Onto Greener Pastures

After our interesting funeral experience in Tana Toraja, we headed out for a hike in the surrounding area. We had been looking forward to trekking through the hills and getting splendid views of the 'lush, green countryside' that our guidebook raved about. We had expected serene little farming villages and terraced rice fields of splendid shades of emerald much like we had been privilged to see in the mountains of the northern Philippines. But when we arrived in Tana, we discovered that most of the rice had been harvested already and the fields were caked and dry and since the area had seen a unusually long 4 month dry spell the 'lush, green countryside' was scorched and brown. Oh well. We figured that our hike may not offer as many 'spectacular panoramas' as the maps and books claimed but it would be nice to get out in the villages by way of our own legs.

We had chosen to take the route from the western side of the Tana Toraja region to a neighboring area: Mamasa Valley. The trip was to cover about 60 kilometers and take a total of three days. After three days in Rantepao, the tourist capital of Tana, we were ready to get out of this scorching hot place and took a truck to the little town of Bittuang. When we arrived in Bittuang, we found that our the trail for our hike would once again be plied by cars and motorcycles. Our thoughts of traveling to remote villages only reached by foot would not be exactly what we expected but when is it ever. We headed of in the middle of the day and the sun burned down from above but luckily the higher elevation made the temperature at least bearable.

Our first day was the shortest and we covered about 12 kilometers before arriving at our destination: the small village of Paku. The road to get here reminded both of us of the Western U.S. with pine trees surrounding us and the air as dry as the desert. It was a pretty deserted trail with only a scattering of houses along the way and the occasional Land Cruiser that passed by accompanied by a choking cloud of dust. When we did arrive in Paku we were greeted by a nice little village snuggled in a greener valley and many rice fields that had just been planted. We could only imagine the beauty of this place had it been wetter and greener but it still was not a bad place to rest our tired feet. After checking into the homestay and being served a welcome pot of tea, we decided to explore the small kampung (village).

The next morning we arose and made our way towards the village of Timbaan. This trip was a bit longer and a bit hotter than the previous day and we were greeted by a not so welcome steep hill for the final leg. During the last few miles we also met a young teenager who asked us where we going. He was evidently from the same village we were going to and when we passed his house he insisted that we stay there. It was still a little ways from what looked to be the main part of Timbaan (not to say that the main part of this village was too large) but we decided that it sounded like a good idea. Anyways the irrigated terraced rice field in front of the house offered one of the nicest views that we had seen along the trek and it allowed for the snapping of a few decent pics. Here we traversed the steeply terraced fields to bathe in the river, while the chilren watched and swam, since there was no bathroom at our homestay.

Our final day of the hike would bring us to Mamasa Valley but not before passing over a ridge that did not look so steep or far when we started in the morning. But three hours later when we were still hiking up, we realized that our eyes had deceived us and that we would certainly be sleeping well that evening. Once we finally started to head down we realized that this valley was a bit wetter and as we headed closer towards Mamasa the fields did get greener and the forest surrounding the trail a bit thicker. The last few hours of the hike was even met by a decent rainstorm and the lush, green countryside finally came into view.

The cultural highlight of this trip was a brief stop at a 400 year old boat-shaped house. The owners of the house were gracious hosts and even though their were language barriers, we had a good time trying to discuss the house as well as America. The house was impressive, even in its run down state, with its intricately painted designs and its very large posts (there was no more lumber like that left in the valley).

Mamasa was certainly not as touristy as Rantepao and overall the smaller town suited us better. We had a chance to rest and relax a bit the next day as well as tour around the market. The people of Mamasa share many aspects with the folks in the neighboring Toraja region and have a similar language, architecture and cultural traditions. While this area has not embraced tourism to the extent that Toraja has and their cultural traditions may not be quite as evident, this place was certainly worth a visit and the trek to get here made it even more enjoyable.

Land of Funerals

In Tana Toraja, nothing is higher on the social scale than attending traditional funerals. These may be the ultimate fiesta (I thought Filipinos were food crazy). In Toraja there are 3 types of funerals: one for the lower class (not much fun to attend, according to the guides because they're not as elaborate and only last for a day or two), one for the middle class, and one for the higher class (3-4 day presentation with hundreds of guests, music, chanting and food).

I'll discuss the high class funeral, because this is the funeral we attended, but first, let's discuss the odd habit of foreigners to barge into funerals uninvited to watch how the locals grieve. One of the biggest draws of Torajaland are the elaborate funerals. At these funerals, white people generally pay a guide an exorbitant amount of money to act as an interpreter for the day. The tourists usually ask to be forgiven for crashing the event with by presenting the family with packs of clove cigarettes or kilos of sugar. Then the tourists proceed to stomp around the grounds shoving cameras into the faces of the cute and dressed up while the locals try to proceed with their traditions. It's all very bizarre. And though I'm just as guilty as all the other tourists, I'm not sure that if given the chance I would do it again because I have conflicting issues on this type of "cultural" tourism. I know I don't like it when Indonesians shove camera phones in my face to snap a picture at the "strange and unusual tourist" and I expect most Indonesians feel the same about me ogling over their everyday way of life.

Having said that, there were many interesting things I learned by going to the funeral. Like I mentioned earlier, we attended the funeral of a high class woman who was in her 90s when she died. There were literally hundreds of guests, mostly distant relatives and close friends who came from all over the island (and the country) to attend the four day event. The relatives generally bring gifts of live pigs, which are slaughtered as food for the guests. If the family can afford, they buy as many carabao as possible and slaughter most of them on the 4th day, though we were lucky enough to watch a killing because they needed food for dinner. In the case of the funeral we attended, the family had SEVEN (7) carabao to be slaughtered!!!

The food is generally pig or carabao cooked for 2 hours inside a bamboo tube. The meat is so tender! In between meals, there is LOTS of tea and coffee which are served with cakes.

The Torajan people are very class oriented and everyone knows their position in society. At the funerals, those from the high class get the best seats and the best service, the middle class get to sit in a large bamboo "stadium" and the lower class are the ones preparing the food and serving the meals. I think the classes are a bit like castes since I was told that a lower class person may become rich, but they may never become high class.

It's amazing how much of the funeral culture was retained, even after the rigorous proselytizing by the Dutch. Most Torajans are Protestant, though about 15% are still animist. Yet of the 4 day funeral, only the evening of the 1st day is the pastor present. The rest consists of chanting, dancing and other traditions.

The other draw in Toraja are the boat shaped houses. The houses are shaped this way because Torajans believe that when their ancestors came from China the valley of Toraja was still filled with water and the ancestors docked their boats on the mountains and settled. Traditionally these houses were built out of wood and bamboo with grass roofs, though many people now only use the oddly shaped architecture for their rice silos and they are almost all roofed with corrigated iron. The carvings and paintings on these houses are absolutely amazing! Such a contrast from the half finished houses of the 'Pines. Each wooden panel is carved with designs of carabao, swirls or other designs which are then decorated with 4 colors: black, white, yellow and red which symbolize participation, bones and purity, gold and blood respectively.

We had planned on doing some hiking in the area to get away from the tourists, but its the end of a long dry season and the surrounding land looks parched and brown. Also Laura sprained her ankle on our last expedition and thought it better to rest. We will begin our 3 day journey to the neighboring valley with in the next few days. This area is hopefully less touristy and I hear that there are some interesting architecture there as well.

Giant Stones

Scattered throughout two valleys in and around Lore Lindu National Park are megaliths that are over 2000 years old. They were left by a culture which disappeared from the area long ago. People today know very little about the culture that left the megaliths and the reason for them. There are 3 types of megaliths: discs, urns and figures. The discs and urns are the most frequent and anthropologists suspect that they once housed the remains of the dead. The dead were placed inside the earn in the fetal position. One urn with its disc shaped lid per family...a communal stone coffin. I never could figure out the hypotheses for the large figurines, perhaps they were the gods. What makes these megaliths even more mysterious is the fact that the stones with which they are made cannot be found in the valley where they stones lay. How did they ancient ones get the stones to their current location? I think it was with the help of aliens! :)

After walking for 3 days through some amazing and not so amazing primary forest, we came to Bada Valley, which is home to a large collection of megaliths. I say some not so amazing forest because along the way we ran into multiple tracks of newly cleared and burned land. It was quite depressing to walk through large expanses of destroyed (often national park) forest knowing that a week, month or year before it used to be alive and well. In the Philippines we did not see that much primary forest and though it was sad, it had long been destroyed and therefore we were apt to see the possibilities for rehabilitation. Yet, in the newly denude areas, its hard to imagine it ever getting any better and its heart wrenching knowing that what has happened to the forests of the 'Pines 30 years ago is only now happening to the area surround Lore Lindu. As we walked we lamented and tried to foretell the future of the area as well as discuss ways we may contribute to a healthier environment in work and our daily lives.

Once in Bada Valley our sadness was temporarily pushed to the back of our minds. The scenery was vastly different from the mountains of the park. The valley has been inhabited by agricultural peoples for centuries and it shows in the vast grasslands and rice fields, but these only added to it character.

We hired a guide for a day hike that was to lead us through the part of the valley which is most heavily laden with megaliths. This hike lead us first through the rice paddies where a few stones lay askew in the thick of the grass. Our favorite here was the "monkey" figure who was short and squat and not entirely monkey-ish. Then we went through an area filled with large urns. The climax of the trip was through the brown valley to the site of a large male rock. This rock is out in the middle of nowhere with no other megaliths near it (very strange). It stood about 12ft about the ground and was impressive with its perfectly circular eyes and symmetrical nose.

Welcome to the Jungle - Sort of...

After being in a jungle of tourists in North Sulawesi we decided to head to a real jungle: Lore Lindu National Park. We did not know a whole lot about the place other than there were some rainforest and some opportunities for trekking. We didn't hear about any other tourists who were heading that way so we packed our bags and got moving.

We ended up on a bus that took more than twenty four hours but was suprisingly comfortable. It was quite a windy road since it passes through many mountain ranges but was paved the entire way which we were not expecting. We passed from the much more affluent and Christian Minahasa region where beautiful wooden houses and churches were prevalent into a noticeably poorer area. After driving through the night we were awakened to an area that had been extremely deforested. The mangroves on the coast were only stumps and many of the hills were littered with recently burned trees. It was quite disheartening and a drastic change from what we had seen in the north.

We finally arrived at our destination of Palu which is the largest city in Central Sulawesi and got a good night's rest after the long journey. The next day came the visit to the Lore Lindu Park Office. We discovered that Lore Lindu has one of the largest tracts of forest left in Indonesia and this in addition to a large range in elevation means a great deal of biodiversity. We also found that there is an expansive list of wildlife found within the park boundaries including anao (mini buffalo), babirusa (deer pig) and monkeys to name a few. We knew that we probably would not see many but it was exciting to hear that there was such a great area of forest and we were going to be hiking in it.

We headed on our way the next day and were ready to get some hiking in after spending days on a bus and in a city. Our first plan was to spend some time at the large lake in the center of the park called Danau Lindu (danau = lake in Bahasa Indonesia) where there was an enclave of people within the park. We took a car to the turnoff for the "trail," which was actually the only road to the lake from that particular side of the park. The road is narrow and harrowing and thus can only be traversed by motorcycles. At the beginning of the road, we were greeted by ten people wanting to take us to the lake by motorcycle or at least to carry our bags for us. (In a strange show, one of the porters tried lifting my bag while moaning and groaning about how heavy it was...if he could barely lift it, how was he supposed to carry it for me?)


We opted for walking rather than the motorcycle (we were here to hike weren't we?) and I am sure glad we did. This would have been a pretty scary motorcycle ride and it actually turned out to be a scary hike at times with literally hundreds of motorcycles plying the narrow steep path during our 6 hour hike. They plied the road piled with fish and rice from the lake or cement and other necessary products for the villages by the lake. The trail was the only way in and out of the area and the people used it whole-heartedly.All of the traffic was not exactly what we envisioned when we planned to go hiking in the dark depths of the forest, but it was still a great hike. We saw many massive trees along the way (much bigger than we have seen in the Philippines - they would have surely been cut down there, especially if they were so close to the road). We were also greeted by the racous calling of red knobbed hornbills, which are indigenous to the island. We had already seen these flashy, gorgeous birds in Tangkoko and were not expecting many more but saw about 15 along the way. As for the motorcycles:

After an arduous hike with our heavy packs we arrived in the village of Tamado, which is situated on the lake. We found the local homestay, where we crashed after a delicious dinner. The next day, the owner of the homestay who is also one of two park rangers in the area took us on a monkey hunt. We hiked through dense plantations of cocoa and coffee until we reached the edge of the enclave. Along the way we didn't see any monkeys but there were a few birds and a few very large trees which had been cut down to be used as dug-out canoes but they were mysteriously abandoned before the job was completed. After about 5 hours of wandering through the plantations and the forest we arrived at a little stream where the guide said was a favorite haunting ground of the monkeys. We waited, but alas, it was in vain. As we headed back through the cocoa thicket our guide noticed cocoa pods which had recently been eaten. Apparently, after we left the area the monkeys came to steal a little treat but they didn't stay long enough for us to catch a glimpse because they were frightened by the loud sounds of a chainsaw in the distance.

The next day our guide took us to another spot near the enclave's boundary in order to spot monkeys and we found a small group who swung from trees in the distance. We tried to chase them to get a better view but alas the monkeys escaped again. These creatures were certainly not as tame as the ones in Tangkoko and it is interesting how much their behavior changes due to human influence. The monkeys in this area are certainly not as well liked by the farmers in the area because of the damage they cause to the cocoa and other crops. The monkeys are in turn hunted and run when there is any sign of a human. Once we finished our short hike in the forest, our guide took us to the edge of the lake to get a better look at a monkey. Unfortunately this one was tied up next to a house and served as a pet to one of the locals.

The next day we left this serene little community on the lake which was different than we had expected but left us with a good impression.

Tourist's Haven (?)

Minahasa Highlands...I don’t know even where to begin discussing this place. What I can tell you is what I’ve learned about Indonesia…never trust tourists’ recommendations.

We were planning on skipping the highlands in lieu of a less touristy, more remote national park. However, almost every European tourist we ran into commented on how gorgeous and cool the Minahasa Highlands were. They also all mentioned the bizarre market where everything from dog to rats to giant fruit bats are sold.

So resigning into pressure, we decided to see what all the hullabaloo was about. Our plan was to stop in for a day or two, check things out then proceed back into the depths of the jungle (or so we hoped).

Unfortunately, we somehow were time warped into spending 4 nights in the Highlands and seeing very little. Not to mention that we never did find the scenic tourist cottages and instead stayed in a sketchy (but cheap!) drive in hotel on the outskirts of town. I don't know where our affinity of these sort of places comes from, but I hope it ends soon. Yet, this must have been one of the more popular hotels with the locals, because it was the only hotel anyone could think of when we asked around for a place to stay.

The market wasn't even mentionable, though we will leave you with a few pictures (not for the faint of heart nor the doggie lovers).

The only other activity of note was a hairy hike down to a nice waterfall where we got caught in the POURING rain for 1/2 hour with no rain gear and all of our important documents getting wet.

One more thing: If you're ever planning on staying in Minahasa Highlands, may we suggest staying away from the touristy Tomohon and spending the night in the sleepy town of Tondano (which Lonely Planet recommends NOT doing...)