After staying up till late in our hotel room waiting for our hair to dry (because no hair dryer),  we had to wake up early the next day to continue our journey.

This is Tanjung Bira, the White Sand Beach.

A few kilometres away is this boat making place. I thought it was like a proper boat factory or something we were gonna visit, but no.

Just like that. A wooden tent covered with dried leaves and a huge boat in making inside.

This place is crazy. The whole freaking boat is hand-made using the traditional way. There’s no technical drawing or masterplan for the boat, they do everything according to their sailor instict. They feel the boat.

No nails used on the boat also because they would get rusty in the sea. We were told a lot of sailor superstitions and customs. For example, after giving birth to a baby, the mother would throw the placenta into the sea so that in the future, her son would become a great and brave sailor because now his soul and body is part of the sea.

This man is sitting on the “backbone”, ie the most important part of the boat. You see the little white thingie on the wood?

At first i thought, who turf left a freaking oneh oneh on the wood, so messy and what if i accidentally sat on it it would look like i just shat in my pants. Later we were told that this is an “offering” to the wood. See the X mark the oneh oneh is sitting on? That’s the “heart” of the tree/wood, and it is treated to a little delicacy for good luck.

This is the inside of the boat. See how raw and traditional the boat making process is. Axes, hammers are used. And the most modern tool in the entire place seen was probably the chain machine. A huge boat like that cost about 500 million Rupiah, which is about, RM160,000. And it takes about 6 months to one year for them to finish building a boat.

A boat which is almost ready. Love this picture.

After that we drove another godknowshowmany hours to this village called Ammatoa (means Old Father) in Kajang (the real Kajang in Indonesia!).

We were all told to wear black today, because the villagers are also known as the “black community”. It’s a protocol to wear dark color.

Every house in this village is on poles and built with just wood and bamboo and whatever natural material. They live harmoniously with the nature (there. i’m getting my dose of spiritual connection with rocks and trees here. what turf), and no modern facilities were in sight. Means of transportation are their own feet and horses.

Wa. like an illustration from a Malay story book i read in primary school.

Kutu catching what turf. The thought kutu makes me shudder.

Ok this is embarrassing please don’t laugh but I remember long long time ago i had kutu too and they shaved me bald. I also remember they sell these really narrow wooden combs which is the kutu expert combs. ARGGGH! Ok change topic.

A family in their house.

Seriously i wonder what kind of entertainment they have. They have got no TV, no radio, no nothing. Play with horses and chicken i guess.

See. Horses and chickens in front of a house.

I miss KFC. >_<

A hyena and 3 kids peeking curiously out of the window. No la. it’s a dog.

Day 3.

I skipped a huge part because we drove godknowshowmany hours to see some museum which i don’t think you would be interested in. Which i was a bit tulan, to be honest, and was secretly cursing in my heart about the hot weather and sweaty feeling and hunger then suddenly got afriad and stopped cursing immediately because they say if you have evil thoughts especially in the jungles, the spirits will make sure you go round and round and round the jungle and lost forever so i shut turf myself up in my heart.

We stayed at Sengkang that night, and the next day went to see some silk factory, by factory i mean a wooden house with few traditional wooden weaving machines where young Indon girls who gets paid RM13 a day or so pushing and steping on them weaving 12 hours a day, and then we spent about like another godknowshowmany hours in a textile shop before we drove another godknowshowmany hour to this other place.

On the way, we passed by a wedding.

We got down just to snap a few photos, but then all the people there were like soooooooooo hardcore friendly they invited us in (kind of by force), eagerly signalled us to sit down/have tea/take pictures/go closer to stage and asking us all sort of questions curiously.

So karerful!!!

They look like the Bali chiak chiak dancers.

Then we waited for the bride and groom to arrive. It was best timing. Like we were specially arranged to this event liddat.

Dressed in traditional costumes. Apparently you have to be very rich to hold such a glam wedding. The guy is 25 or so, whose family is in the Chocolate business. Girl is 19 year old.

Again, we were invited to go in front to take exclusive photos, i dungeddit why the people here soooooooooo friendly one? I mean if some random strangers crash my wedding i would have called security to escort them out lo! And maybe smash their huge ass cameras into pulp in the process. Like seriously wtf this is my wedding man just go turf away.

After enough picture taking, we went back to our van because we were kinda in a rush and were behind time to go to the next destination. But then the tour guide came and asked us to return because the host insisted to belanja us makan.

So we went. And were presented with like 1000 different kinds of desserts. There was this pumkin thing (neh the orange color one that looks like nangka) was super nice.

I feel very touched la. People there really seemed so genuinely hospitable.

After X hour, we arrived at a villa up the hill called the Bampapuang.

Very very nice. The setting was very Bali.

But then we didn’t get to stay here. T_T

We had our lunch and continued our journey to Tana Toraja, which was gonna be the hightlight of our trip.

We were supposed to witness some really special funeral in Tana Toraja, if there happened to be one.

I mean, after driving 7 hours or so, somebody’d better die.