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**saralou** · #1 11 Jul 2018

The rest of the day at least we made 45-50 km/hr. The middle section of the road is more sweeping curves, but the last is much straighter and we made better time. We stopped after 2 1/2 hours and 90 km for a drink and then made the last 90 km in 1 1/2 hours.

FILE7552 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE7554 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE7555 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

IMG_2955 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

We arrived to the town and there was quite a bit of traffic jam. The first hotel we tried was sold out, but luckily the second had a room left. It is petty intense riding with all the noise and honking and people parked in the middle of the road and the scooters whizzing past. We did not get lunch and both the restaurants near by are closed due to the holiday. In the end it was ramen in the room and a roll of Oreos. There was some riveting TV!

IMG_2956 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #2 11 Jul 2018

We had breakfast at the hotel and there were actually other foreigners, which we have not seen in ages. Today we are going to the culturally unique Torajan Area.

Screen Shot 2018-06-21 at 15.24.18 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE7573 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE7577 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

The first order of business for the day was to find the ATM type that works for our card and this was easy as we passed one after 5 minutes. Then to buy gas. This was easy, but they only had 88 octane “premium” and no pertomax or max turbo (92 or 95). It was ok as we have a half tank of turbo. The first 64 km to Rupang took 3 hours as it was a continuous line of traffic and was exhausting.

Screen Shot 2018-06-21 at 15.24.34 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE7581 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

We stopped here for a cold drink and then headed north with much less traffic and especially very few scooter maniacs. The road condition is pretty good in most places except in the towns. This is a mostly Christian area and there are a lot of churches.

FILE7590 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE7598 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

FILE7615 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-23 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #3 11 Jul 2018

We entered the Toraja region and the traffic was thicker again. We had booked into a home stay in a traditional Torajan house, but found that her google listing, her bookings listing, and maps.me are all incorrect. After 45 min of driving around very hot, tired and extremely frustrated we finally called her for instructions.

These were go south to the Catholic church and turn right and go across the bridge and then turn left and then turn past the restaurant. This was all good until the turn left… this leads down a one lane road to nowhere and then deteriorated and we turned back.

Another call to the owner and a “meet us at the bridge”. She rode up on a scooter “a right turn” off the bridge. Seriously we are pissed and hot and tired. Luckily for her she is a very nice woman and the house is very cool. She must know her listings are wrong since she gave us the GPS coord some other travelers gave her, but a bit late now. That said she served us tea and sesame cookies and then we had a nap before dinner. This was a very nice home cooked meal on our patio.

FILE7661 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

IMG_2961 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

IMG_2962 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-25 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-26 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-27 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #4 11 Jul 2018

We have a lot of sights we want to see here and they are quite spread out, poorly signed, and involve a lot of walking around = do not want to deal with the bikes and the gear. We hired a driver for the whole day for about 45$ Canadian. Papa Dia arrived as we were having breakfast and then we set out for the day.

Our first stop was the Water Buffalo market in Bori and we had been told there was a traditional death ceremonial sacrifice today. We rode up the narrow winding back road thru the lush green rice paddies.

There was quite a crowd at the event, but we were the only foreigners. There are 20 or so buffalo here and they are going about spraying them with letters with a can of spray paint. After quite a lot of discussion most of the animals were led out, but 4 remained.

There was a procession of 8-10 men that splashed water from a bamboo tube on the back of the animal and then a spear was tapped on the haunch. In the centre of the ring 2 men were banging in posts that looked like they were to tie the animals to. This is what did happen and one was lashed by its forefoot to the posts.

**saralou** · #5 11 Jul 2018

WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTOS!

Suddenly the man slashed his throat (not well enough) and the scene was quite graphic with spurting blood and the poor creature jumping and staggering. The job was poorly done as he trashed about and fell and then rose and fell and trashed about some more, which was impossible to watch. Families are all here to watch this even with children. I did not watch the next, but Dan said that the cut was much deeper and the animal looks to have died quite quickly. He did however have to watch his fellow suffer a few minutes before! It was actually pretty horrific. We had seen enough and left. Driving past later we saw that they were butchering all 4 animals right there.

Sulawesi-40 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-42 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-43 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #6 12 Jul 2018

We drove up the road to Kalimbuang where they have standing stones. Each represents a death and most of them from higher society. There are some stone stair cases from the main area and these lead to ancient graves that are carved into man made caves in the rocks.

Sulawesi-85 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-55 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-46 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

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Sulawesi-58 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-62 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

**saralou** · #7 12 Jul 2018

From here we drove south again to the burial caves at Londa. There was quite a traffic jam and on this narrow road a tight squeeze.

Sulawesi-63 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-89 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Here you can see the cliff face from the viewpoint and then when you get close you can see the coffins and bones. There are also quite a few effigies. The caves itself have ancient and new (2 months old) burials. We had a lot of people that wanted a picture with us...seems a bit strange.

Sulawesi-64 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-65 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-66 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-67 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-68 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

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Sulawesi-71 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-72 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-73 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-74 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr

Sulawesi-75 by Sara & Daniel Pedersen, on Flickr