The long journey home

We spent a couple of days back in Makassar in Marlah’s homestay. She welcomed us back so warmly. We went back to the Italian La Piccola again and had the tastiest beef soup in Coto Nusantara. We chilled in the arcades in a mall as it was a bit too hot then bought loads of toy helicopter presents on Losari promenade. 

I love this sign from the barbers I went to in Macassar - I think I had a crew cut with side parting!

“Ooh screen!”

We stopped over in Singapore for a few nights with Jas and Manmeet. It was so nice to spend more time with these great guys. It really felt like home to go back to them. Singapore is so much cleaner and fresher than Indonesia! 

We had a lovely swim at the club the guys are a member of and we took in the water and light show down on Marina Sands Bay. 

We also spent a happy afternoon looking round the Children’s Botanical Garden. It had lots of learning bits, pond with turtles, cave, monitor lizards, playground, sandpit and a flying fox. 

We then spent 24 hours travelling back to the UK including a 12 hour flight from Singapore to Frankfurt which gave me a chance to watch five films, a new record!

Rammang Rammang

Rather than taking a sleeper bus all the way back to Makassar, we broke the journey once at Parepare and again at a cool little place called Rammang Rammang - another recommendation. 

We stayed in a great bamboo stilted ecolodge on the water. 

We watched bats fly over the village in their thousands as it got dark - remarkable. You could see eagles swooping down to catch the stragglers. 

The next day we took a boat tour up and down the river to see Stone Forest, Berua Village and King Kong stone. The rock formations were interesting. 

Village life

We met some tourists in Rantepao who had a video of the head of a village in South Toraja who is trying to encourage tourism there. We contacted Marno and ended up staying in his village, Lampio, for a couple of nights. 

We stayed in a gorgeous Tongkonang traditional house. We had a wander round, feeding some buffalo and watching the locals practice their dancing ahead of Independence Day on the 17th. 

Olive and Boo got the chance to try out weaving. 

We looked round the local market and took lunch at Marno’s house. 

We took an ojak over to see Tampong Allo burial site.

Poor Olive fell on the steps in the dark one evening and gave herself a real bruiser. It was really upsetting and has made me really want to just go home now.

We enjoyed Marno’s hospitality. He is working hard to help his village and we learnt a lot from him just sitting talking. 

More Toraja

Stick around we did, for another week! We clearly love Toraja! We enjoyed walking round the rice fields. I loved watching a guy fishing with his bare hands.

Back in Rantepao, we stayed in the posh place in town - Toraja Heritage. The buffet breakfast was tasty. We took up an invite from the daughter of one of the homestay we stayed at to sample some family life and eat like a local at their home. It was a super experience.

We had one final hurrah with our driver Yusuf and brought closure to our funeral ceremony experience. We had heard that there was a first day funeral ceremony about half an hour away. So we got Yusuf to take us. We checked so many times beforehand with different people that there would be no animal sacrifices and during the ceremony we kept checking and kept getting reassured it was ok as we drank tea and ate some tasty food. We don’t want Olive and Boo to see any sacrifices. Then they carried a pig out on bamboo sticks and Yusuf gave us a knowing stare. So we took the kids out of sight as they sacrificed a pig and a buffalo. We try so hard…..

We stayed in yet another homestay and took in the sights of Tua Tua statues at Lemo (wooden statues carved to look like the person who has died) and lots of bones in caves at Londa. The higher class deceased were hanging from tombs high up on the cliff face. 

And we had a short pit stop in Makale with its impressive central lake and looking down from the Christ the Redeemer statue.