Indonesia & Bali Tourism New

Parapat has developed for and with tourism. It has a huge selection of hotels and restaurants but, unfortunately, the last five years have been very quiet and many establishmnet have closed down, either temporary or for good. Most tourist are local or from neighboring countries. Westerners normally just pass through on their way to Pulau Samosir in Lake Toba. The town offers scenic surroundings, good eating, and souvenir shopping. As it is only a 3-4 hours ride from Medan the weekends are rather lively. Especially the Saturdays where there is market day in Parapat and from the surrounding countryside. They bring in coffee, tea, ginger, clove and cinnamon. There is also a minor market day on Thursday.

The town has three major parts. One area is along the highway with the bus terminal and where many restaurants are open 24 hours. The main part is on the western. Here are most hotels, the market, and the passenger boats for Tuktuk. The third part is to the south and is called Ajibata. it is administratively a part of the regency Toba Samosir. Here are the car ferry and passenger boats for Tomok.

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Brastagi is a former Dutch hill resort, 66 km away from Medan, at an altitude of 4,600 feet, is a cool and pleasant town. It is an ideal starting and ending point for travels in Sumatera as it is near the main Sumateran entry point of Medan. There are hotels of all standards, moneychangers, and restaurants serving both Indonesian and western style food, nice scenery, and very friendly and polite people. No guides and salesman will bother you when walking town.

The four-hour drive from Lake Toba to Brastagi, skirting the lake for a long way, is picturesque. It is a narrow, winding road through pine forest, terraced plantations and verdant meadows in the Karo hills, with hardly any people around. On the way, at the tip of the lake, is a waterfall named Sipiso Piso (Razor’s Edge). It is a tourist spot with food stalls and souvenir shops.

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A real paradise. SERINA RAHMAN discovers the beauty of Bunaken National Marine Park, as pretty as displayed in guide books and glossy dive magazines. As a model marine park, we can learn a lot from the strong partnerships of park managers, local communities and tourism operators to maintain the sanctity of Bunaken.

Crystal-clear waters. Curtains of butterflyfish. A pelagic parade. Rainbow-hued walls of soft and hard coral. Every imaginable species of marine life and more. You hear it all the time – every destination sells itself as the best. You want to believe it but you are afraid of the inevitable disappointment. Nothing is ever as good as they make it sound in the pretty brochures…

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Bali exudes the essence of mass tourism with its endless stream of seaside hotels and throbbing nightclubs, find out how WILD ASIA’s Seed Grant supports villages that offer a glimpse into the genuine ways of Balinese life.

Bali beckons like no other tourist destination. It is a unique blend of Hindu and animist beliefs and customs, stunning tropical scenery set in hilly terrain, and a sense of serenity not found elsewhere. While Balinese look upward to the mountains as the holy source of the island’s goodness, tourists flock to the sea to exalt in the paradise that is all about fun in the sun.

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LIZ PRICE gets an unexpected invitation to witness a Torajan funeral rite in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and finds their culture and traditions very much alive. In Tana Toraja, Sulawesi, I was chatting to a local man when he asked me to the funeral of his mother. Taken aback by this offer, as normally funerals are private matters reserved for family and friends, I politely refused. Yet he insisted, saying funerals are happy occassions and it would be an honour that I attend. I was in Torajaland, the centre of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The Torajan population are of Malay origin and came to Sulawesi many centuries ago settling around the town of Rantepao in what is now known at Tana Toraja. Although Islam arrived in Sulawesi in the early 17th century, the people still hold onto some beliefs of their forefathers.

What I knew of the funerary rites was limited other than they can last for several years. When a person dies, the body is placed in the back room of the house and is left there until enough money can be saved to give a decent ceremony so that the deceased can go to the next world. During this time, the deceased is considered to be sleeping and family members regularly attend to offer food and drink. The soul can only go on to the afterworld when the death ritual has been enacted. When it is time for the funeral, there is a procession around the villages so the departed can bid farewell to the living. Everyone gathers at the site for the celebrations, where bamboo pavilions have been erected.

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In Indonesian language, Bantimurung means “getting rid of sadness.” Befitting its name, this slice of paradise in Sulawesi boasts intriguing caves, cascading falls and exotic butterflies. Cave specialist LIZ PRICE revels on her little discovery.

The pool was such a milky turquoise colour that it didn’t seem real. It reminded me of the blue school uniforms worn in Malaysia, although was slightly paler in colour, as if mixed with milk. The water flowed out of the pool like a blue ribbon, through a wooded gorge and then plunged 15m down the Bantimurung falls. Once it reached the bottom of the waterfall it had lost its blue colour. Unfortunately it was dry season so there wasn’t much water, and the rocks supporting the waterfall were hardly covered. The bottom of the fall was a sea of people; it was a Sunday and this area is very popular with Indonesian day- trippers.

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On Lombok, enterprising young Mohammed paddled out to Ocelot in an outrigger canoe and we negotiated buying diesel, a trip to the local market, buying black pearls, and touring Lombok, “the Bali of 30 years ago.” The economic contrast between the islands of East Nusa Tenggara (Timor, Flores, Sumbawa) and Lombok was evident in the well-paved roads, and the homes and offices built of sturdy concrete with elaborately carved window frames and doors.  High in the forested hills we stopped to feed peanuts to a troop of macaque monkeys perched on posts by the road.  We enjoyed a glorious lunch high in the hills under towering volcanoes, amidst blossoming bougainvillea, frangipani, and the lush green landscape of terraced rice, peanut, chili and tobacco fields.  At sunset we walked around the formal gardens and pools built by the last Balinese king to rule Lombok.

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I had never thought of climbing Mt Kerinci. I hesitated somehow when friends of mine asked me to join them in a one-night camping and mountaineering activity. Frankly I had never done this type of challenging activity before. I could not really refuse because I had a lot of spare time in my semester holidays. As far as I knew, Mt Kerinci was located in the south-western part of Jambi near the town of Singai Penuh, the capital of Kerinci Regency. Many of my classmates came from that region. With five other young fellows, two of whom were mountaineers, we began the adventure. It took us about eleven hours to get to Sungai Penuh by bus. We then went to a small restaurant where we had special Minangkabaunese food for breakfast.

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Rumah Gadang (Big House) is a traditional house of the Minang Kabau people. Most Minang Kabau people used to live in Rumah Gadang with their families. It was caused by the matrilineal pattern of the tribe line. It is the only matrilineal pattern in Indonesia. But nowadays Rumah Gadang rarely to be occupied. People tend to build modern house. It might be caused by the changing of the era.

Actually there is no valid information when this big house firstly built. But the Creator / Architect of the big house is Tantejo Gurhano. His burial is in Pariangan, Batusangkar; the original and the source of Minang Kabau culture. This village is considered the early village around Minang Kabau area.

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Chinese-Indonesian Community Spruces Up Temples for ‘Imlek’ Residents are busy cleaning temples and purchasing supplies in Semarang’s Chinatown in preparation for Chinese New Year, or Imlek, this coming Sunday. “We are sprucing up the temple to celebrate the Year of the Pig, which is year 2,558 on the Chinese Lunar calendar. We are cleaning away the dirt to usher in the New Year with a clean spirit,” Chen Ling, also known as Tanto Hermawan, the caretaker of Ling Hok Bio Temple on Pinggir Alley in Semarang, Central Java, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Scores of Chinese-Indonesians gathered to clean the small temple. They polished the brass urns decorated with dragon motifs, mopped the floor and cleaned the miniature houses of goddesses and other temple ornaments. “We usually do this ahead of Imlek,” said one temple member, Aris Kurniawan. Semarang’s Chinatown is home to scores of temples dating back hundreds of years.

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