Rantepao, Tana Toraja

I arrived in Tana Toraja early morning on Wednesday on the night bus from Makassar. My first thought was of sleep as the bus ride, although the best bus I’ve been in by far (seats that went right back and had enough room that you weren’t squished by the person in front) and the fact I had 2 seats to myself and a massive pillow (courtesy of the intrigued local bus boys spoiling the foreigner), travelled along the most bumpy roads I’ve ever known! I don’t think I had more than 5 minutes with my eyes closed before I was jerked awake going over a bump or pot hole! But I guess that’s to be expected in rural Sulawesi! So I went straight to the hostel recommended by my old hostel owner and didn’t take in much of the town. Except the lively food market just down the road from me in an alley between 2 houses where it seems the whole town had collected to get their fresh veg!

After a few hours much needed sleep I was woken by the hostel owner’s son practicing very loudly on his keyboard so I went out to explore the town of Rantepao. My first impressions weren’t good. The main high street just reminded me of a slightly smaller version of Makassar, with hundreds of cars and motorbikes and everyone beeping everyone all the time. The noise was deafening. Added to that were the local people shouting “Hello” and “Hello Mister” all the time (they don’t seem to know “Miss” or “Mrs” very often) and just blatantly staring wherever I went. The street looks like it could have come from the middle of a city instead of a small town in the middle of the mountains. There are puddles and mud, rubbish and bits of rubble along the pavements and side of the road. The pavements (and in fact the road in some places) is full of pot holes and missing bricks. So as you can imagine I was quite disappointed.

But then, I wandered across a small bridge, and suddenly I was in a different world. The view on the other side of the river was of green fields and mountains and in the distance a tiny Torajan village with the traditional boat-like roofs showing through the trees. As I crossed I saw two young boys standing in the river washing two Buffalo – apparently the Torajans are quite attached to their Buffalo. On this side of the river there were no more cars or people staring rudely. There was miles of farm land and tiny lanes with a backdrop of beautiful, tranquil mountains – this was the Tana Toraja I was expecting!

I my way back to the hostel I got caught in a sudden downpour and ducked into an internet café to hide. During the storm the power went down 3 times, apparently a normal occurrence here as the owners started up the backup generator and went about transferring the power cables so we could get back online.

That evening I went to Mart’s Café to meet Adchuk, a guide again recommended by Reena my old hostel owner. Adchuk easily persuaded me to join his group of Spanish people on a 2 day trek through the mountains with an overnight stay in a hilltop village starting the next day. At that point the ever present guitar came out and we all proceeded to spend the evening drinking Bintang and singing along to the hundreds of songs Adchuk has somehow memorized! In English, Spanish and Torajan!

Malaysia Part 2

We left the East coast on Sunday 26th Sept and took an overnight bus to Langkawi. We’d heard good things about the night life here and the really cheap beer. However I think we were ahead of the season as the bars were pretty empty.

Found a good Reggae one, again on the beach and they provided me with petrol for my fire poi. So we went back there every night! Had a bit of a chill on the beach the first few days then decided to be energetic and rent some mountain bikes to explore the island. At the time we didn’t realize quite how hilly the island came be! We headed north to the cable car which took us up to the mountain tops.
Saw a little of the awesome view before the clouds came in and hide everything from us! Then we went down the road to the 7 Wells waterfall and cooled down in the cold mountain water.


We then had to race the sunset back to the hostel so we could still see where we were going! This meant going even harder over the massive up and down hills! Was a tiring day!


The next day we moved on to Penang, famed for it’s good food we thought we should try a bit! And the food there is very good, and cheap, though I still think the Banana Leaf curry in Singapore was the best!
We tried to do some sightseeing and go up Penang Hill, but the train up the hill was closed when we got there after an hour in the bus! Still got to see some of Georgetown and wandered around Fort Cornwallis too. Only spent 2 days here then went straight across to the Cameron Highlands.


The Cameron highlands reminded me a lot of England and made me miss home :o( I don’t know whether it was the bus ride in when the light was fading and the rain was falling and it felt like a cold autumn day! Or the fact that the area has British influences like the tea plantations started by an Englishman, or the bright red English phone box, that I didn’t see but is apparently a tourist attraction! I think it was probably the colder weather and the real grass on the ground!
We did a day tour of the sights that took us around; a tea plantation – amazing views of green tea bushes growing everywhere across the valley and up the hills on the other side, a Butterfly farm – like a big green house full of plants and lots and lots of butterflies!
We tried out our photographic skills trying to get artistic shots, and there was also some random insects that the boys enjoyed holding! We also went to the highest peak, ……, and climbed through some “Mossy Forest”.
We saw a hyrophonics strawberry and fruit farm and I couldn’t help but buy some juicy red strawberries – so tasty! The afternoon was a bit more random; an hour minibus ride to a tiny little waterfall, and a visit to the Ogmi tribe. It was a good experience but wasn’t so much of a tribe as 2 guys that were very used to putting on a show for tourists! I did however have an awesome shot with the blowpipe :o)


Our last few days we spent in KL, probably not enough time though really. We went up the Petronus towers and wandered through park.
I spent an hour or so doing some Batik painting in a little craft village, quite proud of my painting!
On the Friday we went for a curry with a local guy we met and he showed us the great view of night time KL from his apartment! On the Saturday we went back to his again for a pool party!

Now I’m in Makassar, Sulawesi in Indonesia. Spending just one day here, as the city itself isn’t very attractive, but tomorrow I’m going to head up to Tana Toroja…

Singapore & Malaysia Part 1

I jumped on a plane to Singapore on Tues 7th Sept, and headed straight for the cheapest area – Little India. Due to being silly, me and James miss-timed our flights and I had one day by myself before he arrived. So I went to sample the amazing local curry! I had a “Banana Leaf” which had all the veggie dishes and some chicken piled onto a banana leaf around a massive helping of rice – very tasty!

When James arrived we again tried the awesome curry before venturing out into main Singapore. We spent a day wandering the streets, saw some Hindu temples and others, found a very nice park and ended up on Orchard Road in the big shopping malls.

Esculator up to the Park...

Crazy big mall in Orchard Road

We left Singapore pretty sharpish to save some cash so got a bus (very luxurious one at that, as all buses in Malaysia seem to be!) to Melaka. We arrived in Melaka on Friday 10th, which happened to be the start of a 3 day festival celebrating the end of Ramadan. So the town was pretty packed with party go-ers! We spent the first evening squashed into the nightmarket in Chinatown and enjoyed the crazy party atmosphere.

Tasty "meat on sticks" in China Town

Did a little sightseeing in the town then met up with Kat and her friend Josh, for a few drinks and a catch up (I met Kat while on Koh Tao).

Sights of Melaka

They kindly took us to a nearby waterfall the next day and a very random crocodile park! Trekking up next to the waterfall

Poor little crocs in the Malaysian "zoo"

After Melaka we moved across to the East coast and started a few weeks of island and beach hopping that were awesome fun and very relaxing. We started on the Tioman island, off the coast from Mersing. I think the best thing about this island was the cats… also the stunning beaches and clear blue sea I guess.

2 of many many cute cats!

We wanted to do the 3 hour trek across the island through the jungle to Juara, but just as we were preparing to leave the rain came down so we had to give up on the idea. After Tioman we stopped briefly on Cherating beach. It was very quiet here, I think it must be really good in the wet season when the surfing starts though!

A bit of swimming in the beautiful sea

Then we got to the Perhentain Islands and stayed on long beach.

View towards the "posh" end of Long Beach

Here we did our Open Water Dive course with Nic at Matahari divers. This was great fun as I thought it would be! Saw lots and lots of fish and coral, and some blue spotted stingray. I took part in a Project AWARE cleanup dive on the Saturday (25th) which was basically litter picking underwater! But was useful for me to get straight back in the water after the course and practice my newly learnt skills!

Matahari Dive school - spent a fair bit of time here!

The nightlife on this island was the best in Malaysia I think: Lounging around on mats on the beach with a cup of monkey juice and coke (Monkey Juice being the cheap rum sold only on the island), playing with fire poi and listening to some chilled out Reggae music!

Doing a bit of snorkelling and practising our dive signals!