Time Flies....

....a combination of both having the big fun and being slightly off the beaten track these past few weeks means that I have sorely neglected you.  Cannot believe it's been so long since we have spoken!  I hope that this missive finds you all full of festive cheer, singing along to slade and generally having a grand old time.

The last time I wrote, we had just arrived in Flores having spent three nights on a traditional boat.  We checked into a bit of a posh hotel and had a day lazing around the pool and in true Cath and Louise style, we managed to justify the expense in no time and paid in dollars so it wasn't real money anyway....

After that, we headed East, along the Flores Highway - apparently there is 850km of road to travel 350km...lots and lots and lots of twists and turns.  We stayed in Ruteng, Bajawa - where we walked around traditional villages and Moni - where we saw Kelimutu and walked the 15km back down to the village (my poor knees!).  Kelimutu is a collection of strange volcanic crater lakes that change colour randomly.  When we saw them, two were turquoise and one was a dark brown colour.  The local belief is that when someone dies, their soul goes to Kelimutu and rests in one of the lakes depending on whether they were a child, a good person or a bad person....

After Moni, where we went to the local catholic mass (Flores is 80% christian, which surprised us), we headed towards Maumere as we had been trying and failing to find out information on the boat service to Sulawesi for a number of days at this stage.  No one seemed to know anything other than the fact that there was one boat every two weeks.   Our back up plan was to get to Sulawesi via West Timor, which would have added an extra day or so to the trip.  In Maumere, we discovered that there was a boat from another port a few hours away in two days so we spent a bit of time chilling in a beach hut and then we were off!  The boat took 26 hours and we were the only gringos on a packed boat, so attracted a lot of interest - particularly when Cath got her head torch out!  Our bed was a mattress on the deck, just by the bins...nice.

We arrived in Makassar, Sulawesi around lunchtime, slightly groggy and most definitely hungry as we had politely declined to take advantage of the food that was included in our economy ticket.  Stories of fish heads for dinner had curbed our appetite somewhat!

We left Makassar and made the 11 hour bus journey North to Tanah Torajah, an area of Sulawesi that is steeped in tradition, particularly as it relates to death and burials.  Sulawesi, like Flores, is a mix of protestant, catholic and muslim, with muslim being a minority.  What unites the religions is how they bury the dead: the funeral ceremony is the final chance to honour the dead person and families can save for years to have enough money.  After someone dies, they are kept in the house until the family can afford to give them a funeral.  Until that time, they are not treated as having passed away and the family will offer food to the body and friends will come by to drink tea and smoke with it.  Once the money has been amassed, class will decide on the lavishness of the ceremony and where the body is buried.  Someone from a higher class will have a funeral lasting many days where many buffalo and pigs are sacrificed - the most we heard of was 100 buffalo.  The body is then placed in a cliff cave and statues (tau tau) representing the dead person (in eery detail) are placed outside.   We visited a number of burial sites and also attended part of a funeral ceremony - the reception day.  It seems strange, but because the funeral is such a part of the custom, it is normal for a thousand people to attend and they welcome anyone and everyone with tea or coffee and something to eat.  I had to put away my personal views and try and enter into the spirit of their traditions.

After an interesting time in Tanah Torajah - including a hike through rice paddy fields that was nearly the end of me - we had to come back down to Makassar.  We wanted to go North, but there had been a landslide and the road wasn't passable.

Our flight to KL is tomorrow and I cannot believe our time in Indonesia is coming to a close so soon - doesn't seem like two months at all.

Highlight of the past few weeks was seeing Tanah Torajah - such an interesting place and unlike anything I've seen before.

Low point - the Flores Highway.  Well, maybe that's a bit harsh...the road itself isn't that bad, it's more the local's ability to stomach the journey that was the issue.  I have never seen so many people get sick on buses, nor heard such impressive vocal accompaniment.