sOleiLian

¡Hola amigos! How are you guys doing? It’s been a while, isn’t it? ;)

Oh yes, I’d like to invite you to join my blog’s Facebook page, here (or you can just click Like on the sidebar widget). In case I’m missing in action or procrastinating again (it’s a recurring habit, mind you :P), I’ll keep you guys updated over there with texts, pictures, videos, and stuff. I’ll be manning my page almost on a daily basis, so you’d know what I’m currently up to and you could then catch up with me a lot easier on my non-blogging days! :D

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If you ask me whether there was any disappointment or things that weren’t up to my expectations on my North Sulawesi trip, I’d say this honour belongs to Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve. Don’t get me wrong; the place is great for nature lovers, but what makes me to come to this conclusion is our very unfortunate encounters on our trips there. Notice that I mentioned encounters and trips, both in plural? That’s right: we made not one, but two journeys there, and both – would you believe it – end in utter disappointments! Okay, I gotta admit part of that was due to our fault. Hmmph.

Confused? Read on…

On our 2nd day in North Sulawesi, we managed to get a driver to take us to Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve, an 8,745-hectare rainforest reserve about 90 minutes’ drive from Manado that is home to some very unique animal species, including the Celebes crested macaque and the tarsier, the only extant entirely carnivorous primate as well as one of the world’s smallest. We started out very late, and when we finally reached our destination, it was about 6 in the evening.

Back in Peninsular Malaysia,  there would still be plenty of daylight at this time and you could easily spot the sun in the sky. But in this part of Indonesia, it was a totally different environment. The surroundings were quite dark that it was almost like 8pm in my country. What’s more, we were on the fringe of a lush rainforest! And because of this, the park ranger requested us to come back again another day as we were too late for tarsier spotting.

Crap. The driver should have informed us about this before he agreed to take us there! Oh, I forgot. His job was to take us to our intended destination and get paid for it. F. M. L. Anyway, we had ourselves to blame too as we didn’t gather enough information about the place and that alone was enough to land us in this unwanted situation. Lesson learnt!

Since we had travelled all the way here from Manado, we decided to drop by the port city of Bitung for dinner which is just nearby Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve. Bitung is the principal gateway to Lembeh Island, where the rich marine life of the Lembeh Strait lures scuba divers from the world over each year. Besides the predominantly Christian Minahasan and Sangirese peoples who form the majority of the city’s population, Bitung is also home to large Javanese and Gorontalo communities, most of whom are Muslim.

Surprise, surprise! An Eiffel Tower in the middle of a roundabout, in a city that’s pretty much unknown to the rest of the world! It’s undoubtedly Bitung’s most famous landmark. Behind it is a beautiful twin-spired Calvinist church.

Food stalls everywhere

Banana fritters, ulam (traditional Malay-Indonesian salad), and dabu-dabu, a very delicious yet super spicy sambal dip. North Sulawesi is famous for its fiery dishes, and trust me, this sambal was multiple times hotter than Malaysia’s sambal belacan. I absolutely loved and missed it so much!

Just when you thought murtabak has only meat filling, the Indonesians have the options of both savoury and sweet murtabaks (called martabaks in Indonesia). Shown here are the cheese and chocolate martabaks. And they did look and taste like our ban zhang kuih 曼煎糕.

After spending a few nights in Bunaken and Tomohon, we were keen to return to Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve for the second time to make up for the disappointment we got on our first visit there. And guess what? We all decided to engage the same driver again, LOL! He was actually a pretty nice guy, as shown by his enthusiasm in bringing us around in search of good local food. And what d’ya know, we’d even added him on Facebook after we came home! :P

Having learnt from the previous mistake, we departed an hour and a half earlier than our last visit right after we toured the Chinese temples of Manado. We were in luck this time around and upon arrival at the entrance of the jungle, we proceeded to pay the necessary fees. The thought of seeing the adorable big-eyed, fist-sized tarsiers in just a while had managed to get all of us excited.

Well… The excitement was not for long. You’ve been warned.

A volcano spotted on our way to the nature reserve. I guess this is the latter’s namesake, Mt. Tangkoko.

A guide was assigned to lead us into the rainforest in search of the petite primates. We followed his footsteps across this thick jungle, and on the ground, huge dark grey millipedes wriggled across the thick carpet of leaves and sticks. There were so many of these hundred-legged anthropods that it was almost impossible to avoid stepping on them. I really wished I hadn’t accidentally stepped on any, by all means.

Soon, the last traces of daylight faded away and darkness gradually descended upon the forest floor. We were not left with a single torch light and the only one we had with us was with the guide.

Then the worst thing happened. For jungle trekkers, the last thing you would want to encounter is to get lost in it. What could be even worse when the guide you were supposed to follow had apparently strayed from the path during this time of the day! It was so dark that we couldn’t even see our fingers at all!  And to learn that we were wandering aimlessly in a rainforest thousands of miles away from home had sent multiple chills down our spines.

The guide, upon realizing that he was in such a mess, went panicked. This really wasn’t a good thing; imagine this: a guide who wasn’t sure of which route to take with a group of novice jungle trekkers from Malaysia trailing behind in a completely pitch black environment in an Indonesian rainforest? That just spelt disaster! And the more he panicked, the quicker he walked. We had to request him to slow down his pace again and again as he was the only one with the torch light! What’s worse, he didn’t even warn us of any low-lying branches and roots in front of us. One of my friends happened to trip because of that. At this stage, all of us were tired, worried, hungry, and very, very angry. It took us quite some time before we finally found the way out of the jungle maze.

Once we reached the exit, we unleashed our anger and dissatisfaction at the person in charge right away. He apologized and explained to us that the guide assigned to us was actually a novice. And since we didn’t even get to see any tarsier at all, I demanded for our money back. The reply I got was that the person manning the reception counter had already gone home and this man told us to return another day (again?!) if we were to seek compensations. Hell no, we weren’t gonna waste our time and money again to come here for the third freakin’ time! Were they gonna pay for our transportation? Ridiculous.

Tarsiers – wherever you are – although you’re cute, you’d cost us so much just to see you and therefore we’d decided to ban you temporarily! (Nah… Just kidding.)

Since it was our last night in North Sulawesi, we decided not to let these two separate (yet somehow related) incidents spoil our mood. After all, we wanted to take home with us great memories of the place and how the amazing people and nature had touched our hearts. :)

Thick, strong roots

Jungle surroundings

Wait for me! Slow down a lil’, please…

Lookin’ up

LOST: Completely dark jungle environment with only a faint glow from the torch light!

Upon returning to Manado, our driver brought us to a Muslim village to enjoy this fragrant vegetable porridge (it’s vegetarian!) known as tinutuan or bubur Manado (Manadonese porridge). It’s Manado’s most representational dish and hence, you shouldn’t say you’ve been to this city if you haven’t tried this! Tinutuan is usually served as breakfast with salted fish, shrimp paste, sambal, etc, but it tasted just as good on its own.

The adorable spectral tarsiers of North Sulawesi!

Proof of our visit to the nature reserve! I’d wanted to write a complaint letter to the related department or ministry but being the usual self, I procrastinated. I think I should post them the link of this blog entry instead! :P

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
• PART XIII: The klenteng of Manado: A Chinese legacy

c a t e g o r y | passport to nowhere . yummylicious
f l u f f e r p u f f | churches & cathedrals . food . indonesia . parks & gardens . sulawesi . travels . volcanoes

15 sOleiLians

Tomohon is one of the major cities (though it seemed more like a town to me) in North Sulawesi, and is known for its pleasant highland climate that is conducive for the growth of various types of flowers and vegetables. This kinda reminded me of our very own Cameron Highlands sans the tea plantations and mock-Tudor cottage homes.

It was a lovely town with great and friendly people. But one thing that took some getting used to was the fact that local eateries tended to take a very longgggg time to serve the dishes. We had dinner at this restaurant, and other than the 6 of us, there were no other diners in sight. Yet it took more than a good 30 minutes (I think) for the first dish to arrive. A slow-paced life might sound irresistible, but slow service? Hmm… Not really everyone’s cuppa tea.

Kawanua Cottage, where we spent a night here

With the cool highland climate, you wouldn’t want to take a dip in this pool. And worst off, I spotted algae in the water! Yikes…

A great view of Mt. Lokon from the resort’s garden

And not forgetting the resort’s beautiful flowers that managed to put a smile on the face of every guest:

There were life-size animal figurines too!

A shot of a Catholic church taken from a mikrolet (minibus used as public transportation) on our way to the bus terminal

A typical home in Tomohon with Mt. Lokon taking a peek from behind

A winding hill road and a much clearer view of the volcano

One of my best shots of the 1,580m-high Mt. Lokon, an active volcano which last erupted this February with signs of increased seismicity lately. Hidden behind those houses is its twin, the 1,340m-high Mt. Empung.

And here’s a stunning time-lapse video of the twin volcanoes that I found on YouTube which I’d like to share with you:

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

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

21 sOleiLians

March, an extremely laborious month in school.

Came back from the Indonesian capital for almost two weeks now. Since then, I’ve been burying my head in my assignments and these will hold me back from blogging till the beginning of next month.

Talk about lethargy and sleep deprivation! Goodness.

Jakarta was surprisingly and very unexpectedly, a pleasant and exciting city! Forget about the air pollution and the traffic chaos, which never bothered me as much as those in Kuala Lumpur, albeit I was told that Jakarta’s were way more intolerable. Perhaps I was looking at this sprawling city – Southeast Asia’s most populous and one of the world’s largest – from a tourist’s perspective.

So long, my friends. See y’all in April! ;)

c a t e g o r y | juz bloggin' . life as a student . passport to nowhere
f l u f f e r p u f f | churches & cathedrals . indonesia . java . ramblings . travels . university life

25 sOleiLians