Snorkel 1

Singapore to Makassar to Sorong to the snorkeling resort

Greetings dear reader to the second blog instalment of a trip to Indonesia. The first stop was Singapore for a couple of days en route to Indonesia. A city founded about 200 years ago as a British Colony at the gateway between India and China and access to the Spice Islands. It was a delightful, colorful and tasty stay. It has undergone extensive urbanization and growth especially in the last 20-30 years. The street food vendors have been concentrated into food courts of great variety. The Hainan chicken and rice is the signature dish but Asian, Indian and Middle Eastern were the most common.  

Other highlights were tours of Little India and Chinatown, the fabulous botanical gardens and the city center waterfront. Navigation via the subway was cheap and easy. Lots of casual courtesy including a high schooler who gave up her subway seat to the elder, me, to my mixture of gratitude, resignation and grief. 

The Singapore reputation for order and cleanliness are well deserved. Over half their water is recycled and initially much of it comes from capturing rainwater from roofs and streets. It is a very colorful city with brilliant splashes here and there, Hindu and Buddhist decorations of yellow, red and black at several visited temples and an multi acre orchid garden of impressive shapes, sizes and colors.

We then met sister Sue and her husband, Buck, at the Singapore airport and all flew to Makassar on the island of Sulawesi. We stayed at the home of our guide Dodo. He took us to see some beautiful limestone karst formations at the head of a small river. With the bottom lands used for fish farming and rice up to the edge of vertical 1000' cliffs it was quite beautiful and very different than anything we've ever seen.

Then off to some 5000 year old pictographs of hand prints followed by a visit to the old Dutch Fort Rotterdam. Historically Makassar has been and important center for trade within what is now Indonesia so the Dutch found it useful to fortify it back in the 1500s.

To our surprise, we closed out the day by attending a wedding. Dodo knew the couple and weddings here are big, communal events. So dinner, loud music, most in their dress clothes and finally a karaoke from Dodo dedicated to us. Very friendly greetings to us strangers throughout.

In Makassar it was common to have others want to have pictures taken with us. Altogether we posed at least 25 times including with a local police squad, the wedding party and school children. All very endearing.

The next morning we flew to Sorong on the western end of New Guinea (Papua) and them a two hour boat ride to our island resort for a week of diving for Sue and Buck, snorkelling for Lauren and I. The story will pick up the story from there but first, I hope, a few postings of pictures.Read more