SULAWESI (PART 1), IN WHICH WE JOIN A TORAJAN FUNERAL PROCESSION

We are stranded for at least the afternoon, maybe the whole evening because of the downpour, so I am forced to stop an finally get around to blogging. You see, the trouble is I am a lazy blogger who only writes when so inclined, or, when I'm stuck at a guesthouse with no place to go, as it were.

Nicole and I are in Myanmar now; it's our third day here and here in the region around Yangon it's rainy season. It's rained all three days we've been here so far. As the guy from the guesthouse who rode with us on the truck said, ever so matter-of-factly, "It's raining cats and dogs." Earlier in the week, he said, it was raining "cats and pigs," which is apparently even worse. But now we're stuck and there's no hope of getting to see the Golden Rock of Mt Kyaiktiyo. Maybe if we're very lucky, we'll get to go tomorrow. But now is a good time to begin the game of catch-up with my blogging. Being strictly chronological, I am still in Indonesia.

So... Where were we? Ah yes: After a few day on Pulau Seram, we returned to Ambon for a night and then flew to Makassar, the capital of Sulawesi. The flight wasn't anything special but as we were disembarking, the pilot, who was standing at the exit, caught my eye. He was my neighbour in Jakarta! I don't know his name, but he lived (or lives, actually) in my same tower in my apartment. I've barely talked to him beyond the occasional "Hello," but we've shared many an elevator ride together. I also know he has an Indonesian girlfriend, who I have chatted with several times before. He recognized me right away as I walked past, and there was a moment of surprise and a quick greeting as I went past. I've said before how most of the expats in West Jakarta seem to be teachers or pilots; guess it was only a matter of time before someone I knew ended being the pilot for one of my budget flights.

There wasn't much to see or do in Makassar. The day we arrived, we hired a car to take us to see some cave paintings and a waterfall, which was neat, if a little lackluster. Mostly it was just hot. I don't know how the Muslims endure not drinking all day during Ramadhan. I really, truly don't think I could do it. My favourite part of our stay in Makassar was walking along a long public seafront area. It was getting to be evening and people were coming out in droves to enjoy the night and get ready to break their fasts. The most popular item to have on hand seemed to be some sort of jelly drink in a plastic cup. (Think of juice with small jello cubes floating inside.) There was a large and beautiful mosque sitting over the water, modeled in a modern style. As soon as the call came out across the loudspeakers, everyone unlidded their jelly drinks, waters, juices and downed them within moments. There was a fairly festive atmosphere and people seemed to be enjoying themselves. (There was also an unending line of fried banana stands along the way. I mean at least a hundred carbon copies of the exact same sort of stand! The idea of branching out and selling something unique, say pineapple, is apparently just not done. We joked about how the sellers must just hope a person gets tired of walking in front their particular stand. Do they ever lend each other bananas? What would happen if you did open a pineapple stand? Questions without answers...)

As interesting as it was to see everyone break their fast at sundown, the downside to it being Ramadhan was that the city was largely shut down and it was difficult to find food. Beer, even at a convenience store, was not a possibility. The next day (after a visit to Fort Rotterdam, in which we spent more time playing cards in front of the museum instead of touring,) we ate lunch indoors in a stuffy restaurant with its windows and blinds closed because they didn't want to flaunt the food when most people were fasting. I wasn't much hungry anyway. We had been on a mission to find pineapple (and not fried bananas, damn it!) the night before, but only found one at a grocery shop. Well, it was a bit off, and the next morning so was my stomach. We were all ill to varying degrees, Nicole and I getting the worst of it.

Earlier that day Nicole and I had renewed our 30-day visas at the Makassar immigration office. Neither of us were feeling well, but Nicole was feeling worse just then so she left me to do the "negotiations". The so-called "song and dance" for which she did not have the patience at the moment. I was so proud of the subtlety and dexterity with which I navigated my first bribe: "I'm sorry miss, the visa takes three days to process." "Ah, no. You see we must get it today. Must. What is the price for express processing?" "I don't know miss. I am new and I don't want any trouble, but I will ask my boss..." Some moments later... "For express is 500,000." $50 more or less. So then our passports disappeared behind closed doors for some 45 minutes. When I gently inquired as to their status, the clerk went back to check and produced them a few minutes later. They don't need three days to process them. They don't even need thirty minutes. After you give them your information and fill out a form, they put the appropriate sticker on a page, stamp it and sign it. It's a process of about, oh, 10 seconds. Maybe 20 if you had to find a new package of visa stickers.

On the way back from the immigration office, I started to feel very poorly as well. I managed to hold it together until we got out of the taxi, and then had the lovely experience of vomiting - twice - onto a grassy curb between street and shop. Was it the pineapple? Was it the runny egg I made myself eat with the free breakfast that morning? Probably both. At least Matt and Scott didn't get too sick, maybe just a bit of an upset stomach. It's kind of inevitable at some point when you're travelling Southeast Asia.

That night we took the night bus to Rantepao, the biggest town in the Tana Toraja area, and arrived about 5 AM the next morning. We checked into Hotel Pison, ate breakfast, and promptly fell asleep for a much needed one-hour nap. Nicole had already contacted someone about being our guide in Tana Toraja, but since we had not confirmed, he was already with someone else. He did, however, set us up with another guide, Yulius, who turned out to be a great guide. After the nap, we were ready to go - no point in wasting a morning - and set out right away to see one of the famous/infamous Torajan funerals.

We had a minivan, a driver, and Yulius. Not too far outside of town, we turned off on a side street and went up and down a few country roads before stopping. Like any big gathering, there were cars and trucks parked all along the road, so you knew it was going to be a big to-do. "Big to-do" isn't even remotely getting close to describing just how big of an affair this funeral was. First, perhaps, a bit of background knowledge.

Our Lonely Planet guide says that for the Torajans, "life revolves around death," and we found this out to be absolutely true. Torajans save all their lives for their funeral rites to properly send their loved ones to the afterlife. Of course people die all the time, and families will have private, small-scale ceremonies at the actual time of death, but that's really just the beginning. Bodies are preserved with chemicals and kept at home. In the case of a husband or wife, the deceased is placed into the couple's bed and remains there until it's time for the big funeral. For the case of another family member, the body might be kept in the common area. The person is not referred to as "dead," but "getting sick." While the family member is "getting sick," the extended family is contacted and plans are made to return to Toraja in the summer months. There are funerals all year long, but July and August are known as the funeral season. The big funeral involves the extended family, a huge arena about the size of a football field, hundreds of buffalo and pig slaughters, tons of food, processions, and eventually a splendid burial. Funerals usually last about 5 days. The more important the person was in the community, the bigger, more expensive, and more grand the funeral is likely to be.

As we made our way up the hill to the funeral area I remember seeing a family making their way down. The look of horror on the young daughter's eyes made us wonder what exactly we were going to find. At the entrance our eyes got wide as saucers, and stayed that way. 

The first thing we noticed was the livestock. Buffalo were being lead into the funeral arena by their nose rings and pigs were tied hand and foot (or hoof and hoof?) to bamboo frames and left lying on the ground to be carried in later. Donors' names were often spray-painted onto the animals' sides. 

Seeing the pigs tied up disturbed me a lot; obviously they didn't like it and they squealed a lot. The noises they make are just so unnerving: screams, grunts, and squeals of distress. It's a sound of panic and not of pain, but it still cut through me and bothered me at my core. They shelter the pigs from the sun, laying big leaves over them, and making sure they're okay, but they will still occasionally thrash and kick and foam at the mouth. And this was just at the entrance. I knew that if I didn't steal myself, I wouldn't be able to even enter the rest of the funeral.

Yulius got us a place in the section of the pavilion housing the second son of the deceased lady and his extended family. Tradition dictates that guests bring a gift, usually sugar or cigarettes, to the family. We had already stopped en route for Yulius to pick up a gift and he now handed me a carton of cigarettes to hand to the family head. We removed our shoes and climbed up into the section of raised pavilion. We sat on the floor mats with everyone else and were offered some snacks and a very earthy tasting coffee while we did some introductions. It felt weird to be there. Afterall, we were basically crashing someone's funeral. But while the tone was serious, it wasn't at all dour or sad, it was more of a celebration. The younger and better English-speaking generation asked us questions and introduced themselves. I slightly bowed my head and handed our gift over to the family elder, the second son, humbly saying, "Here are some cigarettes for your family." I reflected that I had never said, nor would probably ever say again, that particular sentence.

Yulius informed us that we were invited to join the family in their procession if we would also join them to eat afterwards. We looked at each other, blinked a bit, and slowly said, "Uh... yes..." Because how often do you get to join a Torajan funeral procession? It's along the lines of what you call a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so, we had to say yes. The different families of the deceased lady's children took turns throughout the day making a procession across the arena to sit in a small, central pavilion for a while. The men and women stood in separate lines and we waited for a long time while a man on a bullhorn announced the animal sacrifices brought by each member of the family. Each child, we were told, would be expected to bring buffalo, and for every buffalo, four pigs. Since the lady had eleven children, this amounted to about 70 buffalo and close to 300 pigs... from the immediate family alone... for one lady's funeral. 

Eventually we made our way to the pavilion where the grandchildren, dressed fancily in traditional clothing (and makeup for the girls) greeted us. The men were offered cigars and cigarettes. The young women were offered candies and the older women took betelnut. On heading back to the family's own area we got separated from Matthew and Scott but just followed our hosts.

There was a lot of butchering going on at this point. It was the third day of the funeral and that meant pig butchering. The buffalo fighting and sacrifices would come later in the week. I saw a lot of graphic images, such as the charred bodies of the pigs after they had been flamed to remove the hair, blood spilling out of such a charred pig as it was set on the ground for butchering, and the uncoordinated hacking with machetes on the ground that passed for butchering (can't remember if they actually had a tarp down or not.) These sights were very gruesome and bloody, and yet, they didn't bother me too much. Hearing the pigs squeal in distress was far worse and sickening for me than seeing the aftermath of the killing and butchering. It made me reflect that death doesn't bother me so much as suffering. And even so, the pigs didn't suffer too much. The pigs and buffalo are respected for their roles in the funeral and so they're treated well in life. At the funeral, of course they're distressed because they're tied up, but they are still kept in shade throughout the day. And the killing itself is quick. I think. (Didn't actually care to see it for myself.) It also made me think about the animals whose lives end at factory farms who probably suffer a lot more. That's not cool. So you see now why I was quiet and pensive and my eyes were wide as saucers.

We ate a lunch of pork, rice and other dishes, self served into a brown paper packet. While we were sitting and eating with our adoptive family, someone came up to our section and handed the family elder a large pig haunch, still raw and bloody, which he causally set beside him. It was, overall, a fascinating, eye-opening, somewhat bizarre, and quite bloody experience.

We stayed for several hours, but eventually Yulius lead the way out and we went back down the hill with partly dazed expressions much like, What did we just see? 

For the rest of that day we toured some traditional houses and then returned for a Torajan meal. We had chicken and pork, each cooked (steamed maybe?) in a bamboo shoot which then gets shaken out onto a platter at your table, along with rice and veggies (because you haven't eaten unless you've had rice). It was delicious, leading Nicole and me to decree Torajan food to be some of, if not the best, food we've had in Indonesia. (A thought that was confirmed in the next days.)

That was the first of our three days with Yulius, but I'll leave off there, because if I don't post something soon, I might just never get around to posting anything at all. As always, more to follow.

MALUKU, IN WHICH CORAL, BARNACLES, AND GRAVEL ASSAULT MY LEGS IN THE ORIGINAL SPICE ISLANDS

We flew into Maluku on  small plane, about the size of what I fly from Minneapolis to Chicago, but it had propellers attached to either wing. Once we landed, we took a bemo (like a van / bus) into the main part of Ambon. You can take a ferry across the bay from the airport to the city, but bemo only costs $1, even if it is a bumpy and cramped hour-long ride. 

Ambon was not exactly pretty. We got dropped off in a market area and had to wander some pretty squalid streets and ask frequently the way to our hotel, seeing as it didn't exactly have an address, just a nearby street. We remarked that if we had 5000 rupiah for every time someone shouted, giggled, made some sort of noise at us or solicited us for an ojek ride, we could have stayed at a nicer hotel, or maybe flown Garuda instead of Wings Air (whose motto is often written as, "Fly Is Cheap".)

The order of the night was to send our laundry for express cleaning across the street, hire two ojeks to take us to an internet shop, and find dinner. In dirty, gritty Ambon where almost no one spoke English, these things might have been overwhelming and impossible if we hadn't just come off two years in Jakarta. A meager understanding of Bahasa Indonesia and an acclamation to less than pristine and hygienic conditions has gotten us through a lot.

The next morning we found a thumb-sized cockroach scuttling out of our bathroom. At that size, you really don't want to squash them (at least Nicole and I don't) so our solution was to trap it under a teacup and leave said teacup undisturbed in the middle of the room until further notice. (Further notice was a man with a can of bug spray who defly scooted the teacup out into a corner of the hallway and sprayed the poor, disgusting critter until it was twitching on its back.)

Around noon we took a bemo back to the airport to pick up Matthew and Scott, two college friends of Nicole's. We had to do some haggling before we left, sadly. For the same journey that cost us 10,000 rupiah each the day before, the driver and his buddy asked for 20,000. Granted, this is about a $1 difference (less even with exchange rate the way it is) but it's still 200% of the real price. And this is an old, tired game which we are familiar with. We knew exactly what was going on.

We said, "No," and stuck to our guns. They tried to insist. We didn't budge (literally and figuratively - we were already inside the bemo). While pinching my skin I said, "Kulit putih, kulit cocklat, sama sama," which translates to "White skin, brown skin, the same." The man's reaction was to throw back his head and laugh and offer 15,000. What... feces of a male bovine animal, if you'll pardon my French. We still said no and eventually got our way. We didn't get out and paid 10,000 apiece at the end.

Matthew and Scott arrived successfully in Ambon after two days of flying. They came off the plane in surprisingly high spirits (maybe they were just dazed and confused?) and we happily set off for the ferry to take us to Pulau Seram. We arrived in time, or so we thought, only to find that Ramadhan had thrown a monkey wrench in our plans and that the ferry had already left little less than an hour before. Well, poop. (A stronger synonym may have been employed, I don't recall.)

So how? as our students would say. What were we to do? The man at the dock with the best English, who was explaining all this to us, informed us that we could catch the ferry at 9 the next morning and that he and his buddies would give us ojek rides to a nearby hotel. Having little other choice, we said okay. While Nicole and I were bummed out that our plans for the night had fallen through, the guys were ecstatic that they were already getting to ride a motorbike.

It wasn't all bad though. I think Matt and Scott were actually relieved to not be on another mode of transportation. That night, Nicole, Scott, and Matt taught me how to play Eucher, a partnered card game. We played it almost every night after that; we definitely played cards of some sort every day.

The next morning the ojek guys showed up bright and early as they said they would, urging us to leave asap. The only difference was that this morning there were only three of them. The 4th guy just didn't show up. Ferry was getting ready to leave, we needed to go, so... my backpack went with another guy, and Nicole's bag, Nicole, and I all got one motorbike. I was wedged between Nicole and the driver (Charlie, the chap with the good English) and Nicole's hefty backpack went between Charlie and the handlebars.

It felt like madness; we had never thought we would actually try the old three-to-a-motorbike thing, let alone with a great, hulking backpack of about 15 kilos. But we were off, zooming to the port. A few minutes in, it started to rain. And a few minutes after that, it began to pour. I discovered that getting whipped in face by raindrops hurts when you're speeding along. I kept about half an eye open to avoid getting smacked in the cornea. There was nothing for it anyway but to hold on to Charlie and hope we got there in time in one piece. We weren't in bad spirits though, we were laughing at the whole thing.

We did get there in time in one piece. We were lucky enough to get some of twenty last tickets too.

The trip from Ambon to Seram was... tumultuous, to put it nicely. We started smoothly, but soon the seas turned moody. First came the lurching forward and back, bad enough for someone such as myself who's prone to motion sickness, but then the lurching side to side came as well and the whole passenger area became a cacophony of moans, gasps, whines, and retches. Not mention the actual vomiting and the sickly, sweaty smells that suffocated the air. Matt - whose mother had made him pack a pharmacy in addition to his first aid kit - had motion sickness pills, but they weren't making me any less queasy, nor were the knocking me out. I was a pale, ashy ghost, eyes closed and damp with sweat, clutching the edges of my seat. When at last I felt like I was really going to throw up - now - I went to the front of the passenger area where a hatch had been thrown open to the bow to allow some air to pass (AC towers weren't working). I walked right out into the open to vomit over the side, but I found that the cold, wet wind and forward facing position erased my need to vomit.

Instead I just clutched at the hatch door and stood on the deck, finding it better than going back into the passenger area. Eventually I got shouted at by someone above on the ferry's bridge to get back inside, which I did, sort of... I sat at the top of the stairs to the hatch and faced outward, face and torso in the open, looking ahead and letting the cold keep me alert. For once I was selfish and didn't care if I was blocking air flow. I wasn't budging from my spot and going back to the rocking, sweaty, vomit noises.

Eventually Nicole joined me. (Matt wasn't enjoying himself by any means, but was managing; Scott felt fine and could have chowed down on a granola bar to pass the time, and told us as much.)

Sitting in the cold, wet wind wasn't exactly pleasant, but with a just-one-more-hour, just-thirty-more-minutes, this-too-shall-pass attitude, well, it did pass. But I sure felt like a miserable, drowned, seasick rat when we finally squeezed of the boat. (Or maybe a mouse, since I prefer them to rats.)

Some confusion and haggling followed as we tried to communicate and negotiate with the driver there to pick us up. The price seemed to have changed on us. Not something to brighten our moods. We got the price down a bit after walking away and trying to get a ride with someone else. Then, it was a few more hours drive through twisting roads and over the mountainous hills of Seram. And then... another boat! This time, it was a narrow and almost canoe-like one that took across a stretch of water to our homestay.

We were four of maybe fifteen tourists total in the village, and the only Westerners, so it felt very authentic; there weren't any tourist resources, just the activities that the guesthouse could arrange. Like in Raja Ampat, we ate what was given us for all three meals.

On our first full day we did a snorkeling tour. The coral and fish were nowhere near as impressive as Raja Ampat, but it was still good, of course. The highlight of the day was lunch: a small picnic with freshly grilled fish (as in grilled in front of us and popped onto the platter) in a shady grove where we stopped for the afternoon on a little island, just for ourselves. It was a delightful lunch.

On day two, a man from a nearby village took us on a jungle trek. The jungle trekking itself was pretty mild, less than two hours I think, though not without some rough patches. Whereas most guides in Indonesia wear flip flops and have a cigarette in hand, chain-smoking all the while, ours was barefoot and carried a machete and a black plastic bag. I don't know how he managed to walk through some of the tighter spots without falling and killing himself with the machete, as I would have inevitably done.

There was a canopy platform