Denniblog

My backpack has been stolen.

I was waiting for the (delayed) Awu to Maumere at the harbour terminal at 3am, having a smoke, when some guy started talking to me and when I turned around again, it was gone (and so was he). I have only just come from the police station (at 10 am) but the ship is so late that I can still catch it.

The whole story (written up later) has been told in the previous entry, if you’re following this in the ‘SE Asia’ category.

There will be no more pictures, I’m afraid: the camera was in the backpack where I thought it would be safer.

Makassar, Sulawesi, January 4th 2006

I woke up with a start. It was 3:30 am and I’d overslept the alarm.

Everything was ready to go, so I quickly stuffed my wet towel on top of the backpack and closed it. Sweeping the room one last time and seeing nothing amiss, I hurried down the gloomy corridor in my socks. The guy from reception came up to me when I slipped into my flip-flops at the bottom on the staircase (a quick feel had confirmed that my boots were still wet from the monsoon rains—within and without).

“Ah, you’re ready! You need to catch the ship!”

It gave me a warm glow that he was making sure I got up in time, even though the hostel—in a dark alley close to the harbour—was somewhat impersonal, to say the least. I smiled and bade him good-bye, then hurriedly stepped out into the street. I was late. There wasn’t time to worry about getting mugged or otherwise dither.

The street was almost deserted. A few lone revellers passed by, nodding when they made eye contact. Once past the container port and through the gate to the passenger terminal, all that changed. I could see the milling crowds from afar. Again, it looked as if an exodus was in progress, but I took heart. There would be plenty of room for everyone and their households on the ship. But where was the ship? It was now almost 4am.

I turned around to ask at the police post, only to find it deserted. So was the information counter inside the bustling hall. Somebody mentioned a departure time of six. That made sense— perhaps four o’clock was the check-in time. Still, it would help if the ship was there, as it would take a while for everyone to board.

I put down my backpack next to a family group and tried to stretch out on the smooth, warm tiles, but I couldn’t relax. Besides, dozing off would not be advisable. So I sat down on some stairs for a smoke, a few steps away from the sleepers.

Time passed. Eventually, the family upped their belongings and left, perhaps to enquire when the ship was due. I took a last swig from my can and made to get up, when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me?”

I turned around and stared at him irritatedly for a moment. Just some bloke trying to make a pass, or perhaps wanting to practice his English. But if it was the latter, no further word passed his lips.
[read on]

The Awu might only call in Makassar every two weeks or so, but I was in luck. The next departure to Maumere on Flores was due in three days time.

Perhaps I was out of my mind to contemplate taking a Pelni ship after my last experience, but at least I knew not to travel ‘Ekonomi’ this time. I went to the office by the harbour to enquire about a bunk. Third class was full. So was second class. Oh, what the heck.

“First class?”

“Fuuul!”

That couldn’t be—on the ship to Pantoloan, there had been nobody in first class! But then again, this was Makassar, a much busier route.

Unsure what to do, I retreated to the internet café. As always, it took me a while to calm down from the attention I received every time I stepped out onto the street. It was all too much. One thing that was for sure was that I had to get out of here.

So what were my options for onward travel? A part of me, frazzled from the stress, wanted to go straight to Bali, but that was ridiculous. John wouldn’t be due there for another two weeks. And I was meant to see Indonesia, not hide away in some tourist spot. I wanted to experience the spectacular beauty of Nusa Tengagara, even if it was a little inconvenient getting there.

Another part of me still wanted to go to the Moluccas, but with my poor knowledge of Bahasa, it wasn’t really an option and flying there would be risky as foreigners tend to be turned away at the airport. Flying felt like cheating anyway. No, I would go on that ship. I was almost certain that I could upgrade on board, although I would feel better with the right ticket in my pocket.

Even after spending several hours surfing the web, I actively dreaded walking back outside. This wouldn’t do—an agoraphobic backpacker? I bit down a curse and left the internet café. After about five minutes, I was on the verge of bursting into tears. But where to go? It was just after four in the afternoon, and the hostel room wasn’t particularly inviting. I consulted my map and walked down the seaside boulevard, away from the harbour. And the miracle happened: the traffic and throng of pedestrians grew thinner. The surroundings became more pleasant. Most of all, I was left alone. A few kids waved at me, but that was all. I waved back at them with a happy smile. This was much more like it. The side streets were charming and quiet, so I went for a pleasant walk.

There, across the street, was another Pelni agent! By some miracle, it was still open. Luck was on my side.

The clerk shook her head. “Fuuul!”

“Really?”

“Really!”

—Then again perhaps not.

I made some more detailed enquiries. The Awu was due to leave on the fifth on January at 4 am, but the hostel was practically in spitting distance from the passenger terminal, so the time wasn’t a problem. I could catch some sleep beforehand. It would be a 22h trip, perhaps I could stay alert the entire time.

I bought the ticket.

Back at the Torajan bar, I began to formulate a plan of how to deal with the men. If you can’t beat them, join them. I would keep my mangled language books in my bag and enforce a language lesson! They would teach me Bahasa, I would teach them English. This would ensure that the obnoxious element filtered away soon enough, and their place would be taken by friendly, bright guys I could latch on to.

But 4 am is a hell of a time for a language session.

I pushed the thought from my mind and tried to enjoy Makassar. As nice as it was by the seaside, scarcely half an hour later the heavens opened again and rain washed down in thick curtains. I was really not meant to do any sightseeing.

Since I picked up on last year’s journal entries, I might as well continue. Alas, there are no more photos.

I left Toraja with a pang of regret, but I knew that I had stayed for long enough, given the season. Hanging on for longer would only dissipate the magical start to the year. It was time to move on.

Besides, it wasn’t getting any drier.

My stuff was still damp. I piled my clothes on top of a plastic bag, tied the wet boots to the outside of the backpack and went in search for a bus to Makassar.

One regret I have was not tasting pa’piong, the fabled Torajan delicacy: meat or fish—often prepared with coconut milk—is steamed with vegetables and young banana stems in open bamboo tubes over a slow fire. It has to be ordered in advance and I didn’t have the time. I contemplated staying for another day, but my taste buds were still compromised by the great Indonesian flu, which seemed to have struck down everyone in Sulawesi just before Christmas. At least I had managed to taste a little of the distinctive and delicious Torajan cuisine: stir-fried vegetables—usually mixed with bits of meat—are garlicky and salty enough to blast open anyone’s sinuses and the earthyness of the black Pamarrasan spice mix is rather pleasantly offset with lemon grass.

But I digress again. Catching a bus to Makassar wasn’t difficult, I just walked down the street until I came across a Segeri Indah bus that still had places. It filled up soon enough with people returning to Makassar from visiting their families. Mostly they were couples—and all the women had toddlers and babies in tow. Soon, the bus was converted into a rolling nursery, and every half-an-hour, we stopped—for half an hour—in a cacophony of crying babies and hassled mothers shushing and changing nappies.

I figured that, at this speed, we wouldn’t get to Makassar before 4 a.m., but it was just possible that things would change once we were out of Tana Toraja. And so it turned out. As soon as the last dramatically curved roofs disappeared from sight, the bus picked up speed and zoomed through the spectacular mountain scenery with no further intent of stopping. The toddler in the woman’s lap next to me picked that moment to violently throw up. Warm sick trickled down my trousers. And it didn’t stop.

It wasn’t actually too bad, baby sick doesn’t smell much. But the child could not hold down any water. Aside from brief periods of sleep, it continued to be sick. I stared to seriously worry about dehydration. If only we would stop again! But we did not for four more hours. And after a short reprieve, the poor boy had to make it all the way through to Makassar. He did.

As we approached the city, I caught a newspaper headline: KORBAN BOM PALU KE MAKASSAR. Now, ‘korban’ means sacrifice. Was this some threat to plant bombs everywhere from Palu to Makassar? Or were the Palu bombers targeting the Sulawesi capital next? ‘Korban’ also means victim. Maybe the headline merely referred to the transfer of one of the bomb victims. So it turned out, but for a while, I was worried.

The sky opened again when we finally rolled into Makassar, late in the afternoon. There was no bemo from the out-of-town terminal to the centre. By now, I had developed a devil-may-care attitude, jumping from one bemo into the next while trying to vaguely align my guide book map with the surroundings. It would serve me well in my onward travels, but I was stressed. And, I realised, I was back in the real world. People were staring. There were no other foreigners. The only recommended backpacker hostel—as I found after walking past it repeatedly—was closed and boarded up, festooned with placards.

Oh dear.

Thankfully, I found a place for the night, but it was considerably less pleasant than the beautiful and downright luxurious accommodation I had enjoyed in Ampana and Rantepao. It was in a dark back alley, not far from the harbour. I felt uneasy.

At least there was an internet café and a Torajan-run bar nearby. But the weather did not invite any sightseeing and I had no desire to linger.

The ship to Flores, I heard, ran every two weeks.

Actually, Tadley did manage to throw a good party. We were let in the pub despite not having collected the tickets, and while there was drunkenness, there was no fighting. We all hugged each other. John and I toasted the New Year with Lagavulin and there was a nice fireworks display outside. It didn’t rain. For the first time in many days, we could see the stars.

But I digress. I want to write about New Year’s Day 2006.

New Year’s is going to be boring here. Our former regular pub has changed management and the new regular has recently attracted a crowd of shady types, displaced from the ‘Fox’ when it lost its late licence. As if the possibility for skirmishes isn’t enough to put us, off, they charge entry for tonight, and it will be jam-packed.

I prefer instead to remember one of the best New Year’s parties I’ve ever had (apart from the one where the diving club held an impromptu ceilidh in the streets of St. Andrews at 3 am).

A year ago on this day, I climbed on a nightbus in Ampana—having returned from the Togean islands—and passed through a portal into a fantasy kingdom which bore no relation to the world around it.

I had arrived in Tana Toraja.

Yahoo is notoriously difficult to get into, I may change my account to Gmail. I don’t know what their excuse is for running such slow servers. So I tried the old ‘mailto’ protocol instead, but got Outlook Express, from which of course it is not possible to send a simple email without having to run the Internet Connection Wizard. Thanks, Microsoft!

Hence another personal message disguised as a blog entry:

Hi John,

What do you mean ‘relax in Bali’? What about diving?? Diving in neighbouring Lombok is great. The logbooks (blue wallets) are in the box next to the computer desk and the contact lenses are in the small box under the bathroom sink. But even if you don’t want to go diving, bring at least a mask and snorkel! If I ever get access to USB, I’ll show you pictures of the corals around here.

BTW, the Great Indonesian Flu is making the rounds and everyone has it—in Sulawesi at least. It is a bastard: just when you think you got off lightly it hits with the second round, which includes fever. We didn’t need to worry about the Bird Flu virus recombining with Human Influenza in Europe where the arrival of migratory birds coincided with the flu season: it can happen here at any time!

Some Islamicists just bombed Palu market. They are joyless bastards. By happy coincidence I did not travel through there (there was a direct nightbus to Palopo). But don’t worry too much—it means that security is going to be tightened up quite a few more notches!

Happy New Year! Here in Rantepao it is great, a real party town. It is all part of the Tana Toraja culture (Google it—I can’t. Internet is too slow.)

Hopefully the weather will improve and I will recover from the flu, so I can have a look around soon.

…is that travel often leads to where there is no internet, or electricity for that matter.

This is why I have not been in touch for a while. I’m very sorry, John—I back-stepped on my original plan to go to Manado first and email from there, took a bus to Poso instead (which left before the internet café opened) and almost ended up marooned in the Togean Islands for a week.

Long story.

Or rather, quite a few long stories. I will upload and back-date my entries from this time (so that they are in sequence) when I next come across internet access with USB. This blog is therefore likely to lag behind until I get to Bali to meet up with John on January 20th.

To cut a long story short (for now); Indonesia has been a bit of a culture shock. I won’t censure the (printable) parts of my journal too much, which have been typed up on the Palm, because I think it is an object lesson in travel—warts and all. The entries from Dec 21st up until now, as and when they come, comprise a bit of a rollercoaster ride, but I must say that Indonesia is slowly reeling me in. Despite my initial love-hate relationship, the country has me gripped.

All is well. Happy new year from Rantepao, Sulawesi.

PS When I can’t get into Yahoo (such as now) I can still get into this blog! Sometimes this is the only way to get in touch—bear with me. This is extreme blogging.

…No—it was a bug! A beetle, to be precise, the size of my hand, which whizzed above our heads with an awesome buzz before colliding audibly with one of the roof beams at Black Marlin Divers on Kadidiri, Togean Islands. One of the little dark geckoes that scuttle around on the walls actually tried to grab it. I wonder what would have happened if it had succeeded—I guess the beetle would have flown off with it hanging like a salmon in the claws of a sea eagle; and perhaps it would have eaten it as well.

The title question is far from unreasonable, because here the butterflies are the size of blackbirds and the bats are the size of butterflies back home. In Indonesia, the bugs are awesome. Just look what they swept out of the office in the same dive centre earlier that morning:

The coin next to this little fella is a 100 rupiah coin, the same diametre as an English 1 £. The fangs of this specimen would have fitted smugly around my little finger.

It doesn’t stop there. Back on mainland Sulawesi, we stopped briefly at a village next to a small tree which was entirely encased in a dense gauze of spiderwebs, festooned with dozens of spiders each the size of my hand—like the veil of the bride of Dracula. I can only presume that the spiders eat the birds around here.

Memories of happier times…

I’ve managed to shrink a few pictures down to manageable size, for blogging purposes only. They are a little grainy, but clear enough. They were taken just after Christmas in the Togean islands—as close to Paradise as I have yet been; if you disregard the areas where blast fishing has reduced the coral to rubble.

The place is Black Marlin Divers on Kadidiri. The time is early morning and we are getting ready for a diving-and-snorkelling trip.

Even on the beach in front of the resort, heads of coral poking through the sand are populated by starfish and hundreds of flitting fish taking advantage of the nutrient-rich water.

But to get to more pristine sites, we take a 20 minute boat ride between the islands and enter the water above a coral garden…

…just above a sheer drop-off. In the clear water, I can see the divers 20m below me and silhouettes of large fish in the distance. A lucky buddy-pair saw a turtle slowly flapping past.

One day, I’ll get back to this writing business and I will tell you the whole adventure, with better photos.