Toradja: Het Land van de Mystici (Part I)

I have been waiting for going to Toraja since thousands years ago. Well, technically, years ago. I really wanted to see Lovely December festival in Toraja in the end of the year but I couldn't make it. So, when there is a chance to go there, I'd be very happy.

Fia, Me and Aldy

One Romanian guy, Dragos, and his friend, Mark, in couchsurfing.org contacted me. He said he wanted to be my guest even in the last minute he canceled, but it's okey. He also said that he wanted to go to Toraja. I've never been there so I guessed it was kinda awesome to travel with them. I also contacted my friends who were willing to take the trip and there were three friends. We were supposed to go to Toraja together by taking a morning bus but for some reason I cancel it and took the night bus. I booked and paid for four tickets (RP 80,000 per each) but one of my travel mate canceled, so I went to Toraja with Fia and Aldy by taking a night bus.

First Day in Toraja: Bolu and Poroktedong

We arrived in Rantepao, North Toraja, at 6.30 am then we were headed to Losmen Familie. Thanks to Dragos coz he booked one room for us for Rp. 50,000 per night. It was quite cheap for a touristic place like Rantepao. We didn't really rest well coz at 9.00 am, we were going to see a Torajanese funeral ceremony in a place called Poroktedong (Buffelo's butt) which some of my Torajanese fellows don't think that there is a city named so. To reach the place, we had to take a minibus to Bolu (Rp. 3000) and take another one (Rp.4000). In our way of taking a bus to Terminal dan Pasa Bolu, we met Sascha and Alex who also joined the trip. I wondered Dragos has already known them.

Let's get the ceremony started as the gong banged

The man lifts the small Tongkonan, the women makes things to eat

Let's put the lovely one in her throne

In the place where the funeral ceremony was held, I was amazed by how the treat the one who already passed despite the fact that they spend millions rupiah for the ceremony. The people who held the ceremony were also nice. They were really welcome to the tourist who wanted to see the ceremony, even a local tourist like me. They invited me to have their beverages. That was the first day of the ceremony. People there said that there were seven days in total for the ceremony. That was why I didn't see such climax of it like the cutting of the buffalo's throat.

Left: Porks as gifts; Right: Let's start making food for lunch :)

Left: Grilled porks; Right: Me, 'One please!'

We left the place about 1 pm. Dragos and Mark planned to go back after taking some stuffs in the losmen. They wanted to sleep over in the ceremony's place with the locals. On the way back to the losmen, Mark and Sascha asked me whether I, Fia and Aldy wanted to join their trip in Northern and Western Toraja in the next day. I said yes coz that would be awesome.

Left: Torajanese house 'Tongkonan'; Right: Small Tongkonan for a dead one and family in it

Second Day in Toraja: Londa and Trekking to Kete'kesu

Left: Googling for some places to see in Toraja; Right: Making my own map of Toraja

We planned to go to the North and West of Toraja, around Sesean Mountain. I myself had no idea about how to go there so I decided to rent a minibus but it was too expensive, Rp 60,000 per each. So, we only went to Londa. We paid for Rp 7000 per person to go there.

In Londa, we paid another Rp 20,000 for some kinda lamp to get in the place coz Londa is such a cave with two 'doors' and it was very dark inside, of course it was. You can see hanging graves here. The higher the coffin placed, the richer people in the coffin is. I, Alex and Sascha wanted to get deeper in the cave. When we reached a big room in the cave and Sascha dropped her camera, we decided not to go deeper. On our way of leaving Londa, we saw the highest place of the coffin that we thought that one might be the richest.

Left: Alex really enjoyed to be inside Londa's cave
Right: Outside Londa where you can see new and old coffins

Left: Some skulls in Londa; Right: Puppets representing the dead ones

Can you see a hole in the cliff? This could be the richest! Imagine how to took the coffin here :)

This is how they made the puppet and souvenirs

I asked the local about how to get in Kete'kesu by walking. He who is a merchant said that we could get Kete'kesu by walking through the rice fields and it sounded fun. Some kids guided us when we were about to find a church. There I asked another locals to show us path to Kete'kesu. On our way, the path became long because some locals gave us regular path to get Kete'kesu, not the one through rice fields, though the scenes were very awesome. One tip is when you lost in Toraja, you better only ask about how to get somewhere, not how many kilometres left to get there. Some people doesn't really know how to count the length of the way and somehow it will disappoint you ;D Like when I asked about how many kilos left to three guys in different place, they all said 'two kilometres left'.

View on the way to Kete'kesu

View on the way to Kete'kesu, a knoll that we thought grey sand

Left: Alex taking picture of a millipede; Right: Rice paddy on the way to Kete'kesu

For entering Kete'kesu you must pay Rp 5000 if you're a local tourist and double of it if you're not. I insisted to the man in the ticket counter to pay the same price for Alex and Sascha, and he was okey with that :D

Kete'kesu

Two toms which are separated from those hanging on the cliff

Very old coffins and some skulls and bones on it

Again! Skulls and bones.

Once again, skull on the bones and coffins in a cave in Kete'kesu

In Kete'kesu, you can see some Torajanese houses with buffalo's horn, again, the more the richer. There is also hanging grave with a cave on the top but we didn't enter.

Me in Kete'kesu

Me, Alex, Sascha and Fia

We went back to the losmen by taking a minibus and paid Rp 3000 for it. Before we were back to each other losmen, we exchanged mobile number and e-mail. Dragos and Mark were back from sleepover in Poroktedong. They said that they were disappointed of the funeral ceremony because they didn't see such an excited thing. Well, it might because it was not climax yet. They also said that they wanted to go to Batutumonga the next day and I said that I, Fia and Aldy wanted to join.

Double Lucky By AirAsia

Pengalaman bersama AirAsia dan menonton F1 seharusnya saya tulis dua minggu yang lalu. Namun karena sibuk menjelajahi Thailand dan Malaysia, saya baru sempat membaginya setelah saya kembali ke kampung halaman :)

Just arrived in KL; Fia in KL Sentral

It was really fun flying with AirAsia for the second time. Saya telah merencanakan my second trip ke Malaysia sejak bulan Februari. Jadi, ketika saya melihat harga tiket yang super murah di website AirAsia untuk penerbangan 8-20 April 2011, saya tidak ragu membelinya walau rutenya adalah Balikpapan-Kuala Lumpur. Saya memang harus mengeluarkan biaya untuk penerbangan Makassar-Balikpapan, tapi tiket pergi pulang untuk penerbangan langsung dari Makassar ke KL waktu itu masih lebih mahal, sekitar Rp 200.000-an. Bagi budget traveller, uang sejumlah ini banyak loh! Oh iya, saya hanya mengeluarkan Rp. 318.000 untuk return ticket loh! Biaya ini sudah termasuk bagasi yang saya share dengan tiga teman saya; Fia, Saskia dan Muhe'. Tiket ini bahkan lebih murah daripada one way ticket ke Balikpapan :)

Saya semakin yakin kalau liburan saya akan lebih menarik setelah membaca beberapa note di laman Facebook AirAsia Indonesia tentang liburan di Thailand, terutama note tentang Songkran Festival. Saya sangat beruntung memilih tanggal yang tepat untuk bisa ikut festival ini. Keep sharing some informations, AA! The next lucky thing that I got is winning AirAsia's Rain on X contest. Katanya kontes ini diadakan sebagai pengganti kontes berhadiah tiket konser Rain yang dibatalkan sebelumnya. Setelah melihat syarat, ketentuan dan hadiahnya, saya pun mengirimkan email berisi slogan ke facebook@airasia.com. Slogan saya berbunyi:

"With or without rain, AAX will still make my day cool!"

Sehari sebelum berangkat ke Balikpapan, ketika dalam perjalanan menuju money changer, saya dihubungi orang dari AirAsia yang mengabarkan kalau saya menang kontes Rain on X. Saya juga diberi tahu kalau hadiah yang saya dapat tidak hanya dua tiket F1, saya juga diberi dua tiket AirAsia Mks-KL (PP) dan dua tiket nonton konser Rain. Betul-betul keberuntungan yang berlipat :) Meski kemudian tiket pesawat itu harus hangus karena saya sudah punya tiket dengan tujuan yang sama.

Fia with two free F1 ticket from AirAsia

Setelah tiba di Kuala Lumpur dan menghubungi Mr Vilon dari pihak AirAsia, esoknya, saya ke LCCT untuk mengambil dua tiket F1 untuk tiga hari racing. Namun saya baru bisa melihat racing di hari kedua dan ketiga. Saya mendapat dua tiket F1 dari AirAsia, namun hanya saya yang sempat menonton race di hari kedua dan ketiga. Tiga teman saya memilih berjalan-jalan di kawasan bisnis dan museum di Sepang International Circuit di hari kedua dan menjelajahi kota Kuala Lumpur di hari ketiga balapan F1.

Kiri atas: Sirkuit Sepang dari tribun Pintu F; Kanan atas: My friends in SIC
Kiri bawah: Me in SIC; Kanan bawah: Standing ovation for the race winner

Setelah F1 berakhir, ada konser Rain di area dekat sirkuit. Saya sebenarnya mendapatkan dua tiket konser sebagaimana ketika diberi tahu oleh pihak AirAsia melalui telepon dan e-mail. Namun, saya tidak mendapatkan tiket fisik tersebut. Tapi saya bukanlah penggemar Rain :) lagipula saya harus kembali ke tempat penginapan untuk menyusun rencana liburan ke Thailand dan kota lain di Malaysia sebelum akhirnya terbang kembali ke Indonesia dengan AirAsia pada tanggal 20 April.

Kiri: Festival Songkran di Hat Yai, Thailand; Kanan: Saya dan teman naik tuk-tuk ke pasar malam di Hat Yai


Kiri: Saya dan teman di Trang, Thailand; Kanan: Fia di Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

Kiri: Saya dan teman dalam perjalanan menuju view point of Koh Phi Phi;
Kanan: Saya dan teman di atas feri menuju Georgetown, Malaysia

Oh iya, empat hari sebelum penerbangan AirAsia ke Kuala Lumpur, pihak AirAsia memberi tahu saya melalui SMS kalau pesawat AirAsia yang mestinya take off pada pukul 13.15, harus dipindahjadwalkan hingga pukul 13.45 meski pada akhirnya pesawat tersebut tiba lima belas menit lebih awal di Kuala Lumpur. I am quite impressed with AirAsia about this. Saya juga dapat pengalaman ketika di Sepang International Circuit; Saya tidak harus menunjukkan tiket saya ketika akan masuk ke tribun di hari ketiga. Petugas hanya langsung menyuruh saya masuk ketika saya hendak mengambil tiket dari tas. Mungkin hal ini bisa dicoba bagi kalian yang suka nonton F1 dan mau nonton langsung di SIC tahun depan :)

Sepang International Sircuit

Sekali lagi, terima kasih buat AirAsia untuk tiket pesawat dan tiket F1-nya.