High season - Tempat munta tamu

Back in Sulawesi! My plan to stay in Finland from June until end of August got changed quite quickly and I came back already end of July. In the middle of high season here. Originally I wanted to avoid this time of the year coz all places are full and prices a bit higher. But I also don't have to stay in a resort if I don't want to.

The trip back took me 3 days. Flight to Frankfurt, wait there 12 h, then to Jakarta with a stop over in Kuala Lumpur, forward with Garuda to Luwuk via Makassar. After 2 nights in planes I was too tired and didn't wanna wait for the bus so I chartered a car to Ampana. Good choice, at least I got into town in decent hour and had finally a good sleep. Next day we found a boat passing Bomba so I could already get back to Togean and relax at Poya Lisa. Luckily the highest high of high season hadn't started yet.

Fantastic to be back in Poya Lisa, and especially to play with Sami! My doggie! Who is huge already for a ”puppy” only 3 months old. He's a monster, anjing gila play-biting everything: books, sarongs, wood, shells and now also toys I brought him from Finland. When I'm not in Poya I really miss that crazy creature. Photos will be added here later…

Picnic at the beach...

End of July was also the end of Ramadan and we went to celebrate it in Wakai with the Hulopi clan. It was all about food, meeting people, doing day trips, having chats and well, sure of course some arak and drinks I brought back from Finland. It was kind of like a mix of our christmas and new year, just a bit more louder and crazier with fireworks and motorbike parades. And this is a small village I'm speaking about. Idil Fitri lasted about 3 days and afterwards we left back to Poya Lisa. Which was starting to get crowded. 14 bungalows and over 30 people. When we arrived all the bungalows were taken so we had to sleep in the boat for the first night. Doable, not comfortable.

Boat = bed.

After a few days we took a few spanish girls to Malenge and stayed also there at Malenge Indah for a night. We slept in the boat again, as that place was also more than full full full. The 4 girls had to share one small room next to the restaurant as all bungalow were taken. Next day we went to check out the newest place in Malenge: Sera. Which is very similar to Malenge Indah, similar cottages, similar food, similar beach. Both great places.

On the way back to Wakai we stopped at Katupat for a chat with friends and ended up staying also one night. This time we had the option between boat and losmen in the village as also Fadhila Cottages were almost having a waiting list for free bungalows. Really, next year at high season I hope I have an own place to stay at or I'll spend it out of the country. Every place is just a bit too full for my taste. But also, this is still very little and very far away from what's happening in the actually touristy places.

Now I'm in Ampana for a few days for internet and also to enjoy some western luxury (= A/C & good shower) in the new Lawaka hotel. Highly recommended, the best value for money in this small town. Located near the evening market and still this is the most quiet hotel I've been in in Ampana. I did sleep well :)

And of course I didn't take my camera with me so this blog update will be without decent photos, just with the few I had in my phone. More will be added later.  

Done with divemaster :)

Might sound funny but it actually can get boring to live in an island paradise. It is fantastic to swim, dive, hang out in the village, sit under a coconut tree, but after some months it can make you feel like you just wanna run and scream. Have to do something!!! Too much energy!! Too much hammock time! But to do what? Maybe I should do something useful, for body, brain and future, like divemaster.

I did rescue diver with a local instructor from Ampana and we worked well together so I decided to continue to divemaster with him instead of going to one of the resorts here in Togean. Anyways is better to have a teacher who actually has time for you and doesn't have to take care of tens of other divers at the same time.

Checking out a new dive spot near Ampana. And the village was checking us out.

Snorkeling 800 m and enjoying an octopus show underneath me...

We did theory, confined water exercises, DSD and a few dives in Ampana and surroundings and the rest in Poya Lisa in Bomba and in a dive centre in Wakai. Might sound stupid but my biggest concern was that I have to open my eyes in the water. Yea I can take off the mask and dive without it, but blind. In the water my eyes burn, burn burn... But as it had to be done, it was done. And now I know I can open the eyes, I don't like it, I don't see much and there's more tears in my eyes than sea water. But I can do it.

The rest went pretty well, I learned a lot and now I'm done. Divemaster :) yay!

Yes, a long and informative blog update again. See, I am getting lazy…

The circus attraction returned to the beach

As the few people who reads this blog knows from the previous update, I went to Ampana to do some work online. I finished the job in a few days and wanted to go back to Bomba/Poya Lisa as soon as possible. Easier said than done. It's been a quite stormy December/January and the waves continued to prevent boats from leaving the dock. The boats going to Bomba are quite small and made out of wood, so I really don't wanna be stuck (again) in one when the storm begins in open sea. So I waited. And waited.

In Ampana I basically can't go anywhere without being robbed out of all my energy in half an hour. They don't see many tourist in this part of Indonesia and the people are VERY interested in anything you do. Especially if you are alone. Sometimes even cars stop next to you just to have a chat in non-existing english or just to shout something clever at you, like Bule (white foreigner)! Or Tattoo! Yes to both and thank you of telling me, just in case I hadn't noticed. And I still don't get why random people want to be photographed with me, as they don't know me. Then again, I was showing some photos to a local girl here and on my laptop I had a photo of a pretty house in Estonia. She asked me who lives there. I said I don't know. She found it really odd/funny that I took a photo of a house of which I don't know the owner of. And here many people here want to take a photo with a person they don't know. Maybe we are all odd…

Puspita Sari, fastest connection from Ampana to Wakai. 

Never ask this boy "di mana kuching", where's the cat. He'll bring all the neighbourhood cats to your balcony.

After 8 days I grew so tired of being an circus elephant that I decided to skip Bomba and took a ferry to Wakai, the biggest village in the Togean Islands. I ended up staying there another 8 days, renting a room in the upper floor of a house owned by a lovely local woman and her english husband. And their madly energetic 5-year old son :) Hanging out in Wakai is mostly about eating crabs, fish, squid etc. and to flush the dinner down with a glass or two of Septikus. I don't really wanna swim in front of the village as the water is quite murky, but I did manage to go jogging early in the morning before the village wakes up. Running towards the sunrise on empty streets is quite fantastic.

Not a bad jogging ground.

I also scrubbed Ellys boat which has been broken for many months already. Not it's finally being fixed and after the wood work is done it can be painted, as the outside of the boat is bright and shiny. I did though escape from further work and went to Fadhila Cottages in Katupat for some beach&hammock treatment. Same place as when I was here in October. Nice corals in front of the beaches, excellent food and great staff. I forced Ida and the boys to play rummikub with me every evening and it was really interesting to follow how they try to cheat all the time but they still don't win. Hmmm... Maybe they should rather use the energy for following the game but hey, where's the fun in that.

I did two dives near Katupat but forgot my underwater camera housing in Wakai so no photos this time. Oh well... There will be plenty later. The internet connection is extreme slow here (2G with phone) so I'll add photos to this post later when I'm back in the main land.  

Rescue Diver

I finally did something! After being lazy too long I started with rescue diver course and it was definitely worth the time and money. There's so much more to learn about diving and this course is for sure much more useful as f.ex. AOWD, which is just a money making course by Padi imho.

 I did the theory and emergency first response -course in Ampana with a local dive instructor Anwar Dosi of Ody Dive Center. A few days later we moved on to Poya Lisa with all the gear and did the diving part there. All went pretty good, I managed not to kill my rehearsal partner (Elly) who was finishing his dive master at the same time. So now I'm a rescue diver. And thinking about continuing with dive master. But first I have to practice how to keep my eyes open in water, coz that f***ing burns!!!

Elly floating. Last 2 mins hand up.

And I also managed to do some work. Which was a bit of a drama as Poya Lisa doesn't have internet, the network in Wakai is not fast enough to run the programs I need to use online so the only solution was to head back to mainland for some days. Which is not easy when the sea is rough... My deadline was coming more near and near but the boats from Bomba to Ampana weren't leaving the harbor coz of weather. Finally after waiting too many days I had to drive 3 h with a scooter through the jungle to Wakai and move on with Tuna Tomini, a bigger ferry which (almost) always runs. That was a long day.

So now I'm back in Ampana. Doing nothing. Maybe I should at least have a look at the dive master learning material. I just wish I'd have a hammock. Maybe in Kuling Kendari, a small village near Bomba. One of the prettiest places I've ever been to.

Surfing is so much better than playstation.

Local fisherman making goggles for swimming/diving.

Bingo!

Back to the city. To a small one. After the paradise island of Poya Lisa I've been spending some days in Ampana, doing basically absolutely nothing. So far this trip has been about doing absolutely nothing. I hope soon I'll get some work to do, otherwise this might get a bit boring. Or I have to spend a few days in a dive spot.

Anyways, there is really not much to do in Ampana. Except to visit the fun fair and play bingo! And it's much more fun if you empty a few plastic bags of arak first, though it doesn't make understanding the numbers any easier. Luckily there was enough locals to help me out. Sometimes even too many.

Ampana doesn't see many visitors, usually people stay one night before moving on to Togean islands or vice versa. So sometimes it's quite annoying as everyone wants to speak with u, take a photo with you or you should be shouting ”hello” to every direction every 2 seconds. Fun for a day or two, a bit annoying after 3-4 days. So what to do now? I've got no idea... This seems like an extremely unplanned trip. Next blog update will be when I've actually something to tell.