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Indonesia 22 – Toraja 1 – Death is Just a Part of Life

Tana Toraja, the highlands of Toraja, is known for their coffee, spectacular mountain landscapes, and its unique culture. The Torajan people is an ethnic group indigenous to the mountainous area and known for their elaborate funeral rituals, where death is celebrated. We will be going into the rituals they follow for death in detail over the coming days. Make sure your seatbelts are fastened, as the Torajan way of handling death is nothing like you have ever seen or likely even considered before!

Hanging coffins or “hanging burial” was one of the funeral practices practiced several hundred years ago in Toraja. The coffins, shaped like boats, were placed beneath overhanging cliff faces (center). These coffins were often guarded by wooden representations of the dead, known as tau-taus (bottom left). The Torajans believed that the higher the grave site, the closer the dead was to Nirvana, and the harder it was for thieves to access. This type of burial was reserved for the leaders of the tribe.

The traditional Torajan house is called Tongkonan, and the roof resembles the shape of a boat. There are three parts to the house: the the upper world (heaven) is where farming equipment is stored. The middle part is where humans live. The lowest level, called the underworld, is where the animals live. Animals are no longer housed in the lower portion of the house, for sanitary reasons, so that section is now generally left vacant.

Rice barns are also found near almost all Tongkonans, or group of such houses. Their external shape is nearly identical to the homes where the people live. The easiest way we learned to tell the difference was the support structure underneath. Rice barns have six strong pillars supporting them (lower-right), but are made from a material that is difficult for rodents to climb. Houses, on the other hand, have a more elaborate lattice framework supporting them.

The regency known as Tana Toraja is located in southern Sulawesi, the fourth largest island in Indonesia. 450,000 people live in Toraja. However there are more than a million Torajans worldwide. The majority of the people are Christian, though there is also a large Muslim population. Some people here believe in animism, which drives many of the traditions we will be describing in upcoming days.

Many Torajans worldwide return for funerals, and the entire family comes together at important social events. In fact, the funeral will not take place until most members of the family are present, which is why it is common to see the larger funerals in July, August and December (funerals are often postponed for months, or even years and decades after death). Smaller funerals are held year round.

The water buffalo is a status symbol representing wealth, fertility, courage and strength. The homes are often decorated with buffalo horns (top-left and top-right). The wealthier the family and the more generations in a home, the more horns are displayed. You can sometimes see jaw bones from recent buffalo sacrifices (middle-right). We learned that you can tell the age of the buffalo by counting the number of rings on its horns, much like determining the age of trees by counting the rings on the trunk. Buffalo are sacrificed after they are at least 3 years old, and after their horns have matured.

We visited the Bolu local animal market in Toraja. This market primarily sells water buffalo and pigs, for use in the various funeral rituals. Water buffalo are the ones with long horns and are always male, whereas females are called cows. Tens of thousands of water buffalo are needed each year for funeral rituals. Buffalo are expected to accompany the dead to the afterlife, and families go into debt to buy the animals in this bull market. Because of the shortage of buffalo, some are imported from other islands, such as Java, to fill the need. Buffalo for a funeral can cost anywhere from $1200 each for a small black buffalo to $3,000-$4,000 for an older bull (with longer horns), and up to $38,000 for a prized blue eyed Mercedes bull (mottled color with light color faces).

The funeral for a poor family has a minimum of 5 buffalo required to be sacrificed. Wealthier, or more prestigious families may sacrifice 50 or more buffalo for a single funeral. Some families may save for decades to pay for a single funeral. (Much more on this in future blogs)

Pig sacrifices are also a standard feature at all Torajan funerals, and some of the meat is eaten at the ritual meal, with the balance distributed to family and friends. An estimated 60,000 pigs are needed to fill this need annually, and many are purchased at these markets. A farmer will then tie the pig he has purchased to gift to the family onto the back of his motorcycle (center and lower-right). It is common to see live squealing pigs strapped to the back of bikes in the countryside during funeral season. Often, pigs are hoisted and carried with long bamboo poles (bottom-left).

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Indonesia 21 – Makassar

Enroute from Bali to Toraja, visitors stop overnight in Makassar, a colorful port city. Also known as Jung Padang, this is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi on the island of Sulawesi, an island in Indonesia. Sulawesi is the 11th largest island in the world, and the 4th largest island in indonesia.

Makassar is also the gateway to Tana Toraja, the Toraja highlands, where we spent a week attending and learning about the unique funeral rituals of the Toraja people. We will start reporting on the highly unusual traditions of those people tomorrow.

One of our stops during this layover was the lively fish market at Paotere Harbor in Makassar. This is one of the larger fish markets we have seen. It had fish of all sizes, shapes, and tastes, and we found the vendors all willing to pose with their goods for our cameras.

Bugis is the dominant ethnic group in this area, and the Buginese are known for their boat building skills (from small fishing crafts to large wooden cargo schooners, all of which are built without nails), as well as having a historical reputation as pirates. The fisherman supplying this market still use those wooden boats, unloading their cargo here in the lively Paotere Harbor. The art of boatbuilding in Sulawesi was recognized by UNESCO in 2017.

The 99 Domes Mosque is a popular sunset destination (top-left). Construction on this mosque was halted for awhile, but restarted again last year. Thus, you can see it surrounded with construction cranes (bottom-right). This waterfront mosque is one of the landmarks of Makassar city, located right on Losari Beach. The majority of the local people are devout Muslim. However, there is also a large population of Chinese Buddhists and Daoists, and some Christians, who all live and work together. This multi-religious community is a common theme throughout Indonesia.

In the Karst Mountains around Makassar are many limestone cliff formations. Leong Leong Maros is a geopark in Sulawesi with prehistoric caves and Indonesian cave art. They are known to have one of the oldest cave paintings in the world. The hand prints (lower left) are intact, and you can easily see them after climbing some stairs (top-middle). There were many other caves in the area that are not easily accessible to tourists, requiring specialized spelunking gear to explore.

Rammang Rammang Maros is a village in the karst mountains, accessible only by small boats. Literally, the translation is Dark Village. It is far from any city lights, and is a photo opportunity for those wanting to photograph the Milky Way. The village is said to be totally self-sufficient, and we saw beautiful rice fields with limestone mountains reflecting on the lake. Enroute the landscape looks like a movie set out of Jurassic Park. At sunset, you can see hundreds of thousands of fruit bats coming out of the limestone caves, and expected to return by 5:00 AM the following morning.

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Indonesia 20 – Bali 11 – Tanah Lot Sunset

Before leaving Bali, we decided to visit Tanah Lot Temple, which is one of the most popular tourist destinations with more than 9,000 visitors daily. Tanah Lot is still an active pilgrimage site, and there were thousands of people bringing offerings and praying at the temple. It is also one of the best locations for photographing sunsets with its great foregrounds.

As a closing note. During the past two months in Bali, we noted a significant increase in the number of tourists. When we first arrived, we were the first visitors allowed to visit without a mandated quarantine for Covid. Two months later, the tourists have returned. Roads are jammed around downtown Ubud and downtown Denpensar. We see a huge increase in the number of motorbikes ridden by foreigners on the streets. Restaurants are reopening. In fact, we attended a “rebirth” of a French restaurant on its Grand Reopening after two years of being shut down. The increase in the number of foreign visitors are mostly Australians, followed by Europeans. The number of domestic visitors from Java, Sumatra and Kalimantan has also increased, though Americans are still rare here.

Here are some images of Tanah Lot at sunset. There are two great foregrounds – the temple itself and the rock with hole in it.

We also wanted to thank Murni for making our month-long stay at the bungalow at Murni’s House in Ubud so enjoyable. We loved sitting out on the terrace every morning and having breakfast delivered by her perpetually smiling staff. Walking the path down to our bungalow was a joy, with beautiful statues and calming fountains lining the paths. Murni makes a point of personally greeting her guests, invited us to dinner and shared the story of her success creating the first restaurant in Ubud in the early 1970s, then building the hotel and spa. She has an eye for beauty, and all the rooms are filled with antiques and the grounds are immaculate.

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Indonesia 19 – Bali 10 – Ubud Art Villages

Ubud is known as the cultural capital of Bali. There are many traditional villages surrounding Ubud which specialize in creating Balinese art from jewelry making, batik, wood and stone sculpting, to painting. In the interiors of where we stayed, there were many wood sculptures and furniture with intricately carved details. We hired a driver to take us on a tour to see the artists and craftsman in action.

Carving wood sculptures is a skilled craft. Balinese use a hard wood such as teak, jack fruit, balul or Ballwood to make their carvings. Prior to the Covid shutdown, many of the art galleries had become targeted for tourists. As a result, the art pieces for sale are mostly shown in US dollars, rather than the Indonesian Rupiah.

If you were to watch a wood worker in the Western World, you would see a series of saw horses and vices to hold the material as it was worked. Not here though. The artists sit cross-legged on the floor, using their feet as a “third hand” to manage the material as they lean over it and carve into their intended design. The range of tools used are simplistic, and very often passed down through the generations (lower-right).

When walking around Ubud, we also found thousands of stone statue decorations, both outdoors and indoors. These included different forms of buddhas, various Hindu gods, animals, flowers, and many others, all found pretty much everywhere you turned. Some of the statues were white in color, some were black, others aged with moss. We wanted to see the skilled artists creating these intricate art pieces.

Our driver took us to several stone carving factories. We found that many of the factories did not have craftsman working on site when we arrived. The showrooms had large inventories and the artists only came to work if they had commissions or specific projects. Fortunately our driver was able to seek out shops where we had a chance to watch some artists at work, as well as meet the owners to hear their stories. The owner (upper-left) of the stone carving gallery above has been in the business for eleven years, starting her career working for a business shipping containers for thirty years. Her artists were creating work for a buyer from India.

The stone statues are generally made from sandstone, so they are relatively easier to carve than rock. The white sandstone comes from Yogyakarta and the black sandstone comes from riverbeds in Bali. The white sandstone statues are the most prevalent around Bali. Over time, the statues oxidize and turn black. The statues generally last up to 20 years if left outdoors, at which point new ones are usually commissioned.

In Honolulu, Evelyn took a workshop from a Balinese teacher using the Batuan technique of gradations of of black to white washes with watercolor. Apparently, Batuan is the only village that specializes in this traditional Balinese painting style, and we had a chance to watch the artists in action (upper-left and lower-left). The gallery had both traditional Balinese art as well as modern art.

In Ubud there is a shadow puppet show and a gallery where the artist works. Oka Kartinii Ubud Art is an art school for other crafts as well. The puppet master makes puppets from thin sheets of leather, making lines with a punch, then coloring the leather. The process takes a lot of time as it is layered.

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Indonesia 18 – Bali 9 – Birds and Monkeys

We went in search of the Indonesian Horn Bill (bottom-right) after they flew past us in Central Kalimantan, flying so high we could barely see them. We were told that the Bali Bird Park would be a good place to see horn bills close up, as they are illusive in the wild. The park is reputed to have one of the finest collection of Indonesian birds. Bali Bird Park is simultaneously a tourist attraction with a large walk in aviary, and a breeding center for Birds of Paradise and Starlings. It has a collection of some 250 species of birds and about 1000 birds from seven regions around the world, including the African Grey Crowned Crane (top-right) that we last saw in Africa, among others.

Bali Bird Park is a great place to entertain kids as well as adults. Handlers place birds on visitors head and hands, so guests could get their photos taken. These days the price for admission is 350k IDR (under $24 USD) to help maintain the park, which was well kept up.

There are many entertaining programs throughout the day, including demonstrating how birds of prey capture food, feedings, exotic bird shows, native plants display. Whenever we’re traveling, we enjoy popping into see these mindless relaxing attractions.

Monkey Forest Park in Ubud, Bali, is another escape. It is the sanctuary and natural habitat of more than 1000 Balinese long tail macaque monkeys. There are three ancient temples on the 12.5 hectare forested site.

The monkeys are well fed with large bags of sweet potatoes (center-left), fruits and other foods the trainer feeds them all day.

Even though the monkeys are well fed, they still seek more whenever tourists come. They jumped onto back packs to find shiny things as well as food, and you can see one monkey going after an iPhone, and jumping on Evelyn (top row). Yes, they do have sharp teeth…!

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Indonesia 17 – Java 7 – Ramayana Ballet

We frequently appreciate seeing the cultural activities of the countries we visit. While in Java, Indonesia, we attended the masterful Ramayana Ballet in Yogyarkarta, which is considered a highly stylized dance form. This Javanese ballet combines music, dance and drama, and is performed outdoors with the base of the ancient Prambanan Temple as the back drop.

When you watch this performance, you can see the differences in the hand positions and gestures between Javanese and Balinese dance styles. This ballet was performed with a level of professionalism that would make any theater in the world proud.

David Metcalfe, our photo tour guide, arranged for us to visit backstage while the dancers were preparing for their performance. Though we have seen backstage setups before, this was easily the largest, with more than 100 dancers, all perfecting their personal appearances before going on stage.

Initially, we photographed the male performers apply their makeup and costumes. Many of them did so while lined up in front of long mirrors with many others also preparing next to them (upper-left and upper-right). Many used small cosmetic mirrors (bottom-left), though a few actually used mobile phone selfie cameras (center).

Once the female performers were in costume, we were invited to enter their dressing room, and watch them apply their final stage paint. Each woman used a personal small mirror to apply her own face paint to perfection, making sure that even the smallest lines were complete, even if the audience would be too far away to actually see such details.

While most women worked on perfecting their own make up (upper-right and lower-left), many others worked in pairs, helping each other with costume details.

Before moving on to the performance itself, an important point should be made — all of these performers are university students. None are professional, though you would never have guessed it watching them prepare — or later perform.

All ballets are complex, and very difficult to follow if you do not know the story ahead of time. One aspect of this performance that I particularly liked was that the story line was projected onto a screen during the ballet (upper-left). It was first shown in Indonesian, and then in English. There was no obvious stage event that indicated to look to that screen, so I missed a few of the queues. However, once I began to understand the flow of the story, I knew when to check for an explanation of what was going on.

I will not attempt to detail the entire story line here. If you are interested, a good place to start is with this Wikipedia entry, which will lead you to further entries on each phase of the ballet.

In brief though, the ballet is a legendary epic love story about the triumph of good over evil. The story is about Prince Rama and his loyal wife Sita. She is desired by Rahwana, the giant demon. Through pretext, the demon manages to abduct her and carries her to his place at Alengka. The rest of the ballet is basically about the Prince searching for his wife with the help of his brother and the monkey king to get his wife back. Then Prince Rama attempts to kill the demon, the demon escapes death and then burns down the village. At the end, Rama and Sita are back together.

Yeah, a rather quick recap of a complex 90 min ballet, but I leave it to those interested to discover the details through the link above… ☺

The Grand Finale deserves to be seen, and is thus presented here for you. Everything in this ballet happens in slow motion though. To keep your attention, it is sped up to twice the normal pace, reducing it to 75 seconds. This is the portion where the gods try to kill the demon with fire. He escapes (you see him jumping through the fire twice). The demon then burns down the village (fireworks included), as a huge demon statue rises above the stage.

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Indonesia 16 – Java 6 – Bromo Village

After we were refused entry to the Yadnya Kasada Festival, we searched for alternative activities, since we could not enter the festival boundaries. The local guide asked permission for us to attend the Reception Night, where East Java governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa, the first woman governor in Java, would be attending. She was being inaugurated as an Honorary Citizen of the Tengger Tribe Community, and performed various duties bestowed as governor including handing out money to the poor and thanking politicians. Unfortunately, we were told it would be a dance festival… which it was definitely not…

In Indonesia, the elected governors are treated like kings, so she had a long procession of cars following her, wherever she went, including when she was staying at the same hotel where we stayed. She was an hour late arriving, so everyone had to just sit and wait for her to finally appear.

It turned out that the Reception lasted 90 minutes: 80 minutes of speeches by government officials, and only 10 minutes of the dancing by University students that we had expected to watch.

Burt, Dave and the local guide wore the obligatory “udeng” head dress, and there were a horde of photographers capturing every moment of the event (lower-left).

The day before the event, we did a walking tour of the village of Tengger, which is surrounded by other Hindu villages in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in Eastern Java. 95% of the people in this area is Hindu, with some Christian, Buddhists, and muslim.

We were invited to see the interiors of a couple of Tanggerese homes, to watch them make offerings for the upcoming Festival. Inside the homes, they still cook with coal and wood, though a few homes do have television. Goats and other animals live with the family (lower-right).

In the village, people return after working in the field. There is a group of retired Tanggerese who spend their entire time just sitting on the steps and downtown and watch people (lower-right).

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Indonesia 15 – Java 5 – Bromo Festival

We showed some photos and a time-lapse of Mount Bromo and Mount Semeru a few days ago. The view was so spectacular that we figured it was worth repeating… ☺ The smoke fuming above is from Mount Semeru, which last erupted on December 4, 2021, and is the tallest mountain in Java.

The Kasada Cultural Festival was expected to be one of the highlights on our trip to Java. During the Hindu ceremony known as Yadnya Kasada, the people from the village of Tenngger, Java, and visitors from around Indonesia climb to the top of the volcano and make offerings into the crater of Mount Bromo. These offerings range from food, flowers, and money to livestock. Horseback rides are offered to those who cannot make the steep climb to the volcano from the parking area.

Thousands of people from all parts of the region came to this celebration, including Hindus from Bali. We were told that offerings would continue to be made until after 4:00 AM the following morning.

Offerings were brought to the main temple. As with the offerings brought to the mountain crater, these included fresh produce from the farms. cooked foods and even live animals. We saw a traffic jam of people lined up to get into the temple area.

There were people who came in motor bikes, the back of pickup trucks, buses, vans, and horseback. Dave and Burt even wore their udengs (upper-left), the traditional Hindu head dress for religious events.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to our guide, the tribal leaders made a last moment decision to refuse entry to foreign visitors. We were therefore not allowed beyond the festival grounds outside the temple, and were not allowed to climb to the mountain crater. Thus, the expected highlight of this portion of our travels in Java was a bust… ☹

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Indonesia 14 – Java 4 – Yogyakarta Market & Region

Terraced rice fields and paddies around Yogyakarta in rural parts of Java. East Java is the biggest rice producing province within Indonesia. Indonesia is ranked third among the biggest rice producers in the world, and is also among the largest rice consumers in the world. Indonesia continues to experiment to increase yields, including increasing the use of mechanical equipment.

Pasar Beringharjo Yogyakarta is a bustling iconic traditional indoor street market. It is the oldest market in the Kraton area and has been continuously operating since 1758. The vendors here are welcoming, and you can buy almost anything here, including a large variety of spices, fresh fruits and vegetables, inexpensive souvenirs, batik, clothing, fast food, jamu, antiques, and anything else Yogya in this three-level market.

One of the services offered at this traditional market is massage (lower-left). People are always willing to have their photo taken, and their wide smiles often demonstrate the poor dental care in this country (upper-right).

Above is a short 75 second clip to give a feel of what the life of a vendor is in this market.

Wandering around town, we frequently found street art of varying quality. Though this city will likely never be known as a street art mecca, it is still enjoyable to come across the unexpected piece of graphics.

Temples are everywhere throughout Indonesia. One day we explored a long line of stone steps that seemed to go on forever. At the bottom, we discovered a stone age temple carved out of an ancient cave. As we were wondering about this “forgotten temple” at the bottom of the steps, a priest walked up from even further down, with offerings to present at this temple. Though much of the world may have forgotten this temple, this couple made the trip three times per day to make offerings to their Gods.

We had intended to visit the Prambanan Temple for some sunset photography. When we arrived though, we discovered that it had closed early. We drove around the neighborhood, only to find another temple ruin where the fences were close enough to allow us to capture some interesting images. Vina gave us a yoga pose in front of the temple at sunset (upper-right), so we got the image we had in mind.

Following the fence around the temple ruin, to see what other angles of photographs might present themselves, we were in for a surprise. Some enterprising vendors had turned a next-door vacant lot into a small amusement park. One vendor rented out electric scooters (center) for $1 USD for 15 minutes, and kids were having a ball on them (left-center and lower-right). Another vendor was giving horse buggy rides around the temple (center-right).

In order to be allowed to enter one of the Java Tengger festivals, all men were required to wear an “udeng.” It is simply a square cloth that is intricately tied to form a Hindu head covering, and is obligatory when taking part in a religious ceremony. Our guide brought along the necessary cloth and tied an appropriate head dress for David and Burt (left).

Above right, Evelyn is showing the 94 year old Javanese woman in old Yogyakarta her photo. She told us her life story that includes having 30 grandchildren and great grandchildren.

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Indonesia 13 – Java 3 – Harvesting

The rural areas surrounding Malang, Java are quite picturesque, so we had an opportunity to work on photographing landscapes. One stop was to the Wonosari Tea Plantation, located on the slopes of Mount Arjuna in East Java. It is the oldest tea plantation in East Java and the government operates this as an Agro-Tourism site, to bring in visitors for the purpose of educating the public about organic agriculture and provide visitors an opportunity to reconnect with the land. We saw scores of school age children, and the site has its own tourist train to take visitors around the large plantation. The tea plantation workers are distant and quite hard to locate, and the train does not stop where the workers are. Therefore, we hired the entire train for the four of us, and had them stop when things looked interesting. (The cost of renting the entire train was roughly $7 USD…!)

Java tea is mainly used for export, and some claim that it is used as a medicine for bladder and kidney infections. Organic Java Tea is only available from Java, and is grown in areas of rich volcanic soil. All over Indonesia, tea picking is considered women’s work. This process is still done manually. There are 15 teams of 4 people each on this tea plantation who earn $40 each, on a good month.

There was only one piece of mechanized equipment that we saw that day. The “factory” (which is what the workers we spoke to, called the company that hires them) has supplied a single experimental mechanical cutting machine which clips the top leaves off. These leaves are collected into a bag, and one member then sorts through the best leaves that were harvested.

The cutting machine is rotated and shared by the 15 teams.

A 36 second video clip showing the machine for harvesting tea leaves. It requires a team of four workers to manage the entire machine process, and they make “up to $50 per month” each on a good month.

The rural areas of East Java are quite picturesque with tree lined dirt roads and agricultural fields.

As we were driving along a rural road, we saw a small group of people harvesting lettuce, and stopped to talk to them and grab some photographs. The lettuce and other vegetables are harvested early in the morning, mostly by men. The farms mostly rely on manual labor to get their crops harvested.

Almost all the farmers got to their assigned location in the fields by motorcycle, usually riding 2-3 workers per bike. We were intrigued how some of the motorcycles were obviously built by hand, using salvaged parts, and seats of wood (top-left, with Vina, our companion and model).

One older man was walking down the path with two bags over his shoulder (bottom-left). When we asked if he worked the fields, he replied that no, he actually lived on the hill in the middle of the lettuce field.

As we were leaving the tea plantation factory, we were approached by a touring group of Indonesian Muslim women who asked for a selfie with us. In general, we always agree to such requests, since we are asking the same of them continually in our quest for photographs of our travels.

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