It would be a shame to miss seeing the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe Elysee Palace, Place Vendome and Notre Dame Cathedral, a landmark made even more famous by the novel of Victor Hugo entitled Hunchback of Notre Dame, simply because you thought you couldn’t afford to see the city in style, never even looking for a hotel economici parigi centro. Yes, Paris can be very expensive but there are affordable accommodations in the city centre.

Don’t think you’re being shortchanged by looking for a hotel economici parigi centro, lots of people prefer to save money on their accommodations are use it for visiting places like the Louvre where breathtaking artworks such as the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Mil are housed instead. Be saving money on your accommodation, you use that money to take French cooking lessons, splurge on a fine French meal, or indulge in some of the world’s finest shopping. Which memory do you think you’ll cherish more, learning how to make a crepe from a real French chef or the lobby of the fancy and very expensive hotel you choose instead?

Don’t waste your time looking at listings for an Edinburgh accommodation that are not comprehensive. The apartments description should include information about the surrounding area, a list of every room in the apartment, and the facilities within the rooms. Clear photographs of each room should be provided along with a photograph of the exterior of the building. Photos of Edinburgh apartments are very important as most people are renting sight unseen.

Make sure that you will be met by the owner or a knowledgeable representative. Not only will you need the keys to your Edinburgh accommodation, you’ll need to know how to operate the appliances, how to get WiFi if it’s offered, and where to put your trash, etc.

Expect to pay a security deposit. Landlords request this in case you damage any furnishings. Most apartments have rules which include no smoking, no parties, and no additional overnight guests. Inspect the apartment when you arrive and note any damage you may see so you won’t be charged for it.

Bira is a beach paradise, a haven of peace and tranquility where one has little to do or need to do, because the place itself is everything. It is a large beach filled with coconut trees and crystal clear waters where every evening at sunset, leaving fishermen with their traditional boats to fish not far from the sand.

Here are all “Bugis” considered one of the best builders of wooden boats. Currently under construction are three and the smallest of them has a length of 22m and a width of 9m. All the work is manual with the exception of the occasional help of chainsaw.

Go to Bira was a success first by the place itself and second because the second day I was fortunate to meet a ferry which unexpectedly went to Luabanbajo (Flores). Although Flores was completely discarded my plans, it was possible to reach Lombok by sea and land transport and having enough time to visit Bali and The Gili and saved me around 600,000 rupees instead of going by plane.

Take the decision to take a plane to Makassar (capital of Sulawesi) and from here a bus to Rantepao, not wanting perdeme Tana Toraja, the land of the Toraja.

Tana Toraja is famous for the Toraja culture, for the construction of their houses, the traditional way to give their land but not stone dead … but if anything have become famous for their traditions has been funerias and mostly because water buffaloes are sacrificed. But Tana Toraja is not only that, for me it was more. Toraja Land is located in the mountains of southern Sulawesi in a stunning natural setting of forest, water and rice. The Toraja are people worthy of admiration for his smile his kindness and hospitality. So I will not hang the pictures or the dead and the sacrifice of buffaloes, who wants to see you pass by my page flicker.

Six days in Rantepao which also coincided with great people, both as passengers and Toraja which I hope to someday return to run into in the short path of life. For me a place if you visit imprenscindible Sulawesi (but of course this is as always I like but not like you)

One of the most interesting things about travel is certainly see how in each region, area or country means the world and everything in it happens in a way that can be completely opposite to yours, which requires you to have an open mind, away from prejudice and never position yourself not as easy and as wrong as ethnocentrism. Often, if not in most instances, Manichaeism resulting from those traveling to the Western mind and prejudices can be certainly sad and desolate. That “good and bad, we do things right and they are barbarians, uncultured and poor, we have come to save them from their ignorance, they swim by having nothing else to cling to. They live in shacks in this country is an absolute mess, dirty and poor, while in my country people live in flats and houses, the city is clean, there are good cars, movie theaters, television … poor things, I am see them (like a zoo, I would add) but really comes to judge …. ” Good. Whoever travels to a country of those not considered the first world (even some exotic themselves are the first world but with a culture totally alien to our own) and think such a thing falls into the ignorant traveler’s own ethnocentrism: that moving hoping to find in India, Bolivia, Tanzania and Indonesia which have their own country. Nen, think again. If you travel with your mind totally clean, ready to make the effort to try to understand behavior, culture and even the beliefs of those who live there, then you better stay home, look at a documentary on exotic cultures 2 and do the ridiculous.

And all this preface, for what?, You may ask. Good, because if you have an open mind and you can not see through this humble blog without judging, rather than stop reading this entry. Like there are times when you regret. I try to describe what I saw, being sterile and purpose in the narrative of the facts and away from harmful stereotypes. And try not to fall into the sickness free, simply describe, explain …

Tell ‘s ye …

These days in Rantepao (Sulawesi) I’m with Roland, a German traveler sixties, and another German couple. The partner has merit left Germany in March 2010, by bicycle. They crossed the Czech Republic, Austria, Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and some more Caucasian republics, China, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and now Indonesia. Still want to see Papua and Australia before returning to Germany next October or November. Everything on bike … flipante, come on.

Total, with the 3 Germans hired a tour to see a Toraja funeral as well as some attractions in the area of ​​Tana Toraja in central Sulawesi. Very near here, just 3-4 hours away, there are cities that until 4 or 5 years suffered from cyclical outbursts of violence and instability, brought about by the rivalry between Muslims and Catholics. It was an area I had planned to go way, way Togean Islands, but are almost 5 days there and back and although they are a paradise, I finally discarded. Anyway, at 9 am (I had slept just 5 hours to see the Madrid-Barcelona Champions League, in the end, I could only listen to radio and jumps) picked us up the guide with the driver.

The first stop was the Toraja funeral of a wealthy average family in the area, where we arrived just 20 minutes later. As is required, we carried a box of snuff to give to the family for the funeral. These gifts are usually or snuff or sugar and is a sign of respect towards the family. After searching several completely muddy dirt roads by the incessant rain of the previous night, found the place. Although he wore hiking boots, it was really hard not to muddy to the ankles … We reached the place where the ceremony takes place. And before I describe it, I will give you four strokes of Indonesian society and aspects that determine when, how and where the funeral takes place for the dead.

In Indonesia, as in India and some other countries, there is a caste system. Currently considered that there are 5 and is something like your class and you can not change your life: born into a caste and die in it, well you go life, how much money you win or lose, do not change your caste. Therefore, within each caste could talk about some subdivisions, but not the point of this post (sorry …). Caste determines the rights, privileges and obligations that have or represent to society and the limits that can, to put it in some way. And your chaste conditions, almost inevitably, your socio-economic position. Thus, the higher you are, you usually have more money, lands, rights and privileges. Yes, intelligent reader, the deeper, less money, land and rights … This determines the funeral given to a deceased relative.

The funeral we attend is an old man who died about 6 months. We get your daughter, we delivered the master snuff. We are presented. His name burst into my ears. “We can not” think. “Is this name in Indonesia?.” After presenting the guide begins to explain some peculiarities …

We are sitting in a sort of covered hut, made of bamboo. There are several, linked to each other, forming a square, you end up producing an interior courtyard with some trees, grass … On one side, there is a tower, where we see what would be the coffin . The makeshift huts (mounted exclusively for the funeral, then dismounting) are high as about 50 centimeters. When we arrived, there are occasional buffalo medium out there and several pigs, some free, others tied to bamboo poles and legs tied with ropes and a pig in a fire in the yard.

The dead man who is honored, died about 6 months and we link this with the caste system, because depending on your status, you can do before or after the funeral. If your family is of high caste and well off, the funeral can be held the following week. If not, you can take up to a year in celebration. The reasons are economic and belief: to honor the deceased, the family has to sacrifice a number of buffaloes and pigs, which will then be tasted by the guests at the funeral. So if you have money, you can buy these animals quickly but if you do not, you can take a long time. In some cases, up to a year. And what do the dead all this time?. Well, I have in formalin at home. A buffalo can cost, small, about 800 €, medium and large about 1,500 to 10,000 €. If we have is a poor country in which much of the population fails to win 80 € a month, you can make calculations of how much they can take to assemble: 3 to 5 buffalo modest funeral, 6 to 15 funerals means; more than 15 buffalo in large funerals. Yes, a fortune, indeed.

In the various “huts” interconnected families are crowding, children, elders, men, women … you smoke, talk, laugh, wait, play cards … in the yard, the pig that was on fire, is deposited on palm leaves, is open and you begin to remove the internal organs. Some of these bodies along with some chopped chile, onion, peppers and filled a bamboo which is then roasted and is one of the typical regional dishes: pork belly cooked in bamboo. Four or five men completed the butchering of the pig in 20 minutes. Artisan work with large machetes.

The guide tells us that the sacrifice of the buffalo will not start up in about two hours, we can go see the hanging tombs of the caves. Here we go, the 3 Germans, the guide, driver and me. After walking by a beautiful Toraja village with its typical houses in the form of horns and raised several feet above the ground, got a mountain of rock which hang some wooden coffins, finely worked, but many already decrepit. They are human bones here and there. Skulls everywhere. Here are two coffins. Up there, three more. Bones of adults and other children, it seems. The place is really shocking to my Western eyes. We are going to rise and we as 20 coffins in different parts of the mountain, on piles of wood. Calaveras in good condition, with many teeth and others that are missing many of those pieces … a somewhat sinister to Western eyes, totally normal in this culture.

We return to the place where the funeral takes place, which can last from 2 to 4 days, the money available to the family, the number of guests, the number of animals slaughtered, and so on.

We arrived just in time. 10 minutes later, the first led to Buffalo is middle of the courtyard. A young man, aged about 25, comes with a good-sized machete. Grab the rope ends in the ring of the buffalo’s nose. The rises, forcing the animal to stretch the neck up. There is at the mercy of the human animal, her throat cleared, ready to be killed without the animal knows their future. In a move certain, the younger the animal slaughter. Quietly cutting is about 15 centimeters and the blood begins to jump in spurts. The animal tries to run, hurt. He goes right to where I am and stop just two meters from my position. Another knife just to weaken the animal. Blood supplies the mud and grass and the animal collapses. The ritual is repeated up to three times more, with as many buffalo. In just over 10 minutes, four buffalo lying dead, bleeding on the muddy courtyard. Toca break them, of course, but before stripping them, skillfully, your skin in one piece without breaking. Begin with the head and killed the animal’s vision, skin on the head, eyes lost in the endless black and neck is sliced ​​really shocking. The German can not see. It is behind us. As they cut the animal, take him to the makeshift kitchens in corner of the courtyard where the women prepare to taste the guests.
In the background, I see a big pig, who has been primed, no doubt, she can barely walk. Another young man comes up and after two stab wounds to the hand, breaks down the pig, who writhes in pain. The canal opened in and removed all its internal organs. A young man enters their arms to the elbow for the task, across the courtyard with the organs in one hand and blood dripping from …

We turn to the funeral fire and let to the graves of babies in a tree. After many generations, they begin to lose strength some traditions like this (marriage between people of different religions, immigration and emigration, etc.). And what we see now is hardly a thing of the past that almost no one practices only: when a baby less than one years died, they buried him in a tree, a large tree, which made him a hole, introducing the baby there and blotted out the hole with a kind of doors. The bark of the tree, years later, do the rest. And so we see this tree, under a deluge of considerable proportions, with about 20 small little doors, where they had to bury so many babies in ancient times.

It rains. Pours. The day is dark gray, off. No more trips per day. I plunge into a series of thoughts about the day and think about how different we are from each other and in the anthropological and cultural wealth is dispersed throughout the world. We, who often think that there is no other way to live and understand the universe, both what we learn …

I warned: there would be a nice post.

The hours of sunrise or dawn in Makassar is at 6:10:34 and the time of sunset or sunset in Makassar is at 18:05:34.

* Length of day is 12:55 Makassar
* Civil Twilight begins at 5:49:02 and ends at 18:27:07
* Nautical twilight begins at 5:23:59 and ends at 18:52:09
* Astronomical twilight begins at 4:58:58 and ends at 19:17:10

If you want to see the location of Makassar on a Google map or upload to your GPS coordinates, we provide the following information:

* Latitude of Makassar 5 ° 8 ‘S
* Makassar Length: 119 ° 25 ‘E

The exact time of Makassar, is calculated based on time zones in Indonesia will always try to tell what time it is in Makassar as accurately as possible, there may be changes in Makassar exact time dependent on the season in which is the city.

The schedule change is made to adapt Makassar activities of citizens and tourists visiting Makassar cycle of sunlight, so that is less dependent on electricity. For all this, is that it makes a change from hour to Makassar in the summer and another change in Makassar in winter time. Adding daylight time to the afternoon trade benefits to tourism in Makassar, to sports and other activities that favors the presence of light after work.

Sam Ratulangi Drive Jalan 33, Makassar, Indonesia

A model of international standard four-star Sahid Jaya Hotel Makassar will allow you to begin your visit to Makassar in the most relaxed as possible, and all for just EUR € 58.00 per night.

Sahid Jaya Hotel Makassar is a step in the neighborhood of City, on Jalan Sam Ratulangi Drive 33, Makassar, Indonesia, and is the ideal launch pad for sampling the sights of Makassar or for business, sure to be a point highlight of his trip to Indonesia.

Here the landscape is unpredictable and changing every few miles … the typical dirty and dusty city just a few hours and get to mountains and green valleys full of rice fields, parks with abundant flora and fauna, drawn by a coastline of white sand beaches islands with clear waters, reefs that are home to large marine life.

On the other hand, people we’ve met each other is as diverse as the landscape … Muslims, Christians, Toraja … but all share the same passion for the few foreigners allowed to see these lands. And now the Spanish are in fashion where we go with the theme of the World can make a simple 10-minute walk becomes a long photo session with young people in the area.

And as any area with its good, Sulawesi is not without bad things … the first and most important infrastructure to move from one place to another. Patience is the key ingredient to cope … and I assure you that sometimes, even with many, it’s over. The villagers themselves have no idea about anything related to transport them to ask you … the safest thing you’ll get is a “maybe” Indonesian … hey, pajolera has no idea.

There is only one road connecting both ends of the island, so apart from spend endless hours in a bus (is that the ticket also includes multiple changes in tire failures on the road several …) from time to time you will also find with typical detachment that makes the road can be cut for hours or even days …. but if that happens, you cut the road, the bus will leave from the same source, even if the driver already knows in advance the hours that you to be put on it … so scroll Sulawesi is slow, very slow, so that at least mention that if you come here, will dedicate about 3 or 4 days on the road overalls. Hence, few people get to the islands Togean, for example, because they are 2 days on road and ferry route between … the most comfortable and “easy” for air travel is somewhat more expensive but more rested … so easy a say because here every now and cancel flights or they change the schedule without warning … and when you get to the airport, zasca sorpresón!

The other downside is … it is currently hosting the site throughout Asia where we have been the worst value for money … to get here a few times we were paying more than 10-12 € a night, here is the amount by which minimum find a decent room. Almost all hotels in lower price and half are very neglected and hardly pay attention to the rooms … many times with the same sheets for weeks (note to see the bed … ahem …). Nor should you expect a typical bathroom and here are all mandis, ie hole in the ground as a basin and a shower pan (of course, hot water or joke). Even the resorts here are a joke, some with mattress and mosquito net on the floor between 4 wooden walls … yes, including food 3 times a day as varied as rice with fish and fish with rice.

In short, if someone decides to spend some time Sulawesi insurance here will not leave indifferent if a funeral rite presence in Tana Toraja, relaxing on a beach with turquoise water lost while watching an evening movie or view the seabed from one of the best dive sites around Indonesia.

For the deceased’s family organize a funeral is very expensive … so much that there are families that can take several years to collect enough money and get to bring the whole family may be scattered across Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia … and you will wonder “and what the heck do with the corpse in the meantime? “… well … I will shoot very easy to doses of formaldehyde and leave it lying in a room of the house …. and Toraja traditional houses have 3 bedrooms: one is the lounge The other is the bedroom of the family and guests and the third bedroom of the dead … that is, if you feel like sleeping with a local family is likely to finish wall to wall with a family luncheon …

At the funeral as a rule do two things: slaughter as many buffalo and wild pigs as possible (they believe that the soul of the deceased accompanied the animals into the afterlife). The more money a family has already sacrificed more buffalo to symbolize strength and power. A day after leaving the area, there was the funeral of the ambassador’s secretary and went to sacrifice 16 buffaloes in his honor … take bait!

So we Rantepao good point (the largest town in Toraja) and we lodged in a hotel, we inform you if there was a funeral that day to be able to attend. Normally the family does not care if tourists come to attend the funeral, a distinction is even more to them. It is easiest to do it with a guide who speaks the local language and bring you to the heart and introduce you to the family … and not more than bring gifts such as snuff, sugar and coffee. And then there’s the cheap way, ours, which is saving you the cost of a pasta guide, and going directly to the funeral with local transport. So here we present four without really knowing what to do or how to get there. A bemo (local furgonetilla) left us on a road surrounded by rice fields where a crowd of locals on their way in procession to the family home in the woods. How we had not been guided by our idea was to try to pass unnoticed as possible … hard task if it has rained the night before, the road is a potato and mud as well, Eve can not think of more to go on T … halfway thing happened Slip Eva inevitable … that ended in the ass in the mud and about to fall fully on the rice causing laughter not only those who were behind us but those who were at the end of the road from then on only concerned by being attentive to other possible setbacks of clumsy tourists to keep having fun.

Once we reached the village we found a crowd of people willing to enjoy themselves and about 15 wild pigs in bamboo trunks little bundle ready to be slaughtered … actually had some luck and run that they were cutting up to start preparing some food for many guests.

The ceremony is always chaired by the coffin of the dead, along with a photo of him and a wax figure of the above life-size (tau-tau). Fortunately or unfortunately, when we arrived we had killed the buffalo (he was a poor family …. Many pigs and only one buffalo) and mud is also joined the pool of blood of the animal. We were told later, sacrificed buffalo Majete that does not hit too well with the first cut in the neck and giving the animal squirmed a little romp. In the end it just skinning the buffalo carcass and opening, like the pigs.

Some dead have a booth where guests feel closer to family (like a wedding we go …) and family members wear a costume. From there everything is traditional dancing, laughter, food and especially drink to suit all guests. We among the fatigue of the night bus, so many people around and the stench of dead animals so we opted for a retreat not too late.

The next day, as Rantepao not have much to offer we went to visit the local market where they have special section of buffalo funeral … there are those who come to pay about U.S. $ 8000 for a buffalo albino. Then we visit a typical village, Londa, famous for their graves in caves.

The Toraja are deposited the coffins of the same family in natural caves in which entrance you can see tau-tau (Fig. scale) of people who are buried within. It’s all very grim for the coffins to be made of wood, are half broken bones and skulls of the dead are loose in the cave.