate funerals, where no great expense is spared in honoring the year's departed. In a typical ceremony, no less than 24 buffaloes are slaughtered, publicly, along with an equally robust slaughter of pig-stock, and consumed with an equally robust share of palm wine and cigarettes (If you have ever wondered where the tobacco companies are making their money these days, Indonesian men smoke more than anyone I've ever seen). Burial customs are very important; we visited cavernous burial chambers within great limestone caves, where bones and skulls poured forth from the walls and shelves and ceremonial boxes, as well as hanging baby graves (infants are buried vertically in the trunks of large trees, so that they may continue to grow with tree -something to see!!!).

The people here are very sweet. Any foreigner who has visited Sulawesi will tell you the phrase of choice here is "Hellooooo mister!", and everyone, young and old, is very eager to hail visitors with a hearty greeting. Children are brought forth to practice their "Inggris", their mothers whispering phrases in their ear to repeat. They are not at all shy, and so terribly charming. They squeal with excitement when they learn that Tatyana is my wife, and one evening recently I led a large pack of tip-toers through a little cafe to peek at Tatyana around the corner, but we were being just too silly and our giggles tipped her off to our presence... we all screamed and ran away. I got lots and lots of high-fives and "da-da (bye-bye) misters" that night... it was nice.

Nature always saves the best places for herself, and I've come to understand that the world's last gems are kept close and away from the wandering foot of the casual traveler. Let alone the long flight that one must endure to get to Asia from the U.S., and forget for a moment the planes, ferries, buses and shared cars we endured to get to Sulawesi and its interior. The next destination for us required the mother of transits, made no easier by the fact that Tatyana and I both were stricken with an evil (nay, satanic) bout of Giardia. Now that I am familiar with its symptoms, I know that I have had Giardia no less than four times on this trip, and always at the most inconvenient times. When left untreated, Giardia takes its dear, sweet time in exiting the system (usually about 2 weeks) and the host (and I am such a good host) must endure vicious diarrhoea (which I will not describe) and rancid rotten-egg burps. So, there we were, in the breach of a sixteen hour bus journey from Rantepao to the port city of Poso, when my bowel control began to fail. ***Don't you love this blog? It's like a constant dissertation on the quality and regularity of, well, my regularity*** I'll shorten the story (for your sake) to say only that after six hours of the kind of torture which I cannot even now accurately describe, and nearing midnight, that I finally burst from the back of the bus and dove headlong, detroweling mid-air, into a roadside water closet to release the beast. By the way, the locals in this part of the world have no use for toilet paper -always eat, drink, shake and pass with your right; no southpaws in Southeast Asia. And since I couldn't be bothered to root around in my bag for a toilet roll as I palsied my way off the bus, this provided the perfect opportunity to "get real" with my traveling.

By noon the following day were had made it along the tomini coast to Ampana, where we arranged a boat for the long journey to the Togian Islands (the place!!) because we had missed the very infrequent public ferry by three hours. Teamed up with a pair of Spaniards we met that night, we set out the next morning, bright and early, for the monster transit, across open ocean, in a boat the size of our Grand Cherokee. It occurred to me, half-way across, that this boat was not really suited for long-distance ocean travel, and that in the event of a capsize, given the temperament of the sea and the fact that we were being batted around like a cork, the very evident current would usher us along on a course that would ensure we never touched land again. It made for some very good footage on the FlipVideo.

Finally, on the third day after leaving Rantepao, our small and motley crew of sun-burned, salt-crusted travelers turned the corner of Kadidiri island and limped into the lagoon. So beautiful! Not the kind of beautiful that you see on post cards with the sandalwood sand beach and the turquois ankle-deep water, and the lone palm shading the tanned greek goddess in the white singlet and straw hat... but the kind of beautiful that says no one has thought to take a picture here, of this place... For the next four days we stayed at the home of the family that had lived on this beach for ever, in one of five small bungalows they had constructed over the years for visitors. They sold part of the beach to a few small diver operators who make a decent seasonal business with European holiday-makers, but saved the quietest and most tranquil place for themselves. There we discovered a wonderful band of new friends, who kept us entertained for  the next four days. There was Mauro (the 30-something traveling Italian cook) who has been coming back to this place for years and who spent five to eight hours daily skin-diving off the coast to provide us with a constantly changing array of fresh catch for our meals. So animated, his quirky Italian accent and unstemmed fountain of excitement kept us in stitches constantly... what a character. Then Stefie, our Stefie, the South-East Asian Studies major from Germany who spent two weeks here perfecting her jewelery-making with beautiful shells collected from the coastal waters. Stefie loved the hammocks, and was always game for a nap under the shade. Laura and Jacint from Barcelona laughed the nights away with us; and we had such fun conversations. Jacint loves the water, and when we saw sharks and giant eagle rays, he went crazy with joy... it was high-fives all around and big OK signs underwater... tooo funny. He and I got a good brow-beating from our dive master at Bunaken for sucking our tanks dry trying to stay down as long as Laura. Laura has super-lungs, and can get twice as much bottom time as the rest of us on a tank of air. She was made-to-order for diving, a natural. Abby and Lauren from New Orleans (yeah, there are actually OTHER Americans that travel the world; it was a surprise to come across them) rounded out the group, with great conversation on books and philosophy. These were exactly the kind of travelers we love; choosing to forgo the nicer island resorts to stay at a shabby little set of bungalows with a shared mandi and squat toilet, where we ate and played like family, and laughed like old friends. A real treat for us.

The family who hosted us was just simply amazing. Fishing stock, their lives are connected to the sea, and they were the most gracious hosts. Aka, the head of the house, outwaits the fish on the sea floor, breath held, and never fails. He makes spear guns from local wood; he makes beautiful jewelry from shells, coconuts, and special wood he picks up here and there. His wife, who's name I never learned but everyone calls "mama" crafted toasty breads for us in the morning. Their daughter, Teteng runs the operation, cooking food and managing the bungalows. Their son, Puding, likes to play the guitar and take the lot of us on day trips to remote beaches for snorkeling. The youngsters, Amal and Ana, play constantly in the water and on the beach -Ana is shy, and stays near the kitchen most of the time, but Amal is out wrestling and playing with guests, and chasing the larger boys up the palms to harvest coconuts... he dreams of being a fisherman like his father, and can't wait to get big enough to hunt with his own spear gun.

Every day, we snorkeled, swam, played games, napped in hammocks and talked about everything under the sun. Each meal we at together, snapping up Mauro's and Aka's fresh fish with the staples of rice, vegetables and bananas. One day we joined a boat from one of the dive operators and dove a WWII bomber wreck, off the south-eastern coast of the island. Really cool! Giant snapper, lionfish, octopi and jelly fish lurked amongst the wreckage and we marveled at the size of the wings and guns. After four days we reluctantly left the island to catch the ferry from a neighboring island, which only stops in once in a great while. Aka, such a neat man, had handmade necklaces, carved from wood and shell for everyone as departing gifts. We couldn't stand to leave, and it was a tough goodbye as we all sailed away from the beach on Aka's skiff. If we have time at the end of our trip, we are giving serious thought to returning so we can spend more time with this amazing family and so I can learn to spear fish like Aka.

Tough also, because the boat journey ahead of us was nothing to relish. Rough seas, but on a larger boat this time, we fought to hold our stomachs down as we slept wakefully through the night on the deck under the stars (which was a real treat for me). The next morning we caught a shared car for Manado, base for jumping off the Bunaken marine reserve.

I'm running out of time, but suffice to say we had an amazing few days diving some massive vertical walls over deep-blue abyss off Bunaken, and Jacint keeping us chortling with his convulsions of excitement. The people here were just as amazing as everywhere else in Sulawesi, preferring to walk us to our destination, when we asked for directions around the island.

Tonight we fly to Kuala Lumpur; tomorrow morning from Kuala Lumpur to Manila... where we hope to meet up with Margot before heading off to meet Dave and J in Vietnam.

enjoy the pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030416&id=1081248185&l=5b9c4fc3f0

TB