Sulawesi stop #2: Tana Toraja

Tana Toraja or the land of the people in the mountain...

The drive from Makassar to Rantepao must, by all means, be done during day time and not night time. Though bit is a 10 hour ride, the vistas during the trip are simply spectacular and give you more than a little taste of what to expect once in actual Toraja land.

During the ride, I made a mistake I think I will regret for a very long time.

When the bus took its second break on the road, shortly before we were about to hit the road again, parks right next to us a local motorcycle "gang" or rather squad, all geared up with the hardcore biker kind of gear you would find in any Harley Davidson store in the USA. Uffff...I jumped back in the bus to pick up my camera, and off I go, chatting with the bikers, taking photos. Off course, like all other Indonesians, they just love when a foreigner takes photos of them.
They proudly show me they custom made leather jacket, with the logo of their gang: Toraja Tiger Club. 5 minutes later, one of their leaders asks me if I want to ride all the way up to Rantepao (another 5 hours) with him on his bike. No wayyyyyyyy! I couldn't believe it!
But stupid me, because of my very big backpack, declined the invitation. Sooooo stupid! I could have simply asked them if they thought possible to tie my pack on one of the other bikes, but no, that simple idea didn't even occur to me.  Trust me, the remaining 5 hours in the bus I kept on banging my head against the window because of how upset I was to have declined such dream offer. :0(
Hmmm...did I also mention that somehow the bus driver had on his playlist some hits from Wisin & Yandel!? Just amazing! (Though only Boricuas will know why).

OK, so, we reached the town at night time, about 8 pm. One key lesson when travelling is to make sure to always arrive in a new place during day time so that you can spot your land marks, and hop from place to place in order to find the lodging option of your choice. So long for this when I arrived in Rantepao. So my last option was to rely on the recommendations of the Lonely Planet. Ufffff! Biggest mistake ever!  (I am pretty sure that no one from the Lonely Planet has stepped foot in Sulawesi for at least a couple of decades.) Not a single information about lodging from the Lonely Planet was even remotely accurate regarding Toraja!
But hey, determined that I usually am, and filled with energy despite the night, I did, anyway, knock on every single door of the town's budget accommodations (probably about 10 in total and all located quite far apart from each other) walking in the night with my big bag.
Rantepao is a very strong cultural disappointment to me in one specific way. Let me explain...
The lay (not sure about spelling here) Indonesian, though not always the most educated and knowledgeable, is always willing to help, as far as their understanding of your English is, well people in Rantepao, at least a good 80% of them (those involved in tourism), are solely driven by financial benefit. If they see they want make any money off of you they won't help and literally turn their back at you. What a shock. I don't think I had ever seen that other than in France so far. :0(
Anyhow, I made myself a reason.
I finally found a decent place for my maximum budget of $10 a night including breakfast and bathroom. Everything does happen for a reason...when I woke up, it so happened that the town's large morning market is located right in front, outside the door of my wisma (hotel). What a superb way to start the day and a walk through the city!

My first day was fantastic. Because I started my day quite late (10 am) and the people renting scooters refused to give me a discount, i decided to walk to a few first key points of interest outside of the city. Kete Kesu first and then Londa.
Kete Kesu is the site of hanging and cave graves, as well as a funeral site that belongs to an extremely rich family, and where they are preparing a gigantic funeral ceremony for June. Oh yes, perhaps I should have started this post by saying that the Toraja people believe that the afterlife has a lot more importance than life, and thus dedicate their lifetime and finances to their funeral ceremony.
Anyhow, because it took me so long to get to Kete Kesu, I arrived there quite exhausted. So after buying a bottle of ice cold water, I just crashed in a plastic chair next to the entrance gate of the site. Ha! Not 5 minutes had passed when a whole bus of local young tourists arrives, and well, as it had been the case so far, each and everyone of them wants to take a photo with me. I discretely and jokingly whisper in Indonesian to the lady holding the ticket counter to the site: satu foto, s'pulu ribu. (1 photo for 10,000 roupies) she cracks up and repeats it to her coworkers. Lol
Once the photo session is over, I get approached by two young girls, university English students from Makale, a smaller city south of Rantepao. They had a paper to write on cultural differences between their culture and that other interviewed tourists. So I absolutely accept to be interviewed. What a great way to learn about our differences and similarities!
We end up spending about 3 hours together. We actually want to tag along with me to visit the whole site and practice their English. Fantastic! I had a great time and made two new friends. Though silly me, I only managed to remember one out of the two names: Risma.
My next stop was Londa, site of more hanging graves, this time from the high class, with Tau Tau (wooden statues supposed to represent the deceased people and protect them) as well as a much bigger cave with babies' coffins. Londa is quite a very long walk away from Kete Kesu, and it was already a bit late. Lucky me, the other girl asked her boyfriend to give me a ride on his scooter. (Not sure he was so happy about it, lol)
Arrived at Londa...ufff soooooo upset, about three buses full of French tourists park by the entrance at the same time. No wayyyyyy!
Well, no choice, it is to late and am already there anyway. So, let's turn the situation to my advantage, hehe! I slowly followed the French (the site is not that big at all), in order to basically listen ton all of their French speaking guide's information about the culture and the site, for free. Off course I make sure to not speak a word of French and pretends to be a US tourist. He he! ;0)
As I get out of the cave, three young locals jumps on my foot steps and start talking to me. Them too, like every single other university student in the country, wanted to practice their English. Ha! And guess what!? They were in the same class as the other two girls I met in Kete Kesu. Small world. So with them as well i spent a few hours.

When walking around the site, I ventured down a little path on my own (the students were a bit frighten I think), and to my surprise, behind a traditional rice barn, I bump into quite a big group of locals from the nearby town who were illegally organizing some sort of underground cock fights. Wow! I stayed a good half hour watching their every move. Each one had their own rooster in their arms, looking for opponents while setting the bets and choosing the blades to attach to the leg of their animal. What a process! Fascinating!
After enough photos and a short video, i meet again with students. As I am leaving the site to walk back home (a veeeeeeery long walk), one of students, Sri, offers to give me a ride back home on her scooter. Yay! Lucky me!

That same evening I also managed to arranged for a tour to some other sites, as well as attend what all tourists come here for, a funeral ceremony. Gosh, until I came here, I never realized how many funeral there could be per day in a community. Sadly incredible!

[...]

Today is May 16th, 11 days after I first arrived in Rantepao, and I have kept on putting to later each and every day my further impressions and stories about the rest of my adventure in Toraja. So I shall now not wait any further.

The day I went to attend this Toraja funeral celebration (I say celebration instead of ceremony as it is really a celebration) marked me quite much and kept me thinking for quite a Kong time after.
A key element to keep in mind is that it is now what the toraja call "low season" for ceremonies, as most grand celebrations actually happen during the summer months of July and august, for the simple reason that by doing so, more people from other cities of Indonesia can travel to Sulawesi and attend their relatives' funeral.
Another very important element of this culture is that there is a very strict "class" system which has very strict rules...off course, mostly focused around the core of this culture, funerals.
There is the low class, the middle class, and the high class.
At each funeral, guests are supposed to bring a present, and the value of this present will be carefully written down by one specific member of the celebrating family, so that the family shall bring a present of the exact same value to that guest' next funeral. No matter the financial status of each family.
So there are two kinds of presents: the ones offered by the guests to the celebrating family, and the ones offered by the family to its guests and to the deceased.
The guests shall offer anything from cigarette, sugar, to whole pigs. (Torajas are christian!)
The celebrating family can only, and must offer whole buffalos. But here is the thing, each class has a specific minimum amount of buffalos they must offer, and one single buffalo can be worth between $USD5,000 and $30,000!!!!!!!!!!! But wait, guess what the minimum amount of buffalos the high class families must offer? 24!!!!!!!! Plus, they must build from scratch whole bamboo structures to house the guests, and offer refreshments, food, and entertainment...form an entire week...and the usual amount of guest attending high class funerals averages about 1,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Each person bringing to a funeral an animal that will be slaughtered must also pay a tax to a specific government official that attends the funeral. (That is probably the one element of that culture I understand the least as it makes absolutely no sense).
Oh, and the best for the end...once a person is deceased, the direct family keeps the embalmed body in their main bedroom (there are only 3 to 4 rooms in a traditional Toraja house) in a coffin for a period of 1 to 10 years!!!!!!!!!!...until they have managed to gather all the funds they need to throw the celebration that corresponds to their class and to how much they want to spend to impress their guests. The deceased is actually considered sick until the first buffalo gets sacrificed during the ceremony.

I asked my guide: why buffalos? He told me that Torajas believe that once a person is deceased, its body goes to heaven in its next life. But its only means of transportation to get to heaven are buffalos, and the more buffalos, the faster it gets there and the more strength it will have in the afterlife to look over its family members that are still alive. 
There are a lot of other little intricacies which wikipedia does a much better job than my guide who didn't seem to be the best of guides anyway.

Once the funeral ceremony is over, the close family only will take the body/coffin to its grave which can either be hanging on wooden rods off a cliff, or barrier into a big hole dug in a rock or the rocky part of a mountain. The rock/mountain whole can usually fit a whole family, like the western union traditional mausoleum I suppose. And then, only for the high class families, dressed up wood little statues ((representing the deceased) called 'tau tau' are exposed in front of the grave in order to protect it.

Oh, and when comes the death of a baby who hasn't had any teeth yet, its body is buried into a tree trunk where the rest of the community/village buries its babies of same age. Why the teeth? Simply because Torajans believe that once a baby has teeth it can speak and thus potentially say foul things. Thus, a toothless baby is still considered to be pure of soul and of body. Why a tree? Well, because a tree is a pure and the strongest element of mother nature, and by burying the baby into the trunk of the tree, that specific kind of tree will actually with time not only grow a scab on top of the hole, thus making the deceased body fully part of the tree, but also, by growing towards the sun (symbol of life for the Torajans) the tree will allow the baby to grow and stay alive in some way.

OK, so these were a few main cultural facts and elements.

So, though I knew that funeral celebrations were a key part of the cultural attractions of Indonesia and Sulawesi, I didn't expect it to be also a key pole of tourism the way I witnessed it.

The funeral i went to, which was about an hour away from Ramtepao, and in a little village in the middle of nowhere was quite an experience.

The celebrating family belongs to the middle class. Only 4 buffalos got slaughtered. More than 30 huge pigs accompanied it though.

I got there with my guide at about 9:30am and thought to myself, "shit, they are two other tourists here!" Which I thought was already a lot.
However, slowly and progressively, more tourists made their way to the site. I was so disappointed. Probably about 30 tourists in total made it to that funeral that day. My guide told me that that was nothing. During high season, apparently, there are sometimes more tourists than locals! So that already triggered my brain a bit.
But the worst part was that the tourists were wandering about the funeral site (encouraged by their guides and at times the locals) and taking photos of it all and of people as if they were in a museum or in a zoo, without the slimmest bit of shyness or discretion. I was stunned! I can't believe that the tourists dare behaving in such a way at a funeral, and that locals actually let strangers wander around like that and intrude on such important moments. Though some locals definitely manifested their enjoyment at the presence of tourists and their taking photos, the rest of the locals just kept at their celebrations as if they were ignoring the presence of the tourists.

At first and while i was at the ceremony, I had mixed feelings about this all, and it actually prevented me from taking many photos and socializing with everyone to learn about the process, the culture, the guess and the family. I was just morally and spiritually kind of paralyzed.

Now with more perspective, I only have a negative opinion about such immoral cultural openness to tourism and such immoral behavior from tourists.
Though the locals do not seem to care at all, it is one thing to be invited or accepted into a funeral ceremony as a foreigner, to have the honor to witness such unique (unique though very similar in many ways to the Eid celebrations of the Muslims) cultural ritual on the other side of the planet, but it is another (disrespectful) thing to attend it and behave as if attending a guided tour at the Louvre. You get your ticket, you get in with your guide, you learn a bunch of things, take loads of photos, and two hours later you get out, happy with your Nikon in hand and the photos you have taken. Ha! If Toraja were in Orlando, people would go through it just the same as they go through Disney World. That is simply not right, not for a funeral!

I kind of had the name emotions and feelings when visiting the different grave sites. Making grave sites public like we do with our cemeteries is a normal thing so everyone can visit the dead and pay them the tribute they want to. But building a whole national tourism around graves of deceased who are total strangers to the tourists visiting them is just absurd and simply shows disrespect from the families of the deceased who are letting this happen. Not once did I hear a single guide mention to touring tourists the names of the deceased buried in the graves they were visiting. How can that be respectful!?

So after that, when locals trying to make some money, or guides calling me out in the street and inviting me to see some funerals or graves, I totally blew them out telling them that I honestly didn't care about seeing any more grave or funerals as I thought the whole thing quite disrespectful. Uffff! You should have seen the expression on their face. I wonder if I am the only tourist thinking and feeling this way, I haven't met on my trip anyone nor read any blog with similar opinion.

I am starting to realize that when tourism makes you think it makes the experience all the more enriching and powerful on yourself and for the other experiences and trips to come.

However, I wanted to venture alone around the region in order ton see more of the rest of that culture and so I went. I trekked for three days around the valley and mountains of Tana Toraja and got just mesmerized by the beauty of its landscape and the kindness of its people. (I am still unsure if that kindness stems from their curiosity for a foreign culture, or if I experienced in Latin America it is actually pure genuine kindness without any sort of cultural curiosity) but the outcome during my trekking was the same: kindness, so without to much retrospect, that's all that matters I suppose.

My first day of trekking actually started super late due to a pouring rainy morning. I departed at 2:30 pm only with a very very vague idea of an itinerary. Ha!  (Well, i actually walked for a good two hours in the morning in the pouring rain to reach a place called Nangala, reached a giant funeral site totally deserted because of the rain, so I took refuge under one of the big traditional rice barns, just sitting there for two hours, listening and watching the rain fall on the valley, as well as listen to the thousands of fighting giant bats hanged from the giant bamboos right behind me, while reading Bev's most inspiring book on social entrepreneurship) actually wanted to follow a suggested itinerary I found in the lonely planet. Perhaps it wasn't bit unconscious of me to think that I could do in less than 3:30hrs a trek which the lonely planet says takes 7hrs and is mostly very rough mountainous trails. Lol...especially during and after pouring rain, and wearing sandals. Yes, I think 'unconscious' is the right and best word. Lol

Anyhow, continuously pressed by the sunset deadline by which it would then be total obscurity and which I knew was around 6:30 pm, I kept going as fast as possible despite the absolutely terrible muddy trail once I realized that I was way high up in the forest, with absolutely no more villages around for already quite a while, and most probably for still quite a while ahead. Being so far away, not even being sure to be heading in the right direction, no one to even ask, not having had any food nor water since breakfast, not even a bottle of water in my pack, and seeing the fog rapidly taking over the mountain, I have to admit that I started to freak out quite badly.

All of a sudden I reach a very old and beat up open metal gate on which I see posted all sorts of what seem to be warning signs. Hmmm...now what? Where the hell am I? Is it a forbidden military zone? Or perhaps a protected area in which live some dangerous wild animals? What else can I do but to keep on going straight ahead? Walking backward was impossible as it would have taken me way to long to reach the first village and by then it would be night thus forcing me to stay in the village which was more like 2 sketchy huts than an actual village.

Then I started seeing loads of little bushes and trees with plenty of what looks like red berries on them...by then, my stomach is plain craving for any kind of food...but no! I am not going to take any further risk. Everyone knows that some berries can be very poisonous. I keep walking fast fast fast...

All of a sudden, the air smells dellllllllllicious and I see far away this big building with men working under large tarps in big basic metal infrastructures. I definitely think now that I am on military ground. Oh well, what am I to do at this stage anyway!?

When I reach the building I feel better right away as i finally understand where the delicious smell comes from...it is a coffee factory and the land is a coffee farm! Who knew!? Toraja is a gigantic land covering many mountains and valleys and covered with cacao trees but it doesnt make it a cacao farm! Plus, I had never seen coffee plants before. :-S

So, I have been walking for so long on such a rough trail, and am exhausted and thirsty...and I am on a coffee plantation and factory. Me, shy!? Hmmm...I bump into the manager of the plant and ask him if it is possible to taste the coffee from the farm. He tells me to go see the security guard further down as he should be able to help me. So off I go. The two guards, smile when seeing me: 'hello mister!' Like every Indonesian when they see a foreigner. I ask them if it is possible to taste the source of such yummy smell. Right away they yell at the women living in the little cabins behind the fence, and beg me to wait and sit down in the security guard's hut. We chit chat mixing my Indonesian and their English. And after 10 minutes, two women and 4 kids bring me on a tray, a large cup of black coffee (kopi) and a pot of sugar (garam). Absolutely delicious! I slowly sip it up, while accidentally burning my tongue due to the precipitation of my thirst, and after thanking for their kindness, off I go again .

I have about 40 minutes before it is night time and am still quite far from Rantepao or any nearby town where I can catch a minibus (bemo).

I arrive at this place which seems to have been the ground of a gigantic mudslide a few hours ago (through my trek I saw numerous site of mudslides taking away giant trees and entire bamboo patches) which took nor only trees but also the road!...and see this old man almost done patching it up with giant bamboos and mud to still allow at least pedestrian and scooters to carefully cross over. At the end of it, three totally adorable little girls with the most adorable smiles are collecting money from the scoters crossing over, kind of like a toll fee for the old man's repair work.

20 minutes left till dark...

I finally reach civilization and a small group of houses. I see some moto taxis (ojek) offering their service to take me back to the city (10km away supposedly) but they are asking for 20.000 rp which is the equivalent of $2 or one very good meal. I try to negotiate it for half, but I am unsuccessful. So proud Gregory that I can sometimes unconsciously be, I think 'the hell with it' I sure can walk those 10km in the 20 minutes I have left before dark.  Ha! Sure was a whole day of unconsciousness when I think about it! Walk 10 km in 20 minutes when it normally takes me on flat and dry ground about 50 minutes to run that distance, and with running shoes and no backpack. What was I thinking!? Probably was not thinking at all. Lol

15 minutes pass...I am still walking...when finally, my luck strikes and demonstrates me the hospitably and kindness of Indonesians, on which I had slowly started to give up (in the morning, I walked for hours under the pouring rain on an isolated path, and among all the cars that passed by, not a single one even stopped to ask if I was OK), and a woman and her baby stop on their scooter and just tell me to jump on back as they were headed to Rantepao. Uffff right on time. They dropped me off half an hour later right in front of my hostel and then left. What an amazing day!!! I am dead tired.

The next day, after my usual breakfast on the terrace overlooking the chain of mountain being eaten by the morning fog, I head out of the hostel at about 8am, it is Thursday, day of the buffalo market! Finally!!! :-)
What a spectacle! The donkey markets in morocco are junior league compared ton this.
I spend about 2 hours shooting photos right an left, scouting for the most impressive buffalo in the area. I find quite a few. Being there alone wandering among all these giant beasts makes me feel so small and so adventurous. Not quite sure I would enjoy being accompanied by a guide like the other couples of tourists I spot out did. Oh well...

Then I head out towards Batutumonga perched on top of mount Sesean, the tallest mountain in the area, around 2,000 meters I think.
Ha, and I thought the day before's hike was a rough one! I almost have to get on my fours in order to move forward at times. This time though, I did carry some water with me. Only 3 hours to reach the top, but what a work out! The views along the way and to view once at the top are just precious!
I find a place to sleep, Mama Rima, a big traditional home stay, with smaller traditional houses used for guests. Guest rooms are as basic as can get and with a very suspicious cleanliness. So much so that I spent the night covering myself up with clothe hoping that no mosquito nor bedbug would go through. Very much so a sleepless night,  but being in the clouds (fog) overlooking the entire Toraja region when waking up was definitely worth it.

The way back to Rantepao was pure pleasure, as I took the long road and walked through so many beautifully cute villages with most impressive funeral sites.

The village I decided to stop at because I saw they were setting up some big decoration around the funeral site and the rice barns was named Deri (which coincidentally and I had no clue about it was the village of the my hostel's landlord, he told me so the day after).
I had taken the photo of this old woman walking with her umbrella, and when showing it to her I told her she looked beautiful. She was flattered, laughed, and her and the load of family members busy at decorating the site invited me over to look around and then have coffee. I so wish I spoke Indonesian much better right then as it would have been so enriching to ask them all the questions I had and learn all that my guide was clueless about. I sat down in a traditional house surrounded by teenagers who didn't speak a word of English, while the rest of the community got back to their chores at preparing a big celebration (I learnt later that it was to celebrate what is their biggest annual celebration, the Toraja thanksgiving). I probably spent a good two hours there, sitting down, and trying, via my mini dictionary (kamus) to interact with them as much as possible. The loss in translation got so hilarious at times. They asked me if i was hungry (I can always eat, and even more so when I am in a different culture, by curiosity mostly), so I shyly said yes, curious to see what they would bring. Well, when the food arrived, it definitely was simple, looked VERY spicy, but absolutely no clue what it was. Though I could have guessed i suppose, when the most dynamic and curious of the kids asked me some time before about my religion, and when I told him I was Christian (well, I was raised that way at least), his next question was if I ate dog (Muslims do not). Hmmm....so wen the food arrived, and there was only food for me, so not only the weird feeling of being the only one to eat, but also all their eyes watching me eat dog for the first time. What was I to do!? They prepared it just for me and the food was now right in front of me. Kind of to late to change my mind and reject it.
The meat was actually quite tasty. Nothing special at all, but still quite good. Perhaps the super spicy ness helped a bit. I ate the whole dish anyway. I was hungry and wanted to be respectful to my hosts. After another hour of interaction and non verbal communication, I decided to say goodbye and head out. They were so sad and asked me t stay with them. Another missed opportunity but I really wanted to taken a 'real' shower and get some 'real' sleep, so I kindly made up some excuse and left. I did feel a bit sad and bad when seeing the look of disappointment and sadness on their face.

I got home 2.5 hours later, by foot, and for once, a cold shower was sooooo welcome. Quick bite to eat and off to bed early. Those past three days were amazingly beautiful by the people I met and the landscapes I saw.

I think I needed to venture around on my own for a bit, as since I left Kalimantan, I have been feeling a bit anti social...tired of making new great friends and then go our separate ways, and have to work on making new friends yet again at my next destination. Story of my life on a much smaller scale I guess, and made me realise in some way one of the thing that was wrong in my life and perhaps one of the obstacles to reaching happy fulfillment. Still I have to get used to it as it is only the beginning of my trip, but I am taking great learning from it for the rest of my life to come.

I do want to settle down soon, and build more profoundly my friendships and relationships with people rather than always being on the road. I think I had almost reached that state when I lived in Toronto and right before moving to Miami. But hey, I took the decision that i took. There are no bad decisions, only good ones, as long as you learn from each one.

Wow! That is quite a long post. If you are still reading, then you are definitely a real friend. :-)