I'll Be There Dreckly: Batman

Tentana, Sulawesi island, Indonesia (map)

In this blog: a change of island, some slow journeys, scootering around a beautiful area, and eating bat.

-------------------------------------------------------

Before I start I want to make an acknowledgement - these blog posts are long! I realise many people can't keep up and have to dip in and out of them, but I like to write it how I see it, and give the full picture of the journey to show it's an experience rather than just a holiday, so thank you regular readers (5 to 25 people a day it says) for your patience, and for reading it full stop! They take ages to write so I hope you find them as well written rather than boring, and continue to enjoy them wherever you are.

-------------------------------------------------------

Sulawesi is possibly the craziest looking island you've ever seen - from above it looks something like an octopus run over by a truck (see map link above). But this craziness extends to activities on the ground as well; the food, people, rituals and chaos, and as you'll see over the next couple of weeks it's often a weird and wonderful place.

After two months on Borneo, we took a flight across the Malassar Strait to the Central Sulawesi city of Palu, arriving at nearly midnight after a nearly two hour delay with Lionair. I'd accidentally (honest guv') left my Swiss Army knife in my hand luggage, and had it confiscated by security when boarding in Balikpapan, so after reclaiming it at customs in Palu, we grabbed a taxi into town and at 1am after three attempts, finally managed to find a guesthouse that was open, even if it was a bit of a dive.

---

Palu

The graffiti was the only interesting thing about Palu

Rene and I only had a vague idea of where we wanted to go in Sulawesi, so the next morning after a couple of hours research and planning, we realised Palu had nothing to offer us and tried to get out of there as quick as possible. With no bus station and only share taxi services scattered around the suburbs it was easier said that done though especially as no-one spoke an ounce of English, and it took a lot of walking and asking around ('bis Tentana?') before we finally found a ride, even if it did leave four hours later.

We took a stroll through town. It was hot but a more pleasant dry heat in contrast to Borneo, and the open sewers beside the road sometimes stank as we headed to the waterfront, which itself was no better with a the sandy beach covered in rubbish and lined by street stalls on one side and dirty seawater the other. This was no tourist town. We turned down a small road and found ourselves walking through a small karaoke street party, where people were very supposed to see us and waved away, and a lady grabbed Rene's nose. This happened to me as well a few weeks before and we learnt that our Caucasian noses are quite a novelty, being long and narrow compared to the short wide Indonesian nose! Eventually we found seemingly the only nice place in the city to relax and wait a couple of hours, before we were finally on our way.

---

On the road

The share taxi almost predictably left nearly an hour late - a people carrier 'kevved up' with a big exhaust, and for no particular reason except coolness or maybe because they considered it 'too safe' - they'd removed the airbag, headrests and seatbelts. Perfect! The scenery was noticeably different to Borneo, and a bit of reading soon told me that whilst Borneo was once part of the Asian continent, Sulawesi has been proven to have formed from landmass from both Asia and Australia and thus had some of the flora and fauna of both. No kangaroos though! A few cultural differences were also noticeable, such as the sight of herds of three or four cows grazing on the roadsides and feral dogs roaming as they please, often looking a bit mangy. We climbed windy mountain roads through rainforest clad hills, past small roadside produce stalls, before descending to the plains. The driver decided to take an hour and a half dinner break to chat to his friends, and we impatiently sat waiting whilst curious local kids spoke phrases of English, took our pictures and gathered to look in curious amazement as I, ahem, read a book. Eight hours later we finally reached the town of Tentena and arriving late at night for the second day in a row, had to do a lot of doorbell ringing before we found a bed.

Tentena is a smallish town set beside the largest lake on Sulawesi, and with a bit of altitude and a nice breeze is pleasant with it. It's hard to call it a beautiful place as few towns we've seen in Indonesia are, but it's certainly got some character with mountains all around, picket fences in front of houses, and many green areas. There are also more Christian churches than one community can possibly need - I've never seen so many in one town, though this strong belief caused all manner of conflict with other Muslim-dominated neighbouring regions just a few years ago and many people died in clashes.

Kooky Canadians

---

Scooter scouting

There wasn't much to see in walking distance, so Rene and I hired a scooter for a couple of days to get out and about. A few miles in, the vague hand-drawn map the guesthouse had given us was a little ambiguous and we took a wrong turn, heading up windy roads into the mountains. We kindof knew it, but kept going anyway to see what we saw. Both sides of the road were covered by often dense jungle, but often interrupted by clearings locals had made either just for the wood or to plant cocoa trees; the dominant crop of the area. Road building was in progress and we passed some women breaking up rocks beside the road with hammers into gravel sized pieces, and men building walls. We eventually found ourselves in a quarry and turned backed back on the workers advice, stopping to look at the fantastic views below on the way, looking at primitive hut houses and small veg patches set back from the road, and taking in the sound of the wildlife amongst the trees. We may have been lost, but it wasn't a wasted journey.

Eventually we found the beach, which is slightly perplexing as you normally need waves to make sand - something noticeably absent on this lake, but the beach very nice anyway It was a great place for a dip - probably the warmest lake I've ever swum in, and we found what we thought was a deserted waterside cafe for lunch. Rene doesn't meet many Canadians on the road, let alone French-Canadians (since French is his first language, and English a close second) yet here in this deserted place we found three of them from Quebec eating a melon so he was a happy chappy. They were heaps of fun for the hour or so we chatted over lunch, them sometimes en Francais, and they told us a few stories from their travels before showing us really stupid funny videos they'd made of themselves along the way - dancing in streets or doing silly monologues. Québécois are renowned for their very unique and quirky sense of humour I learnt afterwards, and here was proof.

That night we went for tea with some Swiss girls who stayed at the hotel, and I ordered a fresh orange juice. To my surprise there were quite a few ants in the glass either desperately swimming around or dead so I politely complained to the owner. To our surprise and amusement, she walked off and came back with not a replacement but a spoon, and carefully fished them out before grinning and walking off. Still tasted good! An even more pleasant surprise was Skyping my Grandpa that night - at 89 years old, he went out and bought his first computer recently, learnt how to use it through books and advice, and now here we were having a face to face chat. You're never too old to learn.

---

Waterfalls and caves

On our second attempt at finding it the next day, we visited Terjun Salopa waterfalls, hidden ten miles from town along a rough lane. I'd see a photo before and it looked good, but nothing prepared me for the spectacular sight of it when we rounded the corner. It was a huge multi tiered affair with water cascading in consistent motion all the way across, indeed it was all so perfect it looked artificial, and with no moss on the rocks, we were also able to paddle amongst it. A beautiful spot to spend a couple of hours. The cafe back by the road advertised 'pyton soup', which we wondered whether was an Indonesian word or a misspelling. We asked the woman who pointed to a photo on the wall of a huge snake, before saying 'sorry, no python today'. Crickey!

Me ruining a photo of a nice waterfall

The stunning Terjun Salopa waterfalls

The scooter was a great way to get a feel of the area independently, as it can feel quite constraining sometimes just relying on public transport or the soles of your feet. We continued on and explored the town, visited a viewpoint with a fantastic panorama over the town and many nearby paddy fields, and finished up the day at a cave. It was dusk, and after walking a few hundred metres down a path through cocoa trees we got something we definitely didn't expect. Seeing the cliffs, I walked up some steps to a huge limestone overhang, to find not a cave you can enter and explore, but instead a shallow cave with piles of broken old coffins and a number of skulls lined up on rocky ledges. Actual human skulls. We were quite taken aback, but were aware burials around here are a little unconventional - as you'll hear in the next blog in no uncertain terms!

Bat

The finish to our time in Tentena was a memorable one. That morning we'd popped into the local market for a look, and came across a huge section of freshly butchered bat meat. Yes, bat!

It was a startling sight, but little did we know that that evening in a local warung (small cafe) we'd have the opportunity to eat it. It was a perverse temptation, I mean bats are scary things right, but the curiosity was too much and tentatively we went for it. There were just a couple of small bits of wing amongst it though otherwise you'd never know what you were eating, and the texture as ever was similar to chicken. But as far as taste was concerned, we guessed the burning sensation of huge amounts of chilli hid something just a little inedible without.