So Long Jonny & Kat, Hello Tana Toraja

First things first, the internet service here is painfully slow, so apologies for the lack of pictures or wacky posts. Also apologies for no posts in a while...

We're no longer in Ubud. I'd have updated the map, but see paragraph one. There's an island north of Bali that's large and sort of shaped like a pi symbol, that's Sulawesi and it's the island we're on right now. We're currently in Rintepao, a city in the south-central part of the island in a region called Tana Toraja.

We left Ubud on Friday, after having our last night in town with Jonny & Kat. Most of the day was spent trying to figure out where and how we were traveling next, but in the evening we did the 'mini-mart march' as Jonny has dubbed it, walking down Monkey Forest Road and stopping at each mini-mart for a fresh can of beer. It's much cheaper than drinking in the bars in Indonesia. The alcohol is expensive here, I think because there are so many Muslims, who don't generally drink. Limited supply.

After the march, we did end up in a bar for one last drink and a shot to say goodbye. Unfortunately, Kat was getting a cold. I hope you're over it, Kat. It was sad to see our friends leave--we've had some great times and made many memories. With lots of stories to tell for years...

But now Alison and I are on our own, which is exciting in its own way. And we really jumped head-first into it...Sulawesi is no where near as established on the tourist circuit. Everything is a bit harder to accomplish, the English isn't as widely spoken, etc. Our flight from Bali arrived in Makassar, a large city in the south. We thought we'd spend a day there...little did we know that it is the Hartford of Indonesia. We checked into a hotel in the downtown area and promptly booked a bus for the next morning to Rintepao.

After a pretty comfortable nine-hour bus ride, we arrived in Tana Toraja. What a wild place! We've had a great time here so far. Our first day we went walking in the mountains through the surrounding villages. The beauty from up in the hills is unparalleled. I'm not sure that we've ever seen anything like it. And to boot, there is a strange animist/Christian culture here with bizarre funeral rituals. We've spent the last two days attending such rituals, and...wow. We've seen cave graves, buffalo fights, extraordinarily bloody buffalo sacrifice, amazing local architecture, and even a coffin pulleyed fifty feet up a bamboo ladder to be put in a cave grave. The scenery is mind-blowing as are the funeral rituals. We've loved it and can't wait to post pictures.

That's all I'll post for now...hopefully next time there will be faster service and I can get more detailed. However, we're leaving tonight to head for the far north, which is supposed to have some of the best scuba diving in the world. We may have similarly bad luck with the internet but I do hope to check in again soon.