Wajo Trip : March 2013

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So my seniors facing the toughest month right now while I'm arranging vacations from east to west, south to north. I went to Makassar-Wajo-Toraja earlier this month and it was really really fun.

I had such an adventurous trip. Firstly, Metta's family and I arrived at Hasanuddin International Airport on 1 AM. Must've been a crazy night for the driver to pick us up and went straightly to Wajo which took 6 hours from Makassar. Luckily the hotel allowed us to check in early. But Metta's fam is really high-spirited that we went straightly to Danau Tempe after dropping our luggage.

We hadn't stretch enough loh after being cramped in the car (we used CR-V, the back seat designed for 3 persons, here we used it for 4 BIG persons. Yes, each of us is weigh more than 55kg).

Eceng gondok everywhere at Danau Tempe

The driver negotiated the rental price of the boat. 100K, without time limit. We thought it was already cheap until my local friend said that the regular price for locals is 70K. Duh, to make it worse the boat driver couldn't speak bahasa too.

Our boat

floating house

spot the lotus!

It was fun when we started but really hot when we got back. You should know how cruel the sun was. My friend said the best time to explore Danau Tempe is around 4PM. Huah.

my burned skin

Thanks to my local friends, Metta and I went to a lot of interesting places in the city. Ah yea, I have friends in Sengkang. We know each other because one of the school from Sengkang once visited my school for an exchange. It was Agus, Dirga and Wawan who showed us around.

Introducing : Wawan, Dirga, Agus and me

First destination was Atakkae! or Saoraja La Tenri Bali when I looked at the pic. It is a complex of traditional houses, owned by the government but you can always rent it for super cheap price. Agus said the price is 150K rupiah for the whole complex. Make sure you go inside to the biggest traditional houses/rumah panggung with 101 wood fondations.

in front of the biggest rumah panggung

Next destination was Passanggrahan, if I'm not mistaken. It kinda like Puncak, place where you can see the city from above. What weird was eventhough it is placed quite high, the weather is warm. Even the wind was hot-wind. You can stay in the Passanggrahan actually but they only got 5 exclusive rooms and it was fully booked during my stay. Huhu.

The sun from Passanggrahan

City view

The most memorable place was Saoraja Manggala. Why? Because we directly met a woman that is a descendant of the local King. She was really open and talk-active that she shared a lot of information with us. Saoraja Manggala is not opened for public but we could make it because my local friends spoke to the resident of the house hihihihi.

the building is frequently use for art rehearsals

We went to some other places after that, doing just like a city tour than finally made a stop in Gedung Johar, where an IT exhibition was held. We visited the stand of "KOMUNITAS BLOGGER WAJO". Agus and Dirga are the members of KBW and they're very proud of it. The community is really active, y'know. From what I saw, they got a lot of young members which is a really good fact.

With Agus (top), Dirga (bottom)

Finally they dropped me and Metta to our hotel after the fabulous tour. They reached us back at night and brought me some Barongko from Wawan's house. They said that it's a Bugis traditional dishes, made from banana and sometimes people add jackfruit or durian into it.

Sadly, I only spent a night in Sengkang and went directly for Toraja in the early morning. But I really thankful for having awesome friends like Agus, Wawan and Dirga. You three should do the tourist guide job, hehe. Thank you very much for the awesome experience that you gave to me and Metta. Hope we will always keep in touch and to see each other again in the near future! :)