Where Is Ron?
Indonesia: 30 November 2010 - 15 March 2011
Ron as dragon, Makassar, Sulawesi, Indonesia, January 2012
Makassar and Makale Toroja
3 February
Afton, Virginia, USADear family and friends,
The references to FedEx in Ron's message are because (at his request) I have sent a replacement phone to him via FedEx, and they are going to hold it for him to pick up at the FedEx office in Makassar, the big city in Sulawesi. At this moment, FedEx tracking tells me that the package has departed from Anchorage, Alaska (so far, the route has been Charlottesville, Newark NJ, then Anchorage). I'm curious to see what its next stopping point will be.
Love to all,
Ellen
To see photos of houses and people in Toraja, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Makassar and Toroja
To see photos of the cemeteries in Toraja, click on the thumbnail at the left.
3 February 2012
Makale Toroja, Sulawesi, IndonesiaHello, my dear,
Makassar is hot and has now turned wet also. But I have enjoyed my routine of breakfast at my hotel, soup at Sentosa's for lunch and grilled fish for dinner at Lae Lae, the fish restaurant we found. And my stomach has recovered from the problems in Aceh. While I am doing a lot of walking I have also learned a lot about how to use the peti peti, little van buses that go everywhere, to extend my explorations. But pedestrians here are not treated well. The sidewalks are dangerous, especially at night when they are not well lit, so much of my walking is in the street, where it is safer.
Time just disappears in cities, where figuring out where someplace is located and then figuring how to get there and back can take the morning or afternoon. But I did find the FedEx office and managed to find my way back. The problem was it was at the old airport site, not the current airport site. It was a lot easier to find the peti peti from the airport to the central city than the other way, since most went towards the center, but those leaving the center were going everywhere. So I would ask the peti peti drivers if they were going to the airport and they would say yes, but in a few blocks turn, when I knew it was straight. So I would get off. Of course they weave around to pick up people, but still, I knew the direction I wanted to go. But I have learned a bit about the directions across the top of the front windshield and the big capital letters.
One afternoon I heard some deep sounding drums, not consistent, but every now and then, so I followed the sounds and found myself in front of a Chinese pagoda, rather impressive, 5 or 6 stories high, with an elevator I discovered later. A young boy escorted me up level after level until we were on the top and the entire floor was just one open space. There were some seats and after the climb I took one and looked around. Yes, there were two very large drums, a couple of guys beating them every now and then. There were some young boys doing movements in the center of the room, and it took me quite a while to figure out what they were doing. There were two pairs of boys, aged fifteen, practicing some movements. One guy would toss the other over his head, or they would do some elaborate turns, with the guy behind holding the waist belt of the one in front, and then swing around with some little jumps.
I just kept watching and could follow the patterns of movement but could not understand it until I noticed someone else going through a pile of very elaborate costumes and noticed one was a dragon. Then I realized they were practicing the dance steps for being a dragon. [Lunar New Year - Year of the Dragon!] I spent much of the afternoon talking with them in-between their practices. They explained they would be dancing in front of the pagoda at 9 the next day. So after breakfast the next day I went to watch, but there was nothing happening. So I asked and was told to come back that night at 9. Agh... remembering the boat story in Laos about the boat going at 10, but not at night, in the morning. Those little words representing am and pm which I have not learned yet.
That afternoon I was at the mall checking out their computer stuff and waiting for the rain to stop. When it did, I returned to my hotel before it started again. And at 9 in the evening it was still pouring hard so I was very disappointed to not get to see the dragon dance or the 10 person dragon with one person holding a pole in front, or how they managed to move those large drums.
Before being caught in the rain at the mall, I had been on an expedition to find the office of Bintang Prema to buy a bus ticket to Rantepao, Toraja, up in the mountains, which was a 9 hour trip. At my hotel I had met a couple from the Netherlands who had retired from the Foreign Service and were living in Spain, not far from the French border. We spend some time talking and they told me how to make the trip and suggested I stay at Wisma Maria, where all the travelers stay, and eat at Marts Cafe, across the street. So with my bus ticket, I had my plans all laid out, but then as normal, they were modified along the way.
The night before, while it was raining and raining and I missed the dragon dance, I sent an email to a woman we met at Bira Beach who was married to a Dutch ship builder, and her sister was from Toraja and was working at Sunshine Hotel, where we stayed, In the morning during breakfast before leaving for the bus, I downloaded my email and discovered a message with her sister's telephone number in Toraja. So on the bus I gave her a call. Well, this resulted in a flurry of telephone calls and sms text messages between Bira Beach and Toraja and me on the bus, with me sometimes giving the phone to someone else to help with figuring out where I was, and other information which I could not understand.
What I finally understood was Muli was not in Rantepao, but was in Makale, a town before Rantepao, and I was invited to visit and stay at her house. So I had a decision to make. Frankly I was enjoying a solid stomach again, comfortable hotel rooms with western toilets with toilet paper, hot water showers, and was looking forward to spending some time with a bunch of other travelers. On the other hand, my sense of adventure overcame my creature comforts, and with some hesitation, I accepted. (I imagine you knew I would before I did).
Muli met me at the bus stop in the center of Makale, which turned out to be the capital city of Toraja, and put me on the back of her cousin's motor scooter, while she was riding on the back of the second one, and out of the center we went. I am still not very clear on where I am. We went to her aunt's house across the street from her home, where I was given a room in her aunt's home and a key to lock it. For dinner I was invited over to Muli's where she is living with and taking care of her younger sister since her mother died a few months ago. Muli is trying to recreate all the dinners they cooked for us at Bira Beach, BBQ fish and chicken. The fish last night and the chicken for a late lunch today.
This is turning into another one of the adoptive grandfather roles, where I am too old to be a threat to young women so they adopt me as their grandfather. Not that I really want to admit being that old, but it seems to ease the social relationships. At breakfast this morning Muli showed her aunt pictures of you taken at Bira. And everyone oohed and aahed about how beautiful my wife is.
Today after breakfast I was having tea, and was invited to sit on the patio on the back side of the house. It was a fabulous view across a wide valley with a mountain on the far side. There was so much in the picture it took some time for all the features to become apparent. On the far left there was a road with traffic crossing the end of the picture. There were some water buffalos scattered around the fields. Some of the fields were vegetation of various shades of green. Occasionally a man with his dog, or a couple of youngsters, would enter the picture and cross the fields on paths not apparent to me. There was a lake with a fisherman. Closer to me were chickens, sparrows, and other birds. Scattered across the fields, especially the wetter ones, were large white birds. It was like a large painting, but alive.
Then the aunt invited me to walk across the street and a bit higher than Muli's to another complex, where there were two traditional houses. All the people here seem to be related. We climbed up and went into one of the houses. It was in excellent shape and unoccupied. As I understand it, it is still being worked on.
Today, with my personal guide on the back of one motor scooter and me on the back of another, we took off to who knows where, arrived at some place with an admission fee, and started walking down some path when Muli asked me if I was afraid. Afraid? I had no idea where we were, where we were going and she wants to know if I was afraid? We reached the bottom of the path into a wider open level where I could see up on the side of the mountain something resembling a long box similar to the private boxes I have seen in opera houses. It looked like about 20 people sitting in the box, but they turned out to be carved from wood. There was a guide who came up and started talking to me after he lit the lantern he was carrying. He was explaining how the upper class pay 22 buffalo to have their casket taken up to the upper level of the mountain and to have their look-alike carved in wood and put into the VIP box, looking down on us.
So gradually I am understanding this is some kind of cemetery, and I did remember being told earlier in the morning something about a cemetery, but this - is a small mountain. We start climbing up the steps and I realize there are piles of bones and skulls and collapsed wooden caskets. They point up and I can see where there are wooden caskets on the side of the mountain held up with wooden poles. The path leads into the mountain which contains a series of tunnels and caves created from water removing the limestone (as I understood the explanation) with families buried in little niches along the way. Some of the newer caskets were covered with a something like a large plastic table cloth.
These are all from the lower classes, the middle classes pay more to have their caskets carried halfway up the side of the mountain, the upper class have the higher places. But wooden caskets in damp caves tend to collapse over time. Or perhaps an inducement to the middle and upper classes to pay more to go higher and dryer.
After exiting the entrance to the cave, the guide explained the ditch full of very large bamboo which was used to carry the casket to the mountain, and some large wooden carts used for the middle class and finally something looking like models of their old traditional houses for the rich.
We got back on the motor scooters and the next stop appeared to be a model cluster of their traditional houses built with thatch roofs. But then we didn't seem to pause at the model houses, but continued down a paved path, past some stores and other buildings and kept on going until we came to another mountain. At the bottom was something that sort of looked like one of their traditional houses, but the main part looked more like a very large tank. The best I could understand is that it belonged to a rich person who died, it contained the body, and the rest of the family would/could be added later when they died. As we continued to walk the path leading up the mountain, I noticed this cemetery seemed to have some large concrete containers along the mountain path. Families were buried in these boxes.
They were going to take me to a third cemetery, but I had had enough.
Tomorrow we are going to a waterfall and a high point overlooking Rantepao, the next day a ceremony involving water buffalo fighting (part of the funeral ceremony?), and then the next day a funeral. The funeral is for her aunt's husband's brother. I may skip the funeral to get back to Makassar to pick up my package from FedEx. But the 4 large cakes they were baking today were interesting.
I realize I was not rational when it came to the loss and replacement of my phone. I watch people here, and it appears everyone here has a phone, they carry them in their back pocket, they sit down in a cafe and throw them done with their keys on the table. How can everyone here in this poor country have cell phone with pictures, text messaging, videos, music, games, etc while we can not even get Internet access to our house? Which is first and which is third world?
Already I am missing my solid stomach ... So stay tuned to see what my next adventure will be. Maybe I will figure out how to put my pants on in a room with water all over the floor. Probably I need to learn yoga. I can still picture Brenda [Ron's travel companion in South America in 1971 who is now a yoga teacher] putting on her shoes standing up without wavering.
Love and miss you - our bathroom, your cooking, and where I am used to whatever is in the food and water....You must be checking your morning email now.
Ron
Afton, Virginia, USA
15 February 2012Dear Family and Friends,
Ron returned from the mountains of Toraja to Makassar, and then went to Bira Beach, where we were last year (where we were staying when the hotel owner died). At Bira, he stayed first on the harbor side, where he had no internet signal (the harbor side of Bira is tucked between a high rocky hill and the water), but has now moved to the more open side away from the harbor. He has an internet signal and is thus trying to catch up on his email and his reports. Following is his report of the second part of his time in Toraja.
Last weekend we had two days of clear but very cold weather with extremely high winds. Many people lost power for as much as 24 hours, but, although I had multiple little power glitches, I never actually lost it for more than a second. Now we are back to the unusually warm weather we have been having for most of this winter, daytime temperatures of 50-60F (10-16C). My daffodils are well out of the ground and some even have buds on them - about a month early!
Love to all,
Ellen
To see photos of the visit to the waterfall and the rock cemetery on the way to the high point, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Toraja, part 2
To see photos of the funeral in Toraja, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Written in Bira Beach, Sulawesi, Indonesia
15 February 2012Hello, my dear -
My visit to Toraja was nothing like anything I have read or expected, but I guess that is no surprise to you. After my experiences with Nasrul, I am learning to let go of control and just flow with what other people are planning. I cannot always understand what I am being told, and then I believe they change the plans anyway for reasons I never understand. Rain I can understand, and I watch the clouds for storms. So I just pay the OJs (drivers of motor scooters), get on and ride to wherever I am being taken. Most of the OJs are Muli's cousins.
One day we rode motor scooters for a couple of hours to get to the top of a high mountain overlooking the region. My butt was sore. My arms were sore from holding on to the bar behind my butt. We went through Rantepao, the town most tourist go to, and I could see it was smaller and might be a better place for travelers. But we continued to ride and ride. I kept scanning the horizon trying to see a tall mountain, but the only high ridge I could see was quite a distance away. And then after a while I could see no mountains or any long range views. Finally I could tell we were climbing higher and higher and every now and then I could get a glimpse of the valley below.
Finally we stopped and got off the motor scooters and continued to walk further. The road wound around some very large rocks, and in the rocks tombs had been created by carving out the rocks. This was not soft limestone but solid rock. So I was in another cemetery. The view was quite spectacular, and would make an nice site for eternity. They consider the stones sacred. Compared to some of the other cemeteries, these seemed permanent and there were no bones laying around. I could still see the piles of bamboo, wooden carts and miniature traditional houses (used to transport the bodies), abandoned and left behind.
While most of Sulawesi is Muslim, the religion of Toraja is Christian. In Makale there is a small Moslem population and in Rantepao a larger Moslem population, but the Christians are the predominant population. I didn't receive any knowledge about their religious beliefs, but obviously their burial traditions are unique and it seems death is a central focus for them. It certainly serves as a tourist draw.
One day we walked from Muli's house, down her street to the bigger street and up part of a block where we cut into a private house site, crossed in front of their patio and into some wooded area, walking around the trees and shrubs until we reached a tomb - or is the correct name a crypt? A small square building with one sealed door made of stone and concrete. A permanent construction.
I saw another crypt and a couple of regular graves with cement tops. So I gather this was a family cemetery. Her grandmother and mother were buried in the crypt. I think her mother died early this year or late last year, making a big impact on Muli, leaving her to raise her younger sister.
Another day we made a trip to see a waterfall. Again, it was a very long way on the back of the motor scooter. When we turned off the so-called paved road onto a dirt road, we discovered it to be very muddy and slippery, the OJs stopped and we started walking down this muddy road. There were lots of twists and turns and finally we reached the bottom to discover that we also had to wade across a wide rocky stream. I was having difficulty with my tender feet so someone let me use their typical floppy shoes. Then there was another walk to the waterfall. It was a nice waterfall, high with a big flow of water, and a nice pond for swimming at the bottom. Of course I was given more attention than I desired.
One day we went to the funeral. Perhaps that is not the correct way to state it. When we got there I found a lot of numbered building/bamboo lofts/tent like structures. Muli asked several people some questions and I assumed she was trying to find her aunt. Finally walked up a small incline to a bamboo building, climbed the steps to the covered platform and entered the compartment on the left side. I was introduced to several people, family was my impression, and later her aunt appeared, I had recognized the cookies and cake that were offered to me as the ones I had seen her making in her home.
Later in the day I saw her husband also. They were both dressed in their finest. She spoke very little English and he spoke less, but they were both very friendly to me and made me feel at home in their home.
I have no idea how many different funerals were going on at this place. It sort of felt like a country fair. There were water buffalo. And there were bound pigs everywhere. I would see processions of pigs tied to poles being carried up the street to who know where. There were groups of tied up pigs laying on the ground in several places. And sometimes the noise from the pigs was the loudest sound around.
One building seemed to serve a central purpose. I would watch processions of mainly women in matching colorful clothes, carrying trays of what I presume was food, come walking down the street in two parallel lines and enter this special building. Then others would enter. Later the procession would be reversed and they would leave.
My best guess is each family would have their time in this building, some without the larger procession, some with. When we were talking to Muli's aunt and uncle dressed in their finest, they later joined a procession and entered this building. We did not go in.
Outside this building was a large group of mostly men but some women in a large circle chanting something, like a song, and swaying and moving up and down, and gradually the circle turned.
Remembering the funeral and burial site for Matheo, the American who died while I was getting to know him at his backpacker inn, his funeral was nothing like anything I was seeing in Toraja.
The funeral was for Muli's uncle's brother. I have no idea how many water buffalo or pigs were involved in their funeral, but I gather the more pigs and buffalo, the higher the status. I think the funerals go on for three days, and the next day the pigs would be BBQ and eaten. However I was having enough trouble with my stomach and was looking at a 8 hour bus ride and needed to get back to Makassar to pick up my phone from FedEx (the dumbest decision I ever made traveling was to have it replaced and shipped by FedEx).
Over-all it was an immersion experience in a culture very different from ours. The only other tourists I saw were a young couple walking along the road near the top of the mountain, near what looked like a place to stay. Perhaps I have grown too old for this kind of experience, which is much like some of my experiences in South America in the early 1970s, or the bicycle trip up the NamBak river in Laos to the Chinese border, or exploring the Carpathian mountains in Ukraine. Now I am spoiled and want "my food," comforts, and Western toilets.
But as I write this I am sitting in a nice restaurant in Bira Beach, on the water front overlooking the beach at a beautiful sunset, and remembering the kind hospitality provided by Muli and her family, the views across the terraces of rice paddies going down the mountain, ducks, birds and water buffalo, the view from her aunt's back terrace, and the relief each time when I got off the back of the motor scooter.
However, the mental pictures of the piles of broken coffins fallen off the side of the mountain, the skulls and piles of bones, the rotten coffins in the caves... these are the ones that may haunt my dreams.
Returning to Makassar I found my Sentosa restaurant for soup and Lai Lai for fish and my $22 hotel room with western toilet, hot water, AC, lights bright enough to read by and a nice desk for my computer next to a window overlooking the street. Decadent.
Next report will be about Bira. Will I go meet Nina?
Love and miss you,
Ron
Afton, Virginia, USA
21 February 2012Dear Family and Friends,
Ron has now left Sulawesi, and is headed by boat to Nunukan, an island on the northeast edge of Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo, just south of the border between Indonesia and Malaysia. He writes in this report about his time in Bira Beach, where we spent quite a bit of time last year, both before and after Matteo, the American ex-pat owner of our hotel, Sunshine Guest House, died. He has seen all the people we were closely involved with during that time, and also met and talked with Nini, Matteo's ex-wife, whom we had not met.
Here in Virginia, we did finally have snow on Sunday, our first of the year (and it will probably be our only), about 5 inches (13 cm), but yesterday and today the temperature was 50F (10C), and most of it is now gone. On Thursday it is supposed to be 75F (24C), which is definitely not our usual end of February weather!
Love to all,
Ellen
Bira Beach
Written on the ferry between Pari Pari (Sulawesi) and Nunukan (Borneo)
21 February 2012Hello, my dear -
From Toraja I took a night bus back to Makassar and managed to get my Agota price at the Hotel Jesmin for a few days to pick up my phone at FedEx and return to my favorite restaurants.
FedEx Customer service is among the worst I have ever experienced. The people in Makassar were helpful but the office in Jakarta was very unhelpful. Calls were disconnected, people promised to call back and did not, there was a promise to take care of the problem if I sent them an email and then nothing and when contacted again a complete reversal and refusal to answer my email. No one would put me in touch with the FedEx staff who coordinate with Customs. I refused to sign for the customs charges and am disputing them. [Note from Ellen: I paid the shipping charges here, and customs charges were also supposed to have been paid by me, charged to my credit card. FedEx in the US tells me that the charge is made at the time of delivery, but so far, there has been no charge.] I do however have my phone after making the dumbest irrational decision I ever made to have it replaced and shipped to me.
My round of restaurants included fish soup with rice noodles, spring onions, garlic and something like a fried cracker at Sentosa Soup Restaurant then a fried fish dinner at Lai Lai Restaurant, where I picked out the fish from several large boxes with ice and they split and cleaned and then grilled on an open grill in front of the restaurant - served with condiments including plenty of lime, basil and shredded green mango. Then I would walk up the street a ways to a food court on the beach with live music and have a frozen yogurt with three fruit toppings, picking chocolate covered caviar, blueberry syrup, and lychee (they were out of mango).
I have been reading The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell and hope to finish it today. An interesting science fiction which I have found interesting, thought provoking, but also depressing so far. [Note from Ellen: I loved this book!]
Finding the bus to Bira Beach was a bit more difficult than going to Toraja. My first attempt was a bust, getting to the bus station after all the morning buses had left to find there are no buses during the day and only private chartered cars available for slightly less than $50. So I asked some more questions and came up with a wider range of choices. I was told a couple of miles south of the Malengkeri Terminal, there is another place called Sunggumlusa where shared cars (Panter?) can be found for around $8.
Early the next day, after another fish, soup and yogurt, I looked for a Peti Peti with Malengkeri in the list of places on the front windshield, confirmed with the driver and was lucky to get to the terminal with one Peti Peti for 3,000 rp (33 cents US) . There were a couple of air conditioned buses but they were full, so I was put on a regular large bus for 70,000 rp, $8 which was not bad for the long ride of around 5-6 hours.
The best solution would be going to a travel agency and buying a ticket on one of the air conditioned buses going through Bira on the way to catching the ferry to Selaras, if they will sell you a ticket to just Bira.
Coming back from Bira was more problematic. The ferry from Selaras arrived around 10:30 am and I asked each of the three air conditioned buses and the two non AC buses for a seat but they were all full. A guy gave me a lift back to the corner and pointed to and spoke to someone else, who took over and pointed to a Peti Peti going to Bulukumba. It was an interesting ride with three older ladies apparently going to the market to sell and buy, and cost me about 15,000 rp, about $1.65. One lady had three large bags of what I think is called breadfruit, like grapefruit but covered with an outside layer several inches thick. She managed to sell most of them to some other lady who got on the bus in a smaller town along the way for what appeared to be around 2000 rp each, a bit less than a US quarter.
In Bulukumba the driver dropped me where I could get a shared car, 40,000rp ($4.50) and after reserving the front passenger seat, within the hour we were loaded and on the way. While it was more comfortable, and even cheaper than the bus, it was scarier, with the young kid driving fast and passing everything in the heavy oncoming traffic on a road with good parts and then bad parts where the road had deteriorated.
Sorry if you are not interested in the details, but someone following my path later might find them useful.
When I arrived in Bira I was met by Melissya, Muli's sister who is married to the Dutch boat builder. She got me settled in the Cafe and Hotel on the west beach and then we went for a walk into the village above the beach on the road to Makassar. Once we left the main road I found the small side roads very interesting, with cute little painted houses. We visited a home where she used the sewing machine to take in some of her clothes. She has lost a lot of weight since her mother died. There were several weaving stations set up with some of the women operating them. On another small road on the side away from the beach, she stopped to pick up some small plants she had ordered from a woman who told us I was the first tourist to ever walk on her street.
Melissya has set up a restaurant with small tables and thatch coverings (similar to the ones Muli built at her mother's house in Toraja, which may have also been designed by Melissya). There were many outside plants in pots for the restaurant. However the restaurant seemed to be on hold while there was some group making model guides for a new boat being built next door for the big boat company and her husband was involved in translating the instructions between the owner of the boat and the building company.
The next day I moved to the East beach. While I really liked the West beach better, and found the beach village more interesting, there were several other considerations. There was no Internet connection on the west beach, very limited choice in restaurants and a long walk to anything. For slightly less money I could get a better room, with air conditioning and mosquito netting within walking distance of several good restaurants and a more active social life with all the other travelers. I stayed at the Nusa Bira Indra Cottages which was right below Sunshine Guest House where we stayed last year.
Each day when I would return from walking and eating I would be told I had visitors. Melissya came to visit. Dewi, Amir's daughter, came by a couple of times and the last time she put me on the phone with Amir and later Anna. Dewi, 14 I think, is still going to school in Bira and living in the home of the guard who used to work at Sunshine.
Nini, the ex-wife of Matteo, had asked to be a friend on Facebook. I was not sure who she was and had replied to her request asking how she knew me. She chose to answer while I was in Bira so I assumed she also knew I was there, so I decided to walk up the back steps from where I was staying to the back patio of Sunshine. I sat for a while at my hotel's patio until there was some movement at Sunshine House and then asked the guy who moving around if Nini was there. He was Nini's English new husband, and he asked who wanted to see her. I replied "Ron" and he went and found her. She invited me to sit where we ate our meals last year and her husband came and interjected himself into our conversation. I found him angry and rude and obviously he didn't like me. He told her she didn't have to talk to me.
Nini was nothing like I had expected. She was quiet, mild mannered and teary-eyed as we talked. There was something she wanted me to remove from our report last year on the web site so her daughter would not grow up to read it. I agreed to do so, and it has been done. She thanked me for what was posted on the web site about Matteo's funeral and burial, and said without it she would she would never have found his burial site. She said he would never have wanted to be buried in Makassar and had said he wanted to be spread around Bira if he died. I thought the reason he was buried in Makassar had something to do with the laws and lack of a site in Bira where foreigners could be buried. She said that was not true and he could have been buried on the Sunshine House property.
She explained they would like to sell Sunshine House and move to Lombak where they would like live and open a new guest house. With Amir still fighting them in the courts with his lawyer, it would be difficult for me to believe someone would buy the hotel before clear title is determined.
I left my meeting with Nini feeling fairly positive about her and sad to think about the continuing legal struggle between her and Amir with neither getting what they need. But as an outsider I will never know or understand all the facets of their dispute.
I enjoyed my days of doing nothing, walking, reading, sleeping, eating in Bira Beach. I met some interesting couples from Spain and look forward to hearing from them again. I will miss the omelet with cheese and the tomato soup from the Bira Beach Hotel Restaurant where I watched the sunset most evenings.
After returning to Makassar, Amir and his first wife visited me at my hotel. He came the next morning, yesterday, and went with me to the Pelni office to ask about boat tickets from Pari Pari to Nunukan Island, next to the border of Malaysia where I must go to leave and return to Indonesia since my multi-entry visa is limited to 60 days at a time. It turned out there was a Pelni boat leaving Makassar the next day, going to Nunukan by way of Pari Pari and Balikpapan [on the southeast coast of Kalimantan] but would mean spending two nights on the boat where I was hoping for only one. But I would save the 5 hour bus ride to and the night in Pari Pari.
So ... I am writing this to you from the boat as we leave from the port of Pari Pari. I will boot up my modem and see if I can send this before we head out to sea and out of the range of phone towers. I was told there was wifi on board but have not found it yet. I will send this now but continue to review and edit, and if I still have a signal at sea I will send you a revised version. If you don't hear from me [I didn't], then you are free to use this one.
Love and miss you,
Ron
Back to the Indonesia 2012 index
cfw.com
Questions? Send email to Ellen, ebouton 
Last updated: 21 February 2012
