Wednesday, 2011-3-9
Fusiu had arranged a car for Rp200,000 to take us to the airport. We left at 6:30, and there was not much traffic on the road. However, the motorbike riders were really very reckless, and they would ride on the pedestrian side walk in order to avoid the queue on an intersection. It took us less than half an hour to get there. The driver rent the car for taking passenger, and Kuihua had hired him before when we went to Sukabumi, and again when we went to Bandung with Zhenghua. The traffic on the toll road was also not heavy, and everyone was driving on their lane. I was happy to see such an improvement over what I saw on the road to Bogor. And suddenly, I saw cars started to drive pass on the shoulder as we approached a toll exit.
It was a nice day, and the plane took off a little late. We sat next to a young Chinese woman in the waiting room, and Ching was having some small talk with her. She was from Manado and had been a third generation Chinese, but her skin was very pale and no sign of sun burn. She probably was in and out of car and never had to be exposed to strong sun shine. I saw another young Chinese woman wearing mini skirt, and half sitting and half lying on the chair with her thigh fully exposed and nearly showing her underpants.
The airplane was an Airbus A320, and I got the seat on row 10, I had asked the clerk to give me the seat on the front row, and felt that row 10th was a little too far behind, but somehow, I didn’t ask the clerk to re-assign me the seat. I regretted for my decision. As we approached the southern coast of the upper arm of Sulawesi Island, I saw a chain of coral islands with its beautiful lagoons and beaches., it was really fantastic. But my seat was above the engine, and didn’t get the best view of the scenery.
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| A giant sculpture on the airport road |
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| A view of the city from hotel |
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| Large fruit bat for sale in a supermarket |
The hotel clerk told me the cost of taxi from airport to hotel was about Rp125,000. There were many touts in the airport soliciting the passengers. I asked Ching to talk to one Chinese girl. She told me that I could have two options: one was to have a fixed price of Rp125,000 as what I had been told, or by the meter which she estimated to be less than Rp100,000. So I took the later. Unfortunately, the driver took us for a ride and the final cost was Rp165,000. Manado was on the bank of a horseshoe bay surrounded by hills, and the city was mostly built on hills and there were very little flat land near the shore. We were impressed of the cleanliness of the city and its streets. I booked a room in Hotel Minahasa recommended in Lonely Planet guide book. The hotel was located on a small hill and had a command view of the bay. The hotel room was Rp 320,000 and the cost for an extra bed was Rp120,000. We went out for dinner with the intention of having nice Chinese seafood in Wisata Bahari recommended by the hotel staff, but we were tired and didn’t want to walk any farther to the restaurant that we wanted to, and stopped at a mall. We had simple and quickly prepared foods instead. There was a supermarket in the mall which was twice as large as the superstore on Baseline Road in Ottawa. In the meat department, we found the specialty food of the area; it was the large black fruit bat, with its body the size of a large rat. It was not cheap and the price tag was Rp300,000 a piece.
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| Debris on the beach |
As we returned to the hotel, I asked the clerk for information on the local tourist attractions. She said that the hotel offered a guide tour of the city for Rp900,000 for one day. I called the taxi that we had hired from the airport and was told that we could hire their taxi for Rp60,000 an hour. It looked that this was a more attractive alternative.
Siangfa had warmed us that the beach in Manado was not attractive. We passed a small section of the beach on our way to the restaurant, and saw the debris (mostly plastic bags) floating and scattered on the beach.
Thursday, 2011-3-10
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| View from a lookout at Pineleng |
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| Traditional house in Minahasa |
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| A village on the road to Tomohon |
After having breakfast in the hotel, we hired a car own by the hotel at an hourly rate of Rp50,000 an hour. The driver was Jemi. It was a 7 passengers Toyota minivan. The driver was very knowledgeable and was very nice. The destination was to go up to Tomohon, south of Manado, up in the hill in the Minahasa. We drove on Jalan Manado-Tomohon, a winding mountain road built on the slope of the surrounding hills. The car quickly climbed up steep hill as we left the city, and we stopped at a lookout in Pineleng. It had a good view of the city and its harbour. We saw many wooden houses with its unique style: large and low slope roof with very wide overhang especially in the front. This feature was probably to protect the house from the intrusion of the rain in windy day, and it covered or shadowed about a third of the upper part of the main house. The stilts were higher than the height of the main house it was supporting. Traditionally, the area under the house was for animal and storage, but now many houses had finished this area. The main house had large and decorative front veranda. The whole things made the house had the appearance of top heavy.
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| A hexagonal Chinese temple |
Large mangoes were on sale in some roadside stands along the road as we began the climbing. Later, only several different kinds of banana were on sale. In a few stands, they were selling some small durian at a high price of Rp30,000 each. The road became straight when we entered the broad valley between two volcanoes: Gunung Lokon and Gunung Mahawu. Tomohon was on a fertile plateau with an elevation of 700 metre, and was an agriculture center. As we entered the town, we saw many nurseries lining both side of the road. We went to visit the old Chinese temple which had a unique style. It looked like a Mongolian tent and with a hexagonal roof. Beside it was a 9 stories standard Chinese style pagoda. It was opened for visitors to climb up the pagoda only on Sunday.
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| Gunung Lokon with a large brown hot spot on its slope |
Gunung Lokon was an active volcano. Its peak was over 1,500 m high, and appeared to be very close to town. We could see the features of the volcano clearly. It had a perfect cone shape like an ice cream cone completely covered with vegetations. We couldn’t see if it had any crater on its top. Many ridges ran from the top liked hot chocolate pour over the ice cream cone. A large hot spot appeared on the slope of the hill, where all the vegetations had turned brown, and smokes rose up from time to time. This was the volcano that I had seen in the closest distance. A female foreign climber ignored the warning of her guide, and insisted on climbing the volcano when it exploded and became a victim. Now it was prohibited to climb this volcano. To its east was another inactive, larger but lower volcano, Gunung Mahawu. There was a depression looked like a saddle between these two volcanoes.
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| Bamboo for making lamang |
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| Smoked fish |
Our next stop was the market of the town. Since it was a center for agriculture produces, the market was large, and I was told that it would be very crowd. We arrived in the afternoon, and the peak time of the market day was almost over. We saw many vegetables including the Chinese varieties, many different banana and large papaya, bamboo for making lamang (sweet rice mixed with coconut cream and pour into bamboo and barbeque till it was cooked, the Manado name was nasi jaha). The population was mostly Christian, and pork and wild boar meat were sold in the market. There were also many dogs in a cage waiting to be butchered. One of the local specialties was smoked fish, which looked like smoke salmon on a fan shape sticks. There were several booths run by old Chinese women selling Indonesian and Chinese snack foods.
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| Ready made houses for sale in Woloan |
We turned west into Jalan Tanawang-Tomohon, and soon we were in Woloan village. Along the road, we saw many new wooden house in the style of Minahasa. Some of them were in the process of being built. They were all for sale. They would be dismantled piece by piece and then shipped in a container to its destination. The crew would then re-assembled them again at the property of the new owner. The housing industry was concentrated in this village due to the availability of the skill workers. They would also build houses on order. My friend Johnson in Padang bought his cottage from here and assembled it on his land in Lubuk Minturun. It was a very lovely house.
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| Hot spring in Danao Linao |
We continued driving south on the same road but with a different name Jalan Tomohon-Kawangkoan. The destination was Danao Linao. A small lake and was famous for the beautiful colour of its water. The colour of the water would change under some conditions. We saw a thermal outlet puffing steams with heavy spoil egg smell as we approached the entrance to the park. However, it started raining, and we decided not to pay the entrance fee of Rp25,000 a person and left. We did go in close to the water to turn the car, and had a glimpse of the lake. The colour was deep green and had the appearance of any mineral reach lake. The map showed that there were three lakes on a line west to east: Linao, Pangolombian and Tampusu. They must be the crater lakes of a formerly much large volcano.
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| A resort in Tomohon |
On coming back, we went to see a resort hotel in Tomohon next to the Chinese temple. The cottages were laid near the edge of a large and very beautifully designed and maintained flower garden. And large pavilions were scattered in the garden to serve as eating area. We saw waiters carrying foods in a stainless steel container to one of the pavilion where some customers were waiting for their food. One of the special features of the garden was the extensive use of water in the form of small streams and ponds lined with flowering plants and decorative trees. It was one of the most beautiful gardens I had ever seen. The kitchen and the food preparation area were spotlessly clean. The rate of the cheapest cottage was US$100 per night.
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| Restaurant Wisata Bahari |
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| A bizarre looking shrimp like centipede |
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| Sea wall for protecting the land claimed from the sea |
I asked the driver to drop us at the restaurant Wisata Bahari, the restaurant which we wanted to go last night but changed our mind. It was a circular structure built over the water on steel stilts. I didn’t know how the owner got the license to build it. The surrounding was excellent but the food was just ok. We ordered a sweet and sour gerapu fish, and it was fried too dry. The free ranch chicken with mushroom did not taste anything special. The fried kangkong and papaya flower was also so so. But the price was US$30, not cheap in Indonesian standard. I saw a bizarre looking shrimp like a giant centipede, which I forgot the Indonesian name given in the menu, it was kept individually in a plastic bottle and kept alive in the aquarium. It had the appearance of a large centipede. The ocean front property of the city was actually the land claimed from the sea, and was protected by a rock sea wall built from the highly porus black volcanic rocks with holes like a beehive. I didn’t know how strong could it protected the land, or would it be floated away during a flood. There were some durian stands along the coastal road name Boulevard. The price was Rp50,000 for a small durian. I was surprised to see some young women, who didn’t look wealthy, buying and eating on the road side. They were all smiling when we passed and even offered us to share their durian.
I tried to book airplane tickets from Lion Airline for going to Ujung Pandang (Makassar), the fare was Rp540,000. The system accepted my reservation all the way up to making payment and then hanged. I had to call their office in Jakarta to find out that the system would not accept credit card payment two days before the date of the flight.
I had called two travel companies asking them if I could join the group going to Bunaken Island to see the coral in a catamaran and did some snorkeling. They all promised to look into it and would call back. But none of them did, and therefore, I ended up chartering the boat with a capacity of 15 passengers for only 3 of us for Rp800,000.
Friday, 2011-3-11
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| Garbage in the bay |
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| A catamaran were taking tourist for diving |
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| The viewing hole in a catamaran |
This morning, I was thinking of hiring a car to go to Makassar instead of taking the flight, but the driver Jemi thought that it would take too long to drive from the north-eastern to the south-western end of the island. And he would not be interested in going. A car came to pick us up to the marina to board a catamaran to Bunaken Island. It was a large island in the shape of a boomerang north of the bay. Very close to its west was a perfectly shape 800 metres volcano Pulao Manado Tua that we saw everyday across the bay. There were several boats and some speed boats mooring in the marina. They were all poorly built using the cheapest materials and craftsmanship. There were two holes built in the middle of the catamaran like the sky light built upside down. A wooden box with glass at the bottom was inserted in each hole. This box was lower until it touched the water when the boat was stationed to allow the passengers to view the coral and fish in the water. As soon as we were in the bay, I soon realized the reason why the city appeared to be clean, because all garbage had been dumped into the sea. The city had plenty of water running down from the mountain through the many creeks. And they acted as the conveyors for dumping the garbage into the sea. The garbage grouped into many bands on the sea surface probably by the currents. I immediately thought that I didn’t want to do the snorkeling.
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| Getting ready |
There was not really much to see from the viewing box in the catamaran. It would be more interesting to see the fish in a sea aquarium. The boat then took us to the shore of the island where there were many shops operating in crudely huts to get the snorkeling equipment. Ching didn’t want to do any snorkeling and only Linki and me would. The shop owner first asked us to try to put on the wet suite. I told them that I only wanted to do snorkeling not the scuba diving, but the owner said that I would feel better with the wet suite. When it came about renting cost, the staff in the hotel had told me that it should be about Rp60,000, but now the owner wanted Rp350,000. I told them what I had learned from the hotel staff, and she said that that price didn’t include the wet suite.
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| An instructor was taking me to the deeper water |
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| Coral and small fish |
This was my second experience with snorkeling in sea. Once was in Bali with Fong. I first try the shallow area near the boat, then one of the local boys who acted as the teacher hold my hand and took me over the edge of the coral where the water suddenly dropped vertically to endless dark bottom. I was a little scary at looking down this abysmal depth and hold his hand tightly. But the feeling was not as scary as looking down a steep and deep cliff probably it was dark and I didn't see its bottom. The coral were mainly in boulder shape and had the appearance texture of a brain. The branch type of coral were concentrated in one area, unfortunately, all what remain were the broken pieces scattered on the sea floor. I wonder if this was the result of fishing using explosive. In addition to the beautifully colour coral fish, I also saw one morel eel sending its head in and out of its hiding hole. I fed the fish with bread, and they surrounded me and took the bread from my hand. After getting some use to it, I dared to venture to the coral edge myself and it was not far from the boat anyway.
We stopped at Lion Airline office in downtown before we returned to the hotel, and bought 3 tickets to go to Makassar tomorrow at 14:45. The clerk said that I could check-in in the office. I did, and asked the girl to assign me seats at the front. She said something that I was not too clear and too lazy to answer. The seats were available only starting from row 10th, but she would make an exception and assigned me row 7th. This was probably related to why my request for the front row was not granted on the flight from Jakarta to Manado.
We paid for most of our purchase by Visa, and we were short of Rupiah after paying Rp800,000 for the boat. Our next task after returning to hotel was to change some US dollars. We had to walk to several banks for this. The first one would do it only if we had an account. The second one would do it only for the banknote with the serial number starting with “H”, and at the end they didn’t want our banknote because it had been folded. They wanted the new banknote with no folds. The third bank had the similar demands, and I was upset and raised my voices. A middle age lady sitting next to the teller signaled her to accept my moneys. When we got the Rupiah, I jokingly told the teller that we also wanted the crispy new Indonesian banknotes.
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| Asean Regional Forum held in Manado March 14 to 20 |
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| A Red-Cross ship was sent to Manado for the exercise |
We learned of the earthquake in Japan and the devastating tsunami as we turned the TV on in the hotel room. It was probably the first major tsunami ever recorded extensively in multi-media in the history. It would cause a serious setback in Japanese economy. The first sign was the steep drop in Japanese Yuen reported in the news, however, it certainly gave us an important lesson of the nature of this calamity. I hoped that we learned the lesson. An international meeting was held in Manado from March 14 to 20. It was Asean Regional Forum, Disaster Relief Exercise. A Red-Cross vessel had been sent and moored in the bay for this exercise.
On the way returning to the hotel from banks, we passed a restaurant serving crispy duck, even its bone could be chewed. I wanted to try it but Ching was concerned of the hot chilly of its sambals (sources). Somehow, I insisted that I wanted to try it assuming that Ching didn’t have to eat the hot sambals. I wanted to order a whole piece of duck; however, the food was served as a combination platter. We order 3 platter of crispy duck. In each plate, there was a piece of duck, mostly bone, two small pieces each of fried tofu and tempe, some pieces of uncooked cabbage, mint leaves and cucumber, and a bowl of rice. The duck had probably been pre-cooked in a pressure cooker to make the bone soft and chewable; and then marinate in tamarind and deep fried when order. There were 3 bowls of different sambals on the table. They were all very hot. In general, the foods were ok but not great. I certainly would prefer to go to some other places. To add more to my disappointment, Ching kept on nagging as she ate that the sambal was hot, and she might suffer from her stomach problems.
TV was saturated with the earthquake news for the whole night. Manado Bay opened to the Pacific Ocean in the north, and I was anxiously waiting if tsunami would cause any damages in the city. I waited till 9 pm, and decided to send an email and then went to bed. Then I remembered that I had not make any hotel reservation in Makassar, and got up and went to the lobby. I preferred to book directly to the hotel and not through the other agent. But I could not find the necessary information on the Internet. I called it a quit and return to bed.
Saturday, 2011-3-12
The telephone in our room didn’t work, and I went to the desk to make some enquiries on hotel listed in the Lonely Planet. I made a few bookings, and finally decided to choose Hotel Losari Metro Hotel on Jalan Chairi Anwar No. 19 (0411-331-133). The deluxe room was Rp380,000. I wanted to try to sleep in two twin beds without adding an extra bed.
I talked to the driver Jemi, and showed him the list of places that I hadn’t visited. He told me that he could take me to see those places. We agreed that the charge would be Rp50,000 per hour as before. But when we came back and were ready to go, Jemi raised an issue that there would be a minimum of 5 hours. He probably had received the coaching from the staff on the desk, and he had heard of our discussions. As this point we had no choice but to accept it if we still wanted to go. And it would mean that we would pay him one extra hour. He told me that according to the news, many people in low lying areas were rushing to the higher ground in preparation for the threat of the coming tsunami generated by the earthquake in Japan. It was panicky situations on the road. It seemed the local authority got an opportunity to gain a real experience in disaster relief exercise.
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| Newly caught tuna to be shipped to Japan |
First, we went to the Fisherman harbour, and saw them packing many newly caught large tuna, 5ft long and 8 inches in diameter, into a large specially made styrofoam box filled with ice cubes, and then loaded them onto a pickup truck. I was told that they were being shipped to Japan. The fruit market nearby was full of attractive fruits especially the large and golden colour jack-fruits. Old China town was in the same neighborhood. And there was a 300 years old Taoist temple, and a Quangong temple. Jemi told us that Manado had no violence history against the Chinese. There was a large celebration of the last Chinese New Year Moon Festival, and had attracted many tourists as far as from Singapore. The Singapore own Silk Airline flew three times a week from Singapore to Manado.
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| A Taoist's temple in China town |
We then took the road Jalan Manado-Bitung going east toward Bitung, the shipping harbour 45 km away. There were many trucks on this road and large warehouses also lined on both sides of the road. The road was not winding, and we were climbing a gentle hill and reached a plateau. A massive 2,000 m high volcano, Gunung Klabat was in view at a distance, and it was the highest in Sulawesi. We turned south into Jalan Tondano-Airmadidi, and then turned left as we reached Desa Sawangan and the Warugu Sawangan cemetery was not far from the road.
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| Putting corpse in the warunga |
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| Carrying warunga to the village |
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| The cemetery |
In the past, the people here had the custom of entombing the death in a rock coffin called warunga. The coffin had a rectangular shape, and was carved out of a single piece of rock with an opening on the top from a rocky hill. The thickness of the coffin was about 2 inches. The cover of the coffin was another piece of solid rock with the shape of a roof. The underside of the cover had been carved into a bowl shape. At the entrance of the cemetery, there was a bras relief showing the coffin maker delivering the coffin by carrying the coffin in one hand and wearing the cover on his head as hat. This was rather an impossible task in view of the weight of these two pieces of solid rocks. The deceased was put in the coffin in squatting position after death. This was to follow the pasture of an infant still in the womb. The cover was installed and sealed. There were some carvings on the cover of the coffin to reflect the career of the deceased. In one coffin for example, the owner was a midwife, and on one side of the cover showed a person carrying a piece of bamboo knife for cutting the biblio-cord, and on the other three sides were the carvings showing a woman given birth to a baby, the bilio-cord was being cut, and the baby became an adult.
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| The carving showed the deceased was a mid-wife |
This coffin was erected in front of the deceased house in the village. The hot weather would speed up the decay of the corpse, and the coffin could be re-used by the descendants of the first owner. There was a half cylinder laid on one side of the cover, and a bar would be engraved on this half cylinder every time when it was use. The sealer of the cover was not of high quality, and some bad smell would escape through the seal. Therefore, the colonial government ordered that all coffins to be moved from villages to a cemetery called Warugu Sawangan. According to the carvings on the cover, some of the coffins belonged to European and Japanese.
On the way returning to Manado, I noticed a fruit bearing jambu monjet (cashew) tree. The exposed kernel of its fruit was made into cashew nuts. We arrived in the airport at 12:15 which was much earlier than we had planned. We were short of Rupiah but Ching thought that we could exchange money when we got to Makassar, and didn’t change the money in Manado airport. The writing of the gate number on the boarding card was not very clear, and the waiting area where we sit had a sign of Garuda. I thought that it might change to other airlines. I was concentrated on working on my computer, tand suddenly Ching warmed me that the time had passed the scheduled boarding time. We got up in a hurry and found the gate for Lion Airline behind the Immigration counter.
As the airplane descended onto Makasar sky, the most interesting geological features that I saw was a small karsts topography area. It was densely covered by vegetations. We arrived after 5 pm and the money exchange in the airport had been closed. We regretted of not doing it in Manado. I had booked a room in Losari Metro Hotel, and we bought a taxi vulture to the hotel for Rp87,000 for a specific taxi This was a well organize operation, however, for some unknown reasons, we waited for a long time before the specific taxi showed up. Since we didn’t have any Rupiah, we could only have dinner in the hotel.
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