Why did we come to this port? To take an 11 hour excursion, which 110
people did; we didn’t. Most of the
survivors of the excursion were not happy about the 8 hours of driving in a
cramped bus over bumpy roads in order to see 2 hours worth of stuff (the other
hour was for lunch and bathroom breaks).
They did say the scenery was beautiful.
So why am I describing a tour we did not take? This is an important site for burial chambers. The Tana Toraja region is isolated by mountain
ranges and has preserved a rather special cultural identity. Lives are spent amassing wealth with the sole
objective of providing for the finest funeral possible. Because of the cost of a funeral, the
ceremony is often delayed for years. The
deceased is placed in a special room and watched over night and day. The dead are then interred in hanging graves,
niches carved into the cliff face. So that is why this is important, and that is
why we stopped here.
We decided not to spend $300 per person and 11 hours doing
this, so we decided to check out town.
Again, it was hot and humid. We
went off the ship at around 10:30am and returned by 10:45am. That’s right, you are not reading it
wrong. There was absolutely nothing to
see, and in fact, it was rather uncomfortable walking around having people
stare at us. The kids were great and
there were oodles of them; they waved and smiled, although one boy asked for
money. No one seemed to be working. The buildings and streets were in
disrepair.
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| The beauty salon; the nicest building we saw |
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| View of city from the ship |
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| Part of the port as seen from the ship |
As we returned to the ship, we saw the
entire crew out on the
dock wearing life jackets. They had been
doing a fire drill (which is held weekly) and this is the first time we have
seen all them off the ship at one time.
I felt so sorry for them. They
were wearing their uniforms, the heavy lifejackets and having to stand out in
the broiling sun and soggy humid air. Our
short walk in the shade left us soaking wet and ready for the pool. And that is how we spent the rest of the
afternoon.
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| Crew fire drill |
We hosted a dinner table tonight and had an enjoyable
evening.
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