Rantepao to Makassar
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.
Tags: Indonesia, Local transport, Makassar, SE Asia, Travel, Tag Index
Denni