Crossing Towuti and Matano lakes from Kendari to Bateleme, Southeast – south – central Sulawesi, Indonesia

Posted on by wanderer

Again it’s an Adventure that it was on my plans doing but I got to unfortunate misinformation with my hitchhikes and unreliable maps. Fortunately I got to the point in which I can recommend it and fill some of the information holes I had.

Still it’s not gonna be easy and it would be better if you have your own cross country motorbike.

Starting from Kendari the best is to ask to go to Wanggudu (a small empty administrative town).
From there to Padalere to take the motorbike road to Tocalimbo (or simply  Limbo). It shall be about 100km of crappie road so plan to stay overnight on the road if you started from Kendari or spend the whole day doing it.
That at leas for now will allow you to avoid 5km of hyper muddy mountain road on the provincial road. I did it and the trucks backfell.

There is not gonna be much hitchhikes as the area is mostly deserted, but that shall not put off daring adventurers 😀 (I palmed to do it and by far I’m not the craziest out there).

Then when you get to Limbo (so cool to say that, specially now that the church says it doesn’t exist :D) on the shores of Danau Towuti. There I thought it was the problem, where to go next! However through my alternative way I discovered where to continued from Limbo 🙂

There are few boats and a personality flouting wooden ferry on the morning-noon that go from Limbo (on the southeast shore) to Kampung Baru (on the north west shore) and the other way around, so crossing the biggest lake in Indonesia with magnificent views 😀

Then from there to  Soroako (try the street food on Soroako!) and crossing Danau Matano to Nuha (or Nua) is a easy feat, that’s  the one I did in reverse. There are small 4 legged stable boats that continuously do the 20min crossing for 25.000r, they can also cross your moto (I saw one impossibly carrying 3 motos and many passengers :P).

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From the small 8 houses settlement of Nuha to Bateleme, there are no towns, so the hitchhike is difficult. I had to walk for 1h on the mid day equatorial sun :P. The first half of the road, until crossing the province border, it’s quite potholed but easily doable, after its good road, shadowy by rubber trees close to the end.

On addition there is a road from Nuha  to Malili, around the lake, but considering that the Alpha male took the wheel of my ride at that point, but was instead copiloting until in the potholed road, then I assume the road is terrible from there on and you need experience. The beginning did look terrible.

I would say the crossing takes at least 2 days depending on the boats that you find to cross Towuti, but count on 3 days to be sure.

As always count on people super happy to see you, many pictures taken of you, remoteness, untouched scenery, cristal lakes, striking views and unknowns 😀

Good luck and Adventure!

Sulawesi diary, day 7, evening, motorbike conquest. Mountain crossing from Mamasa to Toraja, Sulawesi

Posted on by wanderer

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If a main road can be bad, imagine how a secondary one that is not in the maps can be.  The world really keeps throwing worse and worse paths!

http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=12845209 (Mamasa – Toraja, moto conquest road, 2 hitchhikes)

If a previous post was motorbike kingdoms, as only motors could access some parts, this is motorbike conquest. The landscape refuses to be dominated but the motorbikes and only the motorbikes manage to pass trough.
Landslides, falls of hundreds of meters,  roads eaten by water, water ways, mud, a lot of mud, impossible slopes, lose rocks, all to hide one of the entrances to amazing valleys. This is the continuous conquest of these sturdy machines and their skilled fearless drivers.

In this conquest lands, without electrification and telecommunication system the news come at the speed of motorbike.

The story.

After getting a wrong way in a bifurcation I walk for more than 1h from the funeral place, on a good road but with no traffic.
I ask a moto coming the other way if that’s the way to Toraja, it isn’t. Fortunately he takes me and drives me back to the bifurcation.

After 1h walking on the main road, tired from the monotonous scenery and the noon sun i decide to hitchhike again. Strangely there are no 4 wheel vehicles passing…

The 3rd moto stops, it’s Natan, a 50 something year old man. The moto is a 20 years old Honda Win, like the one i owned in Laos! but not a copycat. He, before letting me on, checks the tire, chain and the suspension of the moto. Strange, that never happened before in any of my hitchs… I’ll have the reason for that soon after.

If a main road can be bad, imagine how a secondary one that is not in the maps can be.  The world really keeps throwing me worse and worse paths! And i know that probably  there is still a long way to go 😀

To hitchhike a motorbike in this kind of road is having a mixture of ignorance, heartlessness (your ride and his moto really have to do extensive extra effort to allow you to go through, even when walking in the bad parts), and having gone trough a lot of any kind (bad stuff).

It can be done… but really you need the right mindset.

Anyway there is always the option of simply hiking, is not the hardest trek ever, but also not the prettiest. There are 2 or 3 nice landscapes and few traditional mamasa/toraja houses, but that’s it.  The real wander of amazing roofed houses appears when getting into Ponding, where the good road just starts, to get into toraja. 

There is high chance of rain, as the clouds hang on the mountain, making striking views but wet muddy roads :P. The road itself has not seen any car in months, and maybe even years. Several landslides and trees cut the road making it only accessible to 2 wheel vehicles, and even these need Dakar level drivers to ride through… For walking the worst are the mud traps, and a lot of loose rocks on the steppy slopes. I dismounted and did these several times on foot, sometimes being faster than my ride, so no problem.

In the wikiloc profile the road  is described (with a small mistake on my part choosing way, that adds about 8km to the track). The terrible amazing road lasts for 50km at least (Mamasa to Ponding). Far from the 36km that lonely planet (2009, with buses on it) quotes, I wonder where they got that from, I guess there shall be another shorter trail through the mountains, or my GPS is terrible. Anyway only getting to the first pass is already 30km…

In any cade, as with my other English posts, if you want adventure, hardships, suffering, and you have the heart for it, this is your path!

Something to tell back home and a way that enlightens. Both what you see and what you think (at least in my case as I’ll show in the following posts).

To finish the day, the last 40km are in a perfectly paved way, but still reaaally  windy and steppy, not the best when carrying a 13kg backpack in a Honda Win with a small rack (I had to learn how to hold on the seat when going up, I almost fell twice before finding the trick :).

This road also has some spots with  landslides, limiting a lot the 4 wheel vehicle flow. But the scenery is even better than the 1st part: crazy river valleys, pine clouded mountains, and hundreds and hundreds of Toraja amazing houses and  ricefields.

Natan is a super cool guy who stopped on some scenic points for me to take pictures, and offered to host me at his house. It had a crazy roofed Toraja rice house in the garden 😀

Si escric res referent a aquest viatge s’haurà de dir mal camí, o bad road o jalan rusa, o en les altres llengues. És  en diferència on més he sofert i on millor experiències he tret 😀

Diaris de Borneo, día 15, motorbike kingdoms

Posted on by wanderer

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Al matí vaig a la final de l’Olimpíada de matemàtiques, on una part és exàmen i altra problemes mode concurs en que s’endú punts el 1r a respondre. Faig el que entenc de l’examen, el nivell és bo però es centra molt en el càlcul (el que entenc). El premi és matrícula gratis al camupus i altres coses.

Deprés en Kun em comenta que és gay (un poc m’ho imaginava) mentre teníem una de les converses sobre l’estat de la sociatat. Passem a parlar de com és vist això a aquesta societat i com ací és encara vist com una malaltia que inclús es pot estendre, com molts pensen que és millor si moren, i tot el que suposa de pressió per als gays. Em diu que un amic seu que era gay es va suïcidar quan tenia 19 anys. Ací es vist que sí eres musulmà i gay aniràs directe a l’infern no importa el que faces. Prou terrible. Jo ho relate al que passava a Europa i EEUU als 50-60 i com difícil era. Com després de passar les lleis del matrimoni la situació ha millorat molt. En tot cas en Asia és un tema molt difícil tot i que ací la presència de transsexuals és molt extesa i normal, però no estàn protegits i des la radicalització de l’islam comencen a ser perseguits quan abans no passava res.
Li comente que han de pensar a nivell de comunitat, si volen fer els sacrificis i lluita que es feu en els 60, però que allà  no tenien altra opció. O anar a Europa o Amèrica on la situació és molt més còmoda. En tot cas és molt difícil per ells.
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Se n’anem als regnes de les motos. Imagina llocs d’inceible bellesa natural on tribus encara es maten unes a altres (fa 10anys) i banyen calaveres en sang com a rituals en una societat on els últims xamans (alguns de100anys) són els últims remanents de costums ancestrals que desapareixeran perquè les noves generacions no estan interessades. On les dones embarassades et toquen el nas perquè esperen que el fill tinga un nas gran europeu.  Un món on la moto és la reina ja que és el mitjà de transport més avançat que arriba allà. Que et permet descobrir cascades perdudes i pobles quasi aïllats en època de plutja.

Sopar baix les estrel·les, un foc on 2 gallines recientment vives i una serp són cuinades, i visita a la casa de la dona que ha mort hui, 70 i pico anys, tot el poblat passarà la nit en vela allà fins que al dia següent l’entreten i cremen la seua roba per evitar el fantasma. Després per 7 dies la gent visitarà la casa.

Hem anat allà perquè en Kunto visita als seus estudiants que estan forçats a fer 2 mesos de treballs comunitaris abans d’acabar la carrera, això és a tot Indonèsia! Fan programes educacionals i altres coses d’iniciativa pròpia com eliminar els desaigües que van al riu i fer-ne de nous. Crec que és una gran iniciativa! tot i que en Kunto em diu que no sempre és tan útil o funciona tan bé.

Dormim al poble.