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After the funeral Martin, my guide for the next two days, and I started to drive back to Rantepao, where most traveller stay. The landscape is just absolutely stunning. Little pockets of rice fields have been carved out of the forest. On all sides large limestone cliffs reach up and everywhere you can see farmers bringing in the second harvest of the year.

We stopped for about an hour in Kete Kesu, a traditional Torajan village. Here many people still live in the traditional houses with their distinct roofs. The ancestors of the Torajan people came from the north over the sea and they started to build their houses to resemble the ships they sailed on.

Everywhere you look there are graves. Some are over 100 years old. Some were being built right then by hollowing out rocks. Following a little path past the village we walked to a huge limestone rock. There are hanging graves on the side of the cliff. Some have fallen down and will remain so until there is another ceremony, where only two or three buffaloes are being sacrificed. There are skulls and bones everywhere.

Martin then invited me into his home for a traditional Torajan meal called Papilong. First we bought a live chicken on the market in Rantepao. At his house we cut down a bamboo pole and carried it back. Then Martin cut three segments off. These were filled with chicken, vegetables, herbs and coconut and then sealed with palm leaves. Then we put them directly in the fire, turning them once in a while. The meal is finished when you can’t see any more liquid bubbling out of the bamboo.

Being invited into an Indonesian home can be quite an awkward situation sometimes. You might have been a customer before, but suddenly your status changes and you then are a guest. You’re not expected to lift a finger and everything gets very formal. Not so with Martin, which might have something to do with his two children. They were very shy at the beginning, but after a while they got used to me and were playing pranks and telling me stories, of which I didn’t understand a thing. I’m sure they found this strange bule (Indonesian for foreigner) sitting in their living room very amusing.

While we waited for the meal to finish Martin introduced me to the grandmother of his wife. She died about a year ago and lies in the house of his in-laws. The funeral will be this December. In the only other room in the house three kids were watching TV. This made me fully realize that the Torajans really do live with their dead.

The meal was absolutely delicious…

You can find more photos from Tana Toraja here.

A traditional Torajan funeral is a big event for the local people in Tana Toraja. Relatives have usually been saving up for a long time to be able to buy water buffaloes and pigs to be sacrificed during the funerals. For this reason the deceased will be given their own room in a house and are considered still alive until the actual funeral.

Depending on which class the family is from, a funeral can last from a day to a week and the amount of animals to be sacrificed varies also. A family from the low class might only sacrifice 2 buffaloes and a few pigs. A middle class funeral will usually last 3 days and during its course maybe 15 buffaloes will be sacrificed. People from the high class might sacrifice 100 or even 200 buffaloes over the course of a week.

The price of a buffalo starts at about 20 million Rupiah, which is around 2000 USD or 1400 EUR. The price then rises steeply the bigger and the more white a buffalo is, reaching around 100 million in some cases.

The beginning of a funeral day normally starts with the sacrifice of a couple buffaloes. While friends or family members cut up the animals, processions of other family members take place. They receive food and tea or coffee in a special building and move to their allocated temporary built shelters after a while to make place for other family members.

Every group of family brings their own gifts of animals, but not all animals necessarily get sacrificed. At the end of the day every family member will be given a piece of meat from the sacrificed animals.

The majority of Torajans are Protestants and they don’t see any conflict between their old traditional animistic beliefs and their relatively new religion. I wonder, though, what the protestant church has to say on that matter.

The Torajan people are very welcoming and don’t mind at all that hordes of tourists come to watch their traditional funerals. They rather see it as a sign of respect for the dead. Although tourists aren’t required to bring a buffalo or a pig as a gift, every person has to bring something, a carton of cigarettes being the most popular choice it seems.

Below is a short video from the funeral I attended. The deceased woman originated from the middle class and had been dead for about a year.

You can find more photos from Tana Toraja here.

Children are awesome. Especially when travelling in Asia. It is very rare that I pass up an opportunity to take a few snapshots of kids. Usually they follow me around and yell ‘Photo, photo, Mister!’. And all they want in return is to have a look at the little screen on the back. Then they go on telling me the news of their day, blissfully unaware that I don’t understand a word. It always makes me chuckle.

These four girls from the little village of Lamalera wanted their picture taken, but always got scared and ran off. Eventually they managed to stand still for a few seconds.

In Asia you see a lot of girls, kids themselves, looking after their younger siblings. They expertly carry them around on the hip, pick them up after they fell over and feed them rice and some fish.

These two cheeky boys in Dili wouldn’t stop talking. All I could understand was ‘photo’ once in a while. They seemed like tough little cookies. I suppose they would have to be living in one of the many refugee tent cities.

Can’t believe it’s already been a year for this trip. Ok, it’s been more like one year and three weeks, but no need to be petty, is there? I haven’t been up to that much over the last four to five months except working here in New Zealand, but even that has been a rich (and necessary) experience. First I thought about writing another post like my 6-month article, but then I thought, why not cut together all my little video clips and then throw a few pictures into the mix. Have fun!

This week the big day finally came… We were allowed to hold the match to all the wood we had pushed together in the last few weeks! What a sight! Luckily for me, I was the designated part-time videographer. What’s left of the trees is still smouldering…

After a few weeks enjoying life as a couch potato in the hostel lounge I grabbed the chance to go hiking with a couple of guys from my hostel room. I was gonna climb up Ben Lomond with Jack aka Clumsy Monkey Boy, an Englishman, and Kevin, the original Flying Dutchman. Now, Ben Lomond was Kevin’s choice and Jack and I just went along for the ride. I would have been quite happy strolling along the lake for a few hours, so Ben Lomond was like running a marathon with no training whatsoever. Anyway, Benny Boy, as his friends call him, is right behind Queenstown and towers about 1400 meters above it, his total height being around 1748 meters.

The day we left started quite badly really. All of us were thrown out of our hostel. We were assured that we hadn’t done anything to warrant that move, but we still have to be out by Saturday. Apparently long termers make for an awful atmosphere. Bummer really, but it gave me lots to curse about when the going got tough on the mountain. The walk is advertised as being about 6 to 8 hours return from the top of Queenstown Gondola. Add to that about 2 hours return to the Gondola and you end up with 8 to 10 hours altogether. We did it in 6.5 (including lots of breaks) from the hostel reception to the refreshing jump into the icy lake at the end of the walk. That either shows that my fitness level is a lot higher than I thought it was or, what’s more likely, that the Kiwis are quite conservative in their estimates.

The scenery was really stunning and the beer on the summit the best I’ve ever had, even if it was out of a can. At points I was ready to give up, but a few well aimed curses helped me through that and it was well worth it in the end. It was an awesome day and that just shows that the best things in life are for free, even in the money eating city that is Queenstown. Here are some images from the hike…

Fraser Island is situated just off Hervey Bay. It is the largest sand island in the world and one huge playground for boys and their big toys. Girls love it as well, although they don’t seem to share the same enthusiasm when it comes to driving a 3 ton Toyota Landcruiser through soft sand and up and down steep hills.

Day 1

Our little group, 8 people all together, met at 8 am at the backpackers where we had booked our self drive tour to get some last minute instructions about driving in sand and getting us all back in one piece. Then it was everybody in the car and we were on our way to the ferry to Fraser Island. The first stop on the island was Lake McKenzie, a beautiful blue freshwater lake in the middle of the island. It’s just about 7 meters deep, so you can easily dive down there, although there isn’t much to see.

We had lunch there and then Sandra, one of the Swedish girls in our group drove us through dense forest on sandy roads to the beach at Eurong. Here Trudy, a welsh girl, took over and got us bogged down within 3 minutes. She thought that when we said she should go straight we actually meant straight and not just the middle track through the sand! Luckily we managed to dig us out quite quickly, though, only took about 15 minutes and it was quite funny, we were all in hysterics. The next stop was at the Moheno wreck, an old freighter at the eastern beach of Fraser. It’s very picturesque and would be even more beautiful if not for the love of signs Australian authorities seem to have (not that the Germans would be any better! ).

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When I got back from Indo I decided to pick up the car we had left with work colleagues of friends. It wouldn’t start. Found this guy who figured that the smart lock was on constantly and he showed me a way how to hotwire and basically steal my own car. Since I got quite a few weird looks from passers-by whenever I pulled my little hotwiring trick I thought it’d be a good idea to get it fixed. Then I managed to find three people to share the costs with. On the morning we were supposed to leave Darwin the bloody car didn’t start. Again. Went back to the mechanic and apparently there were ants in the electrics. Got that sorted and we all left the day after that. That was a Saturday…

After 400 km we had our first flat tyre. The thing was completely destroyed. Changed that and then tried to get the broken one fixed. Just in case. But no such luck. Well, we thought, maybe the next day. There’s a few larger towns we’d pass then and one of them was bound to have a spare tyre for us. By then it was Sunday, and in the Outback that seems to mean that most businesses are closed. We made it almost to Mount Isa when the second tyre blew. No spares left! Got the tow truck out and those guys could luckily organize a spare tyre for us. Then the car started to make funny noises. It had needed loads of water and oil, a lot more than ever before and I was a bit worried about that. But it was working, so no problems, right? Wrong! It just wouldn’t start again after we had filled it up at a gas station near Hughenden. After it cooled down we were good again though and settled down for the night close by…

We didn’t even make 200 km the next day. The car just stalled while I was driving and wouldn’t move a single meter. Got a lift with a road train to the next village, called a tow truck and got driven all the way to Charter Towers, close to Townsville. The mechanics there worked for almost 5 hours on it, trying to find out why it wouldn’t start. The bill started to grow with the long hours, but eventually the mechanics admitted defeat and declared my car brain dead at 17.23. Luckily I did not have to pay for repairs (not that I would have, seeing that I still had no drivable car). Called a mate, who knew someone in Townsville, who knew someone in Charter Towers, just to get a second opinion. This mate of a mate turned out to work at the garage where I attempted to get the car fixed and then, finally, I accepted the truth that from now on I will have to take the bus. Took the number plates off and started to look for a way out of town…

If you’ve ever been on a Pelni boat in ekonomi class, then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. The toilets and showers smell and are often flooded, the food doesn’t taste of much and doesn’t look very appetizing, you sleep with 50 other people in the same room for days and just trying to get on the boat, or off it for that matter, can turn out to be a near death experience.

So why do that to myself?

• It’s cheap!
  I paid just 140.000 Rp from Maumere to Makassar, a 36 hour trip, not counting the nine hours I had wait at the harbour for the bloody boat to turn up.
• It’s safe!
  The ships are proper german-built cruise liners, minus the luxury, but with a distinct Titanic feel to them. Nevertheless, you might hear occasionally of a capsized ferry, but I have never heard of a sunken Pelni ship.
• It’s an experience!
  You’re more than likely going to be the only foreigner, or ‘bule’, on a huge ship and you’ll be the talk of the day or however long the journey lasts. Want to feel like a celebrity? This is your chance without resorting to Big Brother and the likes.

And that’s just a few of the many reasons…

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Dili, the young capital of Timor Leste, is a bustling and vibrant city. At least during the day, that is. When night falls then gangs roam around, preying on the unlucky people still outside. Or so we have been told. To me it seemed pretty safe at night. But then, maybe we were lucky?

The whole economy not only of Dili, but of all of East Timor, is fueled by money provided by the UN and all the various NGOs. Everything here, from basics like food to activities like diving, is quite expensive, again because of the UN and NGO personnel, who just write it off as expenses. Which makes me wonder what happens when all of them pull out?

During the day every second car you see is a Toyota Landcruiser with the UN logo on the side. Australian soldiers in full battle gear come by your guest house for a quick beer and everywhere you pay with US dollars, which is, for now at least, the official currency.

I like Dili a lot actually, the people here are really friendly and seem to be hopeful to put all the troubles behind them. The whole place has an atmosphere of departure into a brighter future about it. At the same time, though, there are still many tent camps scattered around town, filled with refugees and, obviously, the UN is still here and needed. For a little taste of Dili, here’s a slideshow:

Lamalera, Lama meaning feeling or blade and Lera meaning sun, is situated on the southern side of the mountainous island of Lembata, which is part of the Solor Archipelago. It can only be reached by taking a bus, which is a converted truck, from Lewoleba. The drive takes about three and a half hours, mainly due to the bad roads, but is nevertheless quite scenic and adventurous. The roads can be extremely steep and narrow and there are usually many people sitting on the roof of the bus because of the restricted space inside.

Sam, an american backpacker I traveled with at the time, and I arrived in the little whaling village around four in the afternoon on a Saturday in late August 07. We soon found out, that the fishermen do not go out to sea past 4 pm and neither do they work on a Sunday, when the whole community is going to church and rests. So instead of joining the whaling boats the next day as we had hoped, we walked for about half an hour to a nearby beach and a big bat cave and spent a relaxed day out there.

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In Labhuanbajo quite a few people from the boat I came over with decided to pay a visit to Kelimutu and the three famous colored crater lakes. As Toby and Louise, an english couple, needed to be back in Labhuanbajo soon to catch a flight to Bali, we decided on hiring a car. This is quite an expensive way of travelling, as it cost us 500.000 Rp a day. But since there were four people sharing the car the cost dropped down considerably. The fourth person to join our car was Karsten, a german traveler.

On the first day we drove until Bajawa, probably one of the most pleasant places I have been to. Sadly enough, we still had to drive on the next day. This was quite an uneventful journey, until the other car travelling with us was involved in a little roadrage accident. So we had to spend almost two hours waiting for the police. We spent this by sitting by the roadside playing cards, much to the amazement of the local children. This was probably the most exciting thing that has happened in this little village for years.

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