Thursday, 2 April 2026
I woke up early for morning prayers. After freshening up and packing, I had breakfast. It was banana pancake today with a mug of tea and a glass of cold passion fruit juice. After checking out, I left and walked down to Jl. Ahmad Yani. I managed to get a mobil immediately for Terminal Bayangan. He charged me Rp8k though and I remarked that I paid lower to get to Ke’te’ Kesu’ which was further.
Terminal Bayangan was not even a proper terminal, just an unmarked stop with some shops. Apparently buses are not allowed into Rantepao town after 06:00 to avoid traffic jam hence the buses stop here to drop off and pick up passengers. Although Manggala bus company did allow passengers to board from their office in town. Hmm.
The bus finally left at 08:07. I suppose that was as good as it gets in terms of punctuality. We soon made our slow way down to Makale stopping every now and then. The road was mainly winding due to the terrain and only one lane for each direction. We stopped somewhere after Kalosi and neither the driver nor his assistants bothered to tell us that the bus was stopping for 20 minutes. I went down to use the facilities. More mosques appeared as we continued to the south. Alhamdulillah.
We left at 11:00 and less than 20 minutes later, pulled up across from the second rest stop which the sleeper bus I was on stopped at on Monday evening. One of the bus assistants said, ‘Warung’ and left. He didn’t hear me ask how long we would be there.
We continued on and on and stopped for one last time at a roadside mosque. I asked if we would be there long, the driver said no. So I performed ablutions and performed prayers on the bus. We’d left the highlands by then and were travelling by the coast by then. I don’t think there was ever a time when the landscape didn’t feature houses, little towns and paddy fields.
My seat which was at the front row soon had the sun beating down on it with no curtain to hold the glare back so I moved to a seat a few rows behind. The thing was the AC was hardly felt as I moved to the back. Sigh.
We finally reached the outskirts of Makassar and slowly inched our way through the rush hour. I finally got down at the terminal (not the same terminal from which I boarded the sleeper bus). I crossed the busy road and tried to find an ojek or taxi. No joy so I started walking until I reached a bus stop. A couple of locals helpfully told me to take an angkot and nailed one down for me. A few ladies in the angkot helped let me know where to alight and advised me to take a trishaw to the hotel. I decided it was close enough to my hotel and walked. This way, I could browse eateries and I bought Jakarta fried rice to go.
I reached Vindhika Hotel at 19:35 and checked in. My room was at the ground floor. I had to pay Rp50k as room deposit. The cons of having a room on the ground floor are that I could hear the conversation in the lobby and even smell cigarette smoke. The room light was too dim to do any reading and the bed sheet had stains. Probably clean but with old stains.
Friday, 3 April 2026
This morning, I left just before 08:30 and walked to Masjid 99 Kubah (99-Dome Mosque), named after the 99 names of Allah. After 20 minutes, I left and walked to Masjid Amirul Mukminin, the floating mosque. Unfortunately, there was a lot of rubbish in the river so there was a bit of an unpleasant smell. I then walked along Losari Beach and after finding out there were no longer buses to the airport departing from Jl. Somba OPU, I continued on up to Fort Rotterdam.
Fort Rotterdam is a Dutch fort built on top of a fort of the Gowa Kingdom. The fort was the Dutch regional military and governmental headquarters until the 1930s. It was extensively restored in the 1970s and is now a cultural and educational centre, a venue for music and dance events, and a tourist destination. The buildings in the Fort are labelled alphabetically in clockwise direction when one enters the grounds so I went from one building to another in the same order. Diponegoro, a Javanese prince who fought against the Dutch, was imprisoned in building N when he was exiled to Makassar. While I was pleasantly surprised to find there was no admission charge to the Fort, I was disappointed that most buildings were closed to the public. I would have liked to enter some of the buildings. There was also a little canal in the grounds but it was full of rubbish at one end and had turned green from algae. I spent close to an hour at the Fort.
After the Fort, I continued on and decided to check out the market. It was by pure luck that I came upon Coto Nusantara Restaurant. I saw three young local Chinese emerging from a big vehicle and entering the restaurant and when I looked in, the restaurant was full. I thought the food must be very good if it managed to attract even the Chinese to eat there. Like I said, the restaurant was full (the Chinese who entered before me got the last available table) but I was able to share a table with a local couple. Coto Makassar comes in a very small bowl. I decided to have paru soto and the couple told me that the locals eat the soto with ketupat. I asked how the restaurant staff would know how many ketupat one consumed and the man said on average, customers eat two pieces of ketupat each. I asked if it was a public holiday as I saw some kids around and the man checked his phone and said, yes. I’d forgotten it was Good Friday. Plus I didn’t realise Indonesia observes Good Friday as a public holiday.
After lunch, I continued on to the market. It was already noon then and the mosques were calling out people for Friday prayers. When I reached the market, I found that it was like Tanah Abang in Jakarta so I turned and made my way back to the hotel, passing the Mandala Monument on the way.
I ventured out in the early evening to find dinner. It was a busy evening, being Saturday and eve of Easter which the Christians attending service. After dinner, I returned to my room and packed.
Saturday, 4 April 2026
I left my room after 07:00 to find breakfast and walked around the block and more before I could find any stall selling food. A man was frying noodles at one stall, a woman was selling fried food at another. I finally found a small warung and had nasi pecel (white rice with some gado gado and peanut sauce on top). I then went to buy some frozen otak-otak before returning to my room
I left the room at 08:50 and checked out. One of the girls at the reception went to check the room before returning my deposit. I then ordered a car from Grab. The driver asked if I wanted to take the highway and when I said yes, he said I’d need to give him some cash for him to pay the toll. He asked for Rp50k which I thought was a bit high.
It took slightly more than 30 more to reach the airport. I’d bought a bottle of water only to be told to dispose of it after the second security check. I didn’t realise there would be a second check (for which I didn’t even declare my LAGs but this was fine). I decided to finish my water there and then. Was not amused to find a small shop selling water after that. Grr!
The plane was not as full as it was when I flew out so I changed seats because I didn’t want to be sandwiched in the middle seat. We took off close to our ETD and landed at 14:00. Alhamdulillah.
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