July 10th a wedding, textiles and rice terraces - 11th trip back to Ubud, Bali

Getting ready

Wonderful beading!

Everyone enjoys seeing their picture!

We were up and out the door by 9 am heading out to the north of Rantepao for the most scenic area. On our way to our first stop we happened upon a wedding. Weddings always take place in the morning, when the sun is moving upward, and it was delightful to see the young girls and boys of the family dressed in the traditional Torajan dress. The car brings the groom to the bride's house, at which point he speaks eloquent Torajan poetry to convince her to get in the car to go to the church. As you can see from the pictures, weddings are much smaller affairs than funerals, and only a few pigs are slaughtered for the food for guests.

Many Buffalo killed for funeral at this Thongkonan

We continued on our way to the village of Palawa where we viewed another traditional village like Ke'te Kesu with Tongkonan and rice barns but no graves. We then drove to the town of Sa'dan To'barana which was theoretically the center for textile weaving. The area was a disappointment in terms of textiles, but there were activities related to an upcoming funeral, and if we had stayed around the preparation of pigs. Our guide then took us to another village, Sangkombang, where we bought two decorative textiles. They were not something we had seen before and involved weaving (Ikat and regular), embroidery, and designs made with sea shell pieces. We bargained and bought two for $130 a piece. We were told they were brought by someone from the very northern part of Toraga called Make'.

A happy shop keeper and shopper

We then traveled south and west through Deri where you have verdant green terraced rice fields with boulders wherein graves have been carved out. The rice that is grown on the terraced fields at elevations up to 2,000 meters requires a special hand cutting with a small bamboo stick and blade. Only the short stem with the rice grains is cut, then bundled, and all the little bundles tied together and stacked up on boulders for drying and transport. Lovely friendly people in the fields demonstrated how to use the rice-cutting knife. Later on a young man showed me his knife, and he had a big bandage on his finger as he had cut himself. They keep these blades very sharp! We continued climbing in altitude through Lempo till we arrived at Batutumonga where we had lunch in a restaurant with a fabulous view over the rice terraces. Had we had more time we would have enjoyed a walk through the area. If you were hiking you could have also stayed overnight here.

Deri rice fields with graves in rocks - see woman's hat and carved door

On the way back to Rantepao we drove through Bori to see the "ranti" (ceremonial ground for the slaughter of animals related to the funerals of noble class people) and their associated megaliths, like huge gravestones, but really honorific monuments without an actual body. We arrived back at the hotel before dark and then had another dinner of apples and peanut butter while we packed up our bags for the early start the next morning.

Ranti with place for coffin during ceremony

Both of us had not slept well while in Rantepao because we had neither AC nor fan in the room, and we did not open the windows as there were no screens to protect from the mosquitos. We did get a fan from the front desk and that did help. We use plugin mosquito repellent devices, and have way too many refill cartridges. We tried washing a few items but they took a couple of days to dry so we gave up on doing laundry.

On Bunaken we had met a young Dutch couple (sold us their malarone powerful malaria pills) that had been in Rantepao and had gotten quite sick. Usually if you have a guide, they will only take you to certain restaurants, and we did survive all of Sulawesi without any food problems. We did feel that 3 days was enough in Toraja, but 3 days should be the minimum, as the drive each way to Rantepao is 9 hours. The first three and a half hours is a straight divided "highway" and you have lunch at Pare Pare at the only "approved for tourists" restaurant. Then the rest of the trip is on a narrow winding round with too many curves. Those with motion sickness problems should be prepared. I swear by the Thai "patches" that you put over your belly button, and eating candied ginger!



Map of our day trip

For our trip back to Makassar we were up at 5 am and on the road by 6:30am. We stopped at Pare Pare for a quick lunch and were at the airport a little before 2:30 PM. Traffic had been fairly light on the windy road so we were able to make good time. We checked in for our Lion Air flight, and then went to find a pay for access lounge. The Makassar airport was a relatively modern, fancy airport and actually newer and nicer than Denpasar. The lounge was nicer and cost $7.50 each, but the wireless was properly set up and fast. Lion Air was late leaving so we were happy to be in the lounge. After the 1 hour flight it took 45 minutes to get our luggage and get to the car that had come to pick us up from the Cendana hotel. Overall, we were happy to be back in Bali after our Sulawesi adventures.

Map of our trip to Sulawesi