sOleiLian

Travelling, for me, is not just about adventure, food, and sightseeing. When I’m abroad, I’m always on the lookout for minority populations. I have this strong fascination with minority cultures, especially those concerning my heritage (Chinese Buddhist), my country (Malaysia), and religious minorities in places you wouldn’t expect to see them (Christians in Afghanistan and Muslims in Japan, anyone?). The obscurity of these communities is what intrigues me the most and prompts me to get off the beaten track whenever possible during my travels. In my opinion, to be able to learn their history, hardships, and (usually) persecutions is one of the most serendipitous rewards for any culturally-inclined traveller.

Indonesia is home to one of the world’s largest overseas Chinese communities. Most Chinese Indonesians (officially referred to as Tionghoa 中华 instead of Cina like we do in Malaysia as the latter term is perceived as bearing a negative connotation) live in the populated urban centres of Java and Sumatra, and for foreigners like us, little is known about the community in the remote eastern provinces of the country. As opposed to their counterparts in neighbouring countries, the majority of Chinese Indonesians carry out their daily conversations in local languages. Only a few (usually the older generation) can understand Chinese, a result of forced assimilation and a stringent decades-long ban on Chinese culture and languages which was only lifted in the past decade. Yet like many minorities elsewhere, discrimination still persists.

One of the most enduring cultural symbols of the worldwide Chinese diaspora is the Chinese temple, known as klenteng in the Indonesian language. Some of eastern Indonesia’s oldest and most famous klenteng can be found in Manado, North Sulawesi’s provincial capital. These temples may be a common sight for many Malaysians, but to the inhabitants of North Sulawesi, they are a cultural jewel that offers the people a rare glimpse at the perseverance and rich culture of the Chinese people, who no matter where they are, always try their very best to protect and preserve their heritage even in the face of persecution and death threats, and have it rekindled and restored once peace returns.

Speaking in a rather monotonous Mandarin with an unmistakable Indonesian accent, a middle-aged lady caretaker of the centuries-old Ban Hin Kiong Temple shared with me her experience as a minority in this part of the country. She told me that back in the year 1970, the temple and other properties belonging to the Chinese were burned and destroyed by a group of rioting Muslims (whom in her own words, “very bad guys”), though relations with the province’s Christian majority have always been amicable. Thank goodness the turbulence was just a sporadic event; and today, North Sulawesi remains one of the safest of Indonesia’s 33 provinces, spared from the horrendous religious and racial riots that ripped through its neighbouring provinces in recent decades.

It was indeed a great opportunity to see the Chinese heritage of Sulut with my own eyes. Though a minority, the Chinese community here is an important asset to the province, and their presence in a region some thousands of miles away from the Indonesian capital and their ancestral homeland in China may seem unimaginable to many non-Indonesians.

Klenteng Ban Hin Kiong 万兴宫, allegedly the oldest Chinese temple in eastern Indonesia. Said to be founded more than 300 years ago, it only started to take on its permanent physical form in 1819.

Entrance to the main shrine, flanked by a pair of Chinese guardian lions

A door god 门神 adorned a temple door

A brief history of the temple in Indonesian

The inner shrine

An air well to encourage ventilation and to admit daylight

Rooftop view of the temple surroundings

The Klenteng Kwan Kong just across the road!

Beautiful doorway in red

A temple urn with tiger legs! :D

The neighbouring Klenteng Kwan Kong 关公庙, dedicated to the deified 3rd-century Chinese general, Guan Yu 关羽

Bas-relief wall plaques depicting tales from the Three Kingdoms period 三国时代 with captions in Indonesian. To see a non-Chinese language being displayed so prominently at a Chinese temple was actually kinda funny! :P

Statue of Guan Yu

Klenteng Altar Agung aka Thian Tan Kiong 天坛宫 not far from both temples

Yes, even Indonesians are now keen to learn Mandarin! :D

Compilation of MANADO & NORTH SULAWESI TRIP 2009

• PART I    : The forgotten frontiers: Tales from Manado and North Sulawesi
• PART II   : Great churches of Manado
• PART III : In the shadows of volcanoes: Manado Bay and its harbour
• PART IV   : Off to Bunaken
• PART V    : Livin’ la vida Bunaken’s way
• PART VI   : Bunaken’s blue, blue seas
• PART VII : Christ Blessing and the Waruga
• PART VIII: The lakes of Sulut: Danau Tondano and Linow
• PART IX   : Bukit Kasih: Where faiths come together
• PART X    : Flowers of Tomohon
• PART XI   : Mt. Mahawu: Scaling my first volcano
• PART XII : In search of North Sulawesi’s hidden falls

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Did you know that Mt. Lokon has just erupted on Thursday? Now that’s a very active volcano indeed! Read it more here.

And July 17th is my birthday! :D

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y T O M E !

c a t e g o r y | passport to nowhere
f l u f f e r p u f f | chinese . indonesia . religions & spirituality . sulawesi . temples & wats . travels

16 sOleiLians

Our 8D7N trip to North Sulawesi has got to be the most intimate we’d ever been with nature. We snorkelled in the sea, toured an island, visited lakes, climbed a volcano, trekked in a rainforest, and we even made it to a waterfall!

We had initially planned to visit the amazing Kali Waterfall, but our driver didn’t seem to know the way and he brought us to this waterfall instead. The falls were hidden in a jungle-like setting, and required some walking and scaling to reach. I’m sure there are other routes to the falls, but the one our driver (who also happened to be our volunteer tour guide) led us to was actually quite a dangerous and heart-pumping experience. And because of that, a female friend decided to stay behind (with another friend accompanying her) while the rest of us proceeded on our journey.

To get to the falls, we had to make a descent down this extremely steep and occasionally slippery slope filled with trees which almost made me trip at one point (and a plunge down the slope to the ground below)! *shudder* If this were to happen, I don’t think I’d still be here blogging my tales and experiences to the world! :P

Anyway, the whole journey was pretty rewarding; the falls were so gorgeous and the water was so clear and refreshing. But if you ask me whether I would return to this waterfall again, I don’t know. I think I’ll have to reconsider that over and over again as the “near-death” incident still kinda traumatizes me to this day. LOL!

Splendid view of Manado city and its bay from a higher vantage point

Where all the thrills began…

Lookin’ up…

My friends with the falls as background

Spectacular cascades!

Look how shallow the pool was! The one in white tee was our super friendly driver. :D

One of my favourite shots! ;)

And repeating the equally daunting ascent (damn, why in the world must we do the same thing twice!?)

On our way back to Manado that evening, we managed to stop at this Buddhist temple in Tomohon which is famed for its multi-tiered Chinese pagoda, a rarity in this part of the world. The gates were already closed when we arrived, but that never deterred us from taking pictures of it at the gates. As for the Chinese heritage of North Sulawesi, it shall be another story for another day. ;)

Ekayana Pagoda with a distinctive Chinese character

And here’s a HD video of the waterfall displaying its magnificent cascades amidst a lush tropical jungle setting:

Compilation of MANADO & NORTH SULAWESI TRIP 2009

• PART I    : The forgotten frontiers: Tales from Manado and North Sulawesi
• PART II   : Great churches of Manado
• PART III : In the shadows of volcanoes: Manado Bay and its harbour
• PART IV   : Off to Bunaken
• PART V    : Livin’ la vida Bunaken’s way
• PART VI   : Bunaken’s blue, blue seas
• PART VII : Christ Blessing and the Waruga
• PART VIII: The lakes of Sulut: Danau Tondano and Linow
• PART IX   : Bukit Kasih: Where faiths come together
• PART X    : Flowers of Tomohon
• PART XI   : Mt. Mahawu: Scaling my first volcano

c a t e g o r y | passport to nowhere
f l u f f e r p u f f | buddhism . chinese . indonesia . religions & spirituality . sulawesi . temples & wats . travels . waterfalls

18 sOleiLians

Volcanoes have always been one of my biggest fascinations since I was a primary school kid. Besides its off-the-beaten-track allure and fantastic marine life, these smoke-puffing, lava-spewing peaks were one of the reasons why I chose far-flung North Sulawesi as the destination for my first vacation overseas in more than a decade.

Mt. Mahawu, a 1,324m-high stratovolcano located immediately east from the twin volcanoes of Mt. Lokon and Mt. Empung is one of the must-see sights for adventurous travellers to the province. Its relatively mild behaviour and lower elevation make it perhaps the safest and least physically demanding of all active volcanic peaks to visit in Sulut. The volcano has been put under the sleeping spell for more than three decades now since it last erupted in 1977, with minor volcanic activities being observed in 1994.

About 2km to the crater of Mt. Mahawu, with much of the travel distance being cut short by our mikrolet ride

There was a little commotion on the morning we were to visit Mt. Mahawu. As we still hadn’t figured out the exact way to reach the volcano, we agreed to head to the bus terminal to look for a transport that would take us to its base. After a mikrolet was flagged down at the bus stop right across from our resort, a problem suddenly arose. Apparently, our 6-member team proved to be too big a group for the vehicle to handle (it was carrying other passengers too) and thus we decided to split into two groups and meet at the terminal.

But things didn’t go as planned when my group mistook one of the stops for the bus station. We waited for the other group to arrive and as time passed, we knew something was not right when so many mikrolets had whizzed past us and yet none of my friends from the other group had alighted. The three of us thus decided to ask for directions to the terminal and it turned out that it was some 500 metres away (if I’m not mistaken) from where we were. To make things worse, only one of us had bought a local SIM card and this prompted us to cross telecommunications off the list of available options.

One of my friends volunteered to look for them at the terminal and asked us to wait at the same spot. Minutes passed and he finally returned with a good news: the other group was indeed there at the terminal! GRRRRREAT, I thought. I was so worried that we would be spending the rest of our day locating the other group and (grudgingly) forced to cancel our trip to Mt. Mahawu. Arrrggghhh… There’s no way I would allow that! It was my first ever volcano tour, goddammit.

Vegetable farm at the base of the volcano

After reuniting with the rest of my friends, we managed to get a mikrolet that offered to bring us to our destination at a pretty reasonable price. And off to Mt. Mahawu we went! Our driver was around the same age as us and he was such an enthusiastic chap who seemed so delighted to see a group of Malaysians visiting his town that he even volunteered to be our tour guide at no extra fees at all! In addition to that, our ability to converse in the Malay language was able to bridge any communication barriers and land us an absolutely great deal. Now call it a big consolation after what we went through that morning! :D

Our initial plan to scale Mt. Mahawu all the way to the summit from its base was scrapped since we had got us this unbelievably affordable ride. Furthermore, it was rather late for us to do the hiking and god knows when we would make it to the top if we were to do so. Our friendly driver brought us to a platform halfway up the volcano where he would park his mikrolet. Having saved so much walking distance, the remaining uphill route appeared relatively easy to us.

What d’ya know, it only took us less than 20 minutes of hiking to reach the spectacular crater. And the view? It was definitely one of the most awe-inspiring moments I’d ever had in my life!

The absolutely majestic crater of Mt. Mahawu with amazing views of nearby volcanoes. There was supposed to be a crater lake here but it seemed to have dried up.

A much closer view at the twin volcanoes of Mt. Lokon and Mt. Empung from the crater

Lush greenery at the summit suggested a long period of volcanic dormancy

We even circumnavigated the crater rim! And to do so, we had to walk past these tall bushes. Hopefully there wouldn’t be a snake ambushing us out of nowhere!

A shot taken from the other side of the 180m-wide, 140m-deep crater

The haunting beauty of the surrounding wilderness

The twin volcanoes with Tomohon city below

Inside the crater with the remnant of what was once a huge lake. Some brave visitors apparently went down there and wrote something on the soil!

Does this look like an adventure of a lifetime to you? :D

My friends with some Minahasan girls we met there. Guess which two are my buddies!

Beautiful leafy vegs on the slope of the volcano

They say a picture paints a thousand words. How about a million words with this HD video of the whole journey taken by yours truly? I’m sure you’ll get a better idea of this breathtaking experience than just plain text and pics! :)

Compilation of MANADO & NORTH SULAWESI TRIP 2009

• PART I    : The forgotten frontiers: Tales from Manado and North Sulawesi
• PART II   : Great churches of Manado
• PART III : In the shadows of volcanoes: Manado Bay and its harbour
• PART IV   : Off to Bunaken
• PART V    : Livin’ la vida Bunaken’s way
• PART VI   : Bunaken’s blue, blue seas
• PART VII : Christ Blessing and the Waruga
• PART VIII: The lakes of Sulut: Danau Tondano and Linow
• PART IX   : Bukit Kasih: Where faiths come together
• PART X    : Flowers of Tomohon

c a t e g o r y | passport to nowhere
f l u f f e r p u f f | indonesia . sulawesi . travels . volcanoes

17 sOleiLians