The task was easy. Out of the 15 countries we visited on this trip, five stood out the most.

Read the article to see which ones.

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Tana Toraja is a region of Indonesia where death is the greatest cause for celebration. To usher souls to the afterlife, the locals organize massive funerals that last days. And they sacrifice lots of buffalo on the way.

Coming from the country of soccer is wonderful. From Zimbabwe to Vanuatu, you can be sure that your nationality will be instantly recognized – even loved – by the people you talk to. And that admiration will be instantly transferred to you.

Coming from the country of soccer is horrible. Especially if the wounds of defeat are still gushing blood. Or if, like me, you understand piddles about sport.

Then you have to confront conversations that look like this:

“Ah, Brazil! Ronaldo, Ronaldinho!”

“…Yes…(forced smile)”

You will be called upon to opine on Dunga’s performance as a coach. On the reasons for your country’s loss. You’ll be asked detailed analyses of the playing styles of Europe versus Latin America.

So what’s the best strategy to sneak away with elegance? Parrot Roberto’s explanations? Confess my ignorance and indifference and risk being seen as mad? Possibly break a few hearts?

I know! From now on, I’m no longer Brazilian.

“Hello, where you from?”

“Me, I’m from Canada!”

“Ahhh! Canada! Carlos Hernandez!”

“Sorry? Carlos Hernandez?”

“Yes, Carlos Hernandez! Football!”

(confused grimace)

“Oh, no, sorry, sorry, mister! Carlos Hernandez from Mexico!”*

I deserve it.

*Actual dialog with a taxi driver in Surabaya, East Java.

We’ve been together for month now, and it’s time we had that talk. I don’t know where you see this going, but I could say “the hell with it” to the rest of my year-long trip and stay here with you.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out. You didn’t really expect that, huh? Oh, stop giggling and listen.

Yes, you have beautiful beaches, scenic mountains, and hallowed temples, but it’s not just your body I fell in love with.

I feel really good with you. You treat me so well, and it’s not because of my money. Most times you don’t even ask for money. You just like being around me.

You give me a lift on a motorcycle in the rain then take me home to give me a dry shirt and some hot coffee. You talk to me on the train and take time off work the next day to show me around town. You teach me that it’s idiotic to keep a schedule, since you stop me every 30 meters to talk.

No, I don’t mind that you ask me 20 times a day where I’m from and how long I’ve been here. I don’t mind getting the occasional mouthful of truck exhaust and being nearly deafened by 100 passing motorbikes. You’re like a lover that farts in bed because she’s so comfortable and self-assured. You secretly know I’ll love you no matter what.

You don’t bother learning English because you’re too smart for that. You know that if I make the effort to speak your language, I’ll be rewarded in spades: a motorcycle ride through your narrow alleys, a free coconut sweet, your adorable laughter.

You’re religious, but not insufferably. You trim and mould religion to suit your lifestyle, not the other way around. You wear your Muslim headscarf with tight jeans and heels (and have no idea how confusingly hot that is). And you’re a good sport about it: you train monkeys to bow to Allah in town squares then poke them in the butt with a drumstick.

So you’re not exactly the best chef. Your food is good, but it can get pretty repetitive and sometimes outright disturbing. What the hell is this? A flattened and deep-fried lung? And yet, you manage to make me feel like a gastronomical Indiana Jones when your ugly streets explode to life with a million food stalls that tug me 10 different ways with their peanutty garlic grease.

But for God’s sake, go easy on the sugar. I can’t even taste the tea in this glass of diabetes. And do you have to smoke your clove cigarettes while you drive the bus? It’s not exactly well-ventilated in here.

Oh, whatever. Just go ahead, take my picture and add me on Facebook. I won’t understand anything you say there, but that’s ok. After all, our relationship is complicated.

Tale of the tape:
Malang wins 4-3 on the categories above, even though both towns appeal to different tastes. Malang is great for nature and contact with traditional Javanese living.  Solo, on the other hand, is made for culture vultures who enjoy big-city trappings.

Some practical info

Malang

To get to Batu, take a bus from the Landungsari bus station.

To get to Coban Rondo, take a microbus form Batu to the entrance of the park. It’s a four-kilomtre walk to the waterfall or a cheap ojek (motorcycle taxi) ride. There’s a mini zoo halfway with deer, cassowaries, monkeys and elephants. A bit depressing.

To get to Cangar: take a bus from Batu to Selekta, then hire an ojek to take you up the mountain. It’s Rp. 15,000 (about $1.60) each way. The pools close at 4pm.

Solo

To get to the Ceto and Sukuh temples: take a bus from the terminal to Karangpadan village. You can hire an ojek to take you to one or both temples and back. He will likely charge Rp. 100,000 for both, but try to bargain it down to Rp. 80,000.

Photo by Marc-André Jung

Note: This post details a (possible) criminal offense that I was lucky to get away with. Only an idiot would try to to the same.

I lied, dodged the entry fee, and trespassed to get to Borobudur temple, just to avoid disappointment and admitting defeat. Now a cloud of karma trails me like a bad smell

But at the time, I was too high on adrenaline to care.

It was all because of a dumb assumption. Travel agencies in Yogyakarta offer trips to see the sunset at Borobudur. Long-exposure shots show the majestic Buddhist structure, a true living world wonder, illuminated by floodlights with blurry heads of people milling around.

So it’s easy to assume it’s open until late. But in Indonesia, one learns once and again never to assume.

I arrived at the the gates at 5:07 pm. Seven minutes after they had closed. Ticket sellers were packing up and leaving.

“Please, sir. My bus had a mechanical problem,” I lied to one of them. “I just want to go in, take a picture, and leave,” I lied some more. I had no camera.

Indonesians are an accommodating bunch. Flexible and polite, they are always willing to make an exception here, bend a rule there. It makes for a wonderfully adaptive society. It also fosters one of the most corrupt governments in the world.

And it just happened that I stood behind the gate from the most by-the-book Indonesian I met. He just shook his head as if declining a street vendor and walked away.

But ah, the compassion of women. A lady ticket seller in a Muslim headscarf saw the disappointment in my eyes – I had, after all, travelled 1.5 hours to get there – and offered the only help she could.

“Go ask the security guards at the exit,” she said. “I don’t have any decision power.”

Visitors were leaving in a steady stream, but I knew there were many more inside the massive park that houses the temple. Loudspeakers repeatedly asked them to please proceed to the exit.

“I can’t let you in,” the guard told me. “But you can try something else. Go to the Manohara Hotel. Tell them you just want to have a drink, then leave the path to the temple.”

Of course, there’s a hotel inside the park gates, I remembered.

“How again?” I wanted to make sure I heard him right.

“Just… lie,” he said.

I ran a good kilometre from the main gate to the hotel entrance. A security station controlled the entry of cars with a sawhorse. I had a 100,000 rupiyah note ($11) folded in my hand if a palm needed greasing.

“Hotel Manohara?” I asked.

“Yes, go straight ahead,” a guard said.

The temple park is nicely manicured with trim walkways and decorative trees. It almost looks like a golf course. A mountain range in the distance was pleasantly misted with low clouds.

I passed the hotel entrance and followed signs that read “To Temple.” After a five-minute jog I saw metal fence surrounded a hill shrouded by trees. Coming closer I could see the crowning stupa of Borobudur.

There was a gate with stairs leading to the temple base. It was shut with a padlock. On the gate someone had painted “No climb” so crudely, it looked like it was done with White-Out and a toothpick. There was a security booth on top of the hill overlooking that entrance but no one inside it.

Indonesia is an easy-going country with strict laws. On the customs declaration card visitors are cheerfully greeted with “Death penalty for drug traffickers.” What would be the penalty for a trespassing a UNESCO World Heritage Site, I wondered. Would it be worse than accepting I made a mistake on a lazy assumption?

Only 10 minutes until the site was fully closed off. Hell, I’m not coming back tomorrow, I thought. I may never come back again. Here I am, a mere 20 paces from one of the most impressive monuments to faith in the world. And only a meagre, unguarded fence between us. I’ll just take a peek and leave.

I jumped the gate and quietly climbed the stone steps. What would a ninja do? He would hide behind a bush and see if there were people around. There was no one. I emerged from the stairs and stood at the foot of the temple. What a sight! What a structure! Several levels of carvings and bell-shaped stupas. I must climb to the top!

When I turned a corner I saw a group of tourists dawdling for a last glance and smoothly slipped inside them. Not one guard around!

I climbed the temple steps halfway up and did a half-lap on one of the corridors, quickly taking in the hundreds of relief panels showing stories about the Buddha. I resumed the climb on the steps on the opposite side.

The last few tourists were coming down, escorted by a tour guide and guards with walkie-talkies. I slipped past them and made it to the top. A severe-looking man in blue uniform, the man who protects the top and most sacred level, frowned.

My only hope was to be a total hapless mook.

“Sorry. Very sorry. Bus late. Mechanical problem,” I gushed in broken Indonesian. “Very quick. Just look.”

“Please,” the guard said. “You must leave.”

“Sorry, yes. Look and go. I run run run.”

“Hurry up and take a picture.”

“My camera, my eyes,” I stuttered. “My memory, my heart.” The guard broke into a smile and touched the middle of his breast.

“Yes, good! Your heart!” Nice. That would win me a few more seconds.

If you could speed-read a breathtaking landscape, that’s what I did. I gulped down eyefuls of the misty palm-covered mountain in the distance, the huge bell-shaped stupas that line the top level of Borobudur, and the big sitting Buddha, shiny and worn by so many greasy hands.

It’s a place meant for slow, quiet contemplation. A proper visitor should stroll for hours at each level and meditate on his place in the world, his significance against something so ancient and so grand. It should flood his mind with awe at what miracles humans can perform on the power of faith.

And there I was, the idiot. The douche who can’t take defeat. The thoughtless tourist who just comes to take a bad picture, cross off another major world site from his list, then head back to the hotel bar. I had lied, trespassed, and didn’t contribute a single rupiyah (the entry fee is Rp.135,000). Karma would surely bite me back.

It didn’t take long. The last bus back to Yogyakarta had left, and I had to pay a motorcyclist to bring me back. I assumed this was just a warning shot.

But damn, I felt good.

It takes at least two days to get to the Togean Islands from anywhere of consequence in Sulawesi. It’s a difficult journey of nauseating roads and deafening boats. So it’s of little surprise that very few people go there. All the better.

Trip one: The bus from Toraja to Tentena

Idiots and trained astronauts need not take motion sickness pills. The road from the highlands of South Sulawesi to the central coast makes more turns than a shopping cart with a bad wheel. Your stomach plays musical chairs as you’re tossed from side to side.

You try to focus on the distant horizon, but the top two-thirds of the bus windshield is covered in stuffed toys with dangling tails and bobbing heads. This somehow worsens everything.

A TV plays Indonesian music videos with karaoke subtitles. It would be a welcome distraction if it wasn’t the same four videos played on repeat at the loudest volume. One of the singers is a middle-aged mustachioed man who thinks he’s a good dancer and a snappy dresser. If Sascha Baron Cohen was Asian, this would be his most successful character.

You hear what sounds like passengers throwing up in little plastic bags, but try desperately to shift your thoughts elsewhere. You look at the aisle for something steady and realize what the little blue bucket passengers pass around is meant for. Thankfully, the driver smokes clove cigarettes in the hermetically-sealed bus, and this masks the smell of bile.

You arrive 10 hours later, proud at having survived it, but the world doesn’t really stop spinning for 24 hours. You end up spending two nights in a hotel in Tentena to see a heart-stopping waterfall and your team get eliminated from the World Cup.

Trip two: the microbus from Tentena to Poso

This is actually a pretty good 1.5-hour ride. One lady threw up.

Trip three: the car from Poso to Ampana

It’s a car with three rows of seats. There’s a woman with a little girl in the back, and the driver stuffs your backpacks next to her. You apologize for her discomfort. They put you in the middle seats, and another man sits on the front passenger chair.

You travel for five minutes, and a family of four asks for a ride. Instead of politely turning them away, the driver stuffs their luggage over your backpacks. A man squeezes between the luggage and the mother in the back seat, then his wife sits on his lap. The other two squeeze in the middle row, which is meant for three but now has four.

The driver puts a 10-kilo bag of rice in the legroom of the front seat, forcing the passenger to put his feet on the dashboard. You look behind, see a disjointed cluster of four heads, and realize with horror that you have by far the most comfortable seat.

But at least we’re in the coast, you think. No more mountain roads. But the coast is mountainous. One child threw up. I think. I couldn’t tell anymore.

Inside the boat.

Trip four: the boat from Ampana to the Togean archipelago

There’s no ferry that day, so you either split a private boat with five other people or lose another day at a boring coastal village. The boat is no wider than a bowling alley. You choice is the lower deck, which is stuffy and dark and no higher than a toddler, or the top with no shelter from the sun and rain.

The motor sounds like a lazy machine gun with a bullhorn. Earplugs are useless, since the noise reaches your brain via vibrations on your bones. You fashion your backpack into a pillow and try to lie back and relax. Rain and sea spray you through the potholes.

This lasts five hours.

Epilogue

You arrive in Kadidiri island. You paid dearly to get there. You look around and know that you’ll cry when you leave.

The following is an amalgamation of several dialogues that took place in broken English and broken Indonesian.

“Hello meester!”

“Hello, how are you?”

“Good! Where you from?”

“Brazil.”

“Brazil? Ah, Brazil! Fooball, meester. Brazil good. I like!”

“Good. I like.”

“How long have in been in Indonesia?”

“Erm… slower, please.”

“How long Indonesia?”

“Ah. Three wait.”

“What?”

“Huh? Ummm… minute. Dictionary. Erm, minute… minute… Ah! Sorry. Three weeks.”

“Ah, three weeks. You speak Indonesian?”

“Little. I learning everyday few language Indonesia.”

“Good, meester. Can I take your picture?”

“Sure.”

“Now you and me.”

“OK.”

“Now with my friend. Now you, me and my friend. Now you and my wife. Now you me, my wife, and my friend.”

“OK, good. Please, where food?”

“Food? You want to eat?”

“Yes, eat. There is house food good here?”

“Here, meester. Eat with us!”

“What?”

“We have food. Beach barbecue. We give you food.”

“Wow. Thank you. Yes, I like.”

“Please, sit. You want rice, chicken, vegetables?”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

“Here, have some mineral water.”

“Wow. Chicken good! Chicken beautiful! Chicken good good.”

“Meester. My wife. She made it.”

“Spice very good. Minute, dictionary. Erm… ah, best… minute… world. Yes, best chicken world!”

“Thank you, meester. You are friendly.”

“What?”

“Friendly, meester. Look your dictionary.”

“Minute…. ah! Friendly. Thank you. You are friendly.”

“Thank you.”

“I have to go now. I taxi hotel.”

“No meester, we take you.”

“What?”

“We all take taxi to city. Come with us. What hotel?”

“Mario Marannu.”

“Ah! I live near. Meester, we watch football tonight?”

“Yes, I like.”

“We come find you in hotel.”

“OK. How much for taxi?”

“No, meester. Gratis. Gratis.”

“No, let me pay.”

“No meester. Very nice to meet you. Football tonight.”

I never saw them again.

The buffalo looked calm even though four of his brothers laid bloodied at his feet. It’s as if it knew that his whole life, all the years of pasture and fattening, was meant for this moment.

There was him and another dozen left to go. This was the burial ceremony of a wealthy person, and in Tana Toraja, a region of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, the size of a funeral has to correspond to the social status of the deceased.

For this four-day ceremony, the departed’s family bought 24 buffalo. The average price for one is 60 million rupiyah, or US$6,500. That’s $150,000 in buffalo alone, not counting food for the hundreds of guests, decorators, ushers, or the labour and materials needed to erect all the temporary structures.

Despite being a major part of the burial ceremony, the sacrifice of a buffalo is remarkably unceremonious. The designated executioner gets the animal into a solid patch of ground, unsheathes his blade, and strikes at the throat. No chants, no ordained silence.

The sound of a kill is blunt and muted, like a dictionary being dropped on a mattress. The buffalo’s throat opens with a flap of skin exposing his heavy red muscles and white sinews of bone. If the executioner is experienced, a single strike will open vital arteries, turning the animal’s neck into a cascade of blood, and drawing cheers from the guests.

The killer we saw was still an apprentice, so the cut did not bleed. The buffalo reared back after the strike, startled, but not panicked by the massive gash under its head. Two men held it still while the executioner slashed further inside.

Perhaps animals, like humans, panic at the sight of their own blood. When the ground beneath it became drenched in red, that’s when the animal showed fear. It tried to run, but its foot was tied to a stake on the ground. It bucked the other way, and I began to doubt if that rope would hold. The cheering from the audience morphed into excited yelling as everyone in the general aim of its horns scampered in caution.

Buffalo accept death in largely spaced waves. This one stopped charging forward and began to stagger sideways. Its bearings betrayed confusion, no longer defiance. It looked around, at the cheering spectators, at the white people with the big cameras, at the two men charged with holding it down. The blood still gushed from the wound and every time it took a laboured breath, a fine red mist sprayed from the cut. It chanced one more escape, but instead it toppled on its side. I felt the earth shudder when it fell.

There are three reasons Torajans sacrifice buffalo at a funeral. First, they believe the souls of the buffalo escort the deceased into the afterlife, where he still enjoys the social status he had on earth. The more buffalo you have, the wealthier you are.

Second, it keeps their prestige in the community. A person must die as spectacularly as he lived.

And third, it’s a gesture of goodwill among the community. The animal’s meat is distributed among all those who helped organize the ceremony. Some buffalo are kept alive and given to the local church and to neighbouring villages.

Once a buffalo falls, it still bucks and spasms between moments of stillness, as though it’s collecting its last energies for a final reminder of its monumental strength. Blood pools quickly around its head and its breathing becomes shallower, slower. Panic gradually disappears from the animal’s eyes and you see the same calm that was there before the blade struck.

Then stillness. Its torso no longer swells with each breath. The blood reduces to a trickle. Five minutes pass and you know it’s dead.

Then something happens. It’s like those movies where a flat-lining patient suddenly blips back to life, a hidden reservoir of life is summoned to action. The buffalo gets back on its feet and makes one final charge toward his killers, his watchers, the dead man in the elevated coffin, whatever is there. It’s the animal’s last affirmation, his way of saying to all those around him, “I was once alive as you are.”

And in this terminal stampede of resistance, he kicks up a mix of mud and blood towards the people watching, a kind of symbolic revenge against his voyeurs. Some of it fell on my arm, my pants, my camera case and my notebook.

Click thumbnails below to see a photo gallery. Click the arrows at the bottom of each pic to advance.

[View with PicLens]

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Photo by starphototegal

There is no shortage of evidence to show that the West is in fact far less developed than the East: the death of spirituality. The domination of work over family. Material individualism. Girlicious.

But nothing proves how backwards we are than our failure to adopt the single greatest mode of urban transportation: the becak, a two-seater rickshaw pushed from behind by a bicycle.

Indonesians are an inventive bunch when it comes to moving people. In any large city, you’ll find at least six different modes of transport. If you can stick wheels on it and charge for use, there’s a version of it.

The becak makes all of them seem antiquated. Riding a bike on the street is exhausting. Your concentration can’t falter as you weave around cars that are weaving around other cars. Motorcycles are worse for the same reason times speed, plus the fear of losing one’s limbs.

Cars and buses are moving shelters. You not only miss the fast-moving scenery, you’re also shielded from it.

The becak has all the lionized benefits of the bike minus the need for concentration. The world passes along at a low enough pace to allow detailed appreciation. Shops have more character, even the shade of trees feel more pleasant. Pedestrians have time to size you up and wave hello, to exchange a word or two.

And nothing compares to the force field of a becak. Fast-moving cars and motorcycles swerve around you like a laid-back river around a rock. Even when crossing busy intersections the world defers to you. You’re a family of ducks crossing the street, a dignitary without a motorcade. Let all others kill themselves slowly with stress and hurry, as long as they make room for your cocoon of serenity.

And there’s no way more dignified than stepping off a vehicle than really just stepping off.