Escape from reality: April 2011

In Tana Toraja everything resolves around death. Torajans spend their living days earning money for the moment of their death. If by the time of ones passing the deceased or his family does not have enough funds to organize a good-bye party, the corpse is held in the house (sometimes for years) until their financial situation permit an apt memorial service. The actual funeral can last for days and sacrifices play an important role; dozens, sometimes even hundreds of chickens, pigs and water buffaloes accompany the cadaver on his final journey.

The biggest funeral of the year is now here. The mother of a high-ranking police officer passed away three years ago, and the funeral started this Monday. Thousands of guests arrived from all over Indonesia to show their respect, and heaps of animals are massacred daily out of admiration for the late mother.

Funeral people

Tiny Toraja house

I’m not a big fan on live animal slaughtering, so I spent approximately fifteen minutes in the party, decided I’d had enough and headed out to explore the surroundings of Rantepao, the capital of Tana Toraja. The nature here is breathtaking. Mountains dominate the scenery and fertile rice-gardens on the sides of the mountains lead to lush valleys decorated here and there with the roofs of the beautiful Toraja houses. The temperature wavers around confortable 25 degrees Celsius, and a small breeze keeps the air fresh and clean.

We drove south from the funeral to see ancient burial caves of the Torajans. The caves were indeed interesting but rather dark – we didn’t bring any torches with us and lanterns were rented for 25 000, so we only inspected the areas were natural light was present. When returning to our rental scooter we found our back tire gone flat. Usually bike repair shops are plenty, but this time there were none to be seen, so we pushed the bike around for an hour or two, until an apt service station was found. New inner tube cost 40 000, and the guy insisted on changing the bearings of the back tire for another 20 000. He told us to head straight back to the rental shop, for the bike was in no condition for driving, not to mention mountain exploring. We got back to the town, argued the money back from the repairs (we got the half) and insisted on getting a better bike next day for free.

Cigarets as a sacrifice

Dead dude

Wall graves and their guardians

Cave

Cursed tire

The next day we headed out early, drove through superb views, ate cookies for lunch and discovered that we were completely lost (if one can be considered lost when driving without a destination). Lonely planet mentioned Siguntu as the place to be for panorama views, but our hand drawn map proved inadequate when trying to figure out the exact spatial distribution of the roads of the area. Finally after driving for ages on a bumpy road that seemed to lead us nowhere an Indonesian look-alike of Austin Powers stopped to explain us the amounts of rights and lefts that were to take us to our newfound place-of-interest. He ended his much-appreciated lecture with the words “andifyougostraightthereisawaterfall” and left. We started to turn our bike around and head back, but slowly our brains deciphered Austin’s pigeon-English advice and Koen was the first to wonder out loud “did he say waterfall?” So for the waterfall we went, driving half an hour or so until so-called road became too hard to drive with our bike. We continued by foot, and after another half an hour of walking besides impressive scenery of the biggest rice fields I’ve ever seen we came to the end of the road. We followed the sound of running water through the jungle and slid down some slippery rocks and finally found ourselves in a beautiful pond surrounded by flowers and dominated by a 30-meter waterfall. We enjoyed the scenery in silence for a moment after which I took a dip in the ice-cold water.

Portion of the huge rice plantation

Hard-working people

Top part of the waterfall

Yesterday we drove to the hills, found a cafeteria on top of a mountain, wondered the endless sceneries of fields and spotted a lone eagle circling the heights in search for food. Today was a market day. My hostel managed to burn my laundry, so I was in desperate need of new pants and T-shirts. Somehow I didn’t manage to buy any real clothes, but instead found a poncho that somehow turns in to tent.

Tana Toraja has been unforgettable. Tonight I’ll take a bus to Makassar and from there I’ll try to continue to the pristine beaches of Pantai Bira. On Wednesday I’ll head to Kuala Lumpur and on Thursday continue to Vientiane, Laos. Next update is going to come from somewhere along the road.