Travel Journal: Makassar Trip (Part 3)

So here comes the day, that we have been waiting for, the day we finally head for Tanjung Bira. Woohoo! And it's about time where we head out of Makassar, where the abundance of good food makes it seem impossible to have less than six meals in a day. Good God.

The road to Tanjung Bira (Cape Bira)

The road from Makassar to Bira has recently been repaved, so driving there should take about 4 to 6 hours, depending on the way your driver drive. Despite his one fake eye, our driver/guide/tour operator drove really well, so it took us roughly 4,5 hours.

Along the road, we passed Gowa, Janeponto, and Bantaeng. The prettiest scenery was when we passed  open pastures with grazing skinny horses in Janeponto, but unfortunately there were so many horses coto or soup restaurants in every meters or so too, pretty gruesome idea. 

First sight of the ocean, Bulukumba

After miles of rice paddies, cute houses ("quaint" said pade), and lots of cows, very cool terraces of corn fields, mountains, on our right side we finally had a sight of what seems to be the...SEA! We're there!! Oh, wait. false alarm... 1 hour away from where you start to find sea, now there's Tanjung Bira. When it hits 4th hour and you haven't been to the sea in almost .. too long to remember, a ride to the coast can never be more excruciating.

Travel Journal: Makassar Trip (Part 2)

After all the food the night before, I couldn't believe myself that we actually managed to wake up at 5.30 in the morning, to leave for Maros at 6.00 AM. Well..that was the plan. 

Most of us did get up that early, I was about 20 minutes late. Yet our driver, Andi, slept in and arrived at our doorstop at about 7.00 AM. So we finally left, and was already on our way out of Makassar city around 7.20 AM. 

Why am I being overly minute on this? because apparently where we were going, timing is everything. Andi emphasized that we did not want to see the Makassar Sunday crowd vacationing in Bantimurung, so we need to get there at least before 10. We would have enough time to muck about, and leave right on time when other people just start to pours in. 

Bantimurung National Park, Maros

From Makassar, we drove north for about an hour to reach the Bantimurung National Park in Maros Region. The air in the area is noticeably a lot cooler, and you can see a cool waterfall where a lot of locals play and used the waterfall as a huge (yet rather dangerous) slide with the aid of big rubber donuts. 

Travel Journal: Makassar Trip (Part 1)

We arrived in Hasanuddin Airport, Makassar, very late at night, more like early in the morning, like 1 or something. After surviving our crazy taxi ride from the airport, through the calm Makassar city street, and dropped dead in our hotel room, I managed to actually wake up at 9.30 am Central Indonesia Time. 

We stayed in Mega Inn, a neat and reasonably priced hotel on Jl. Gunung Lompobattang. Here's a picture I took from their facebook page because silly me I didn't take any picture the whole two days we were there: 

copyright Mega Inn, Makassar. Picture is actually quite accurate (Oct 2013)

For around Rp. 250,000 we got ourselves a deluxe room with clean bathroom and working cable. We actually paid for a standard room (Rp. 200,000) and did stay in it for one night. But unfortunately because it's location by the stairs, we can hear every footstep that every guest in the room makes, and everything anyone in the kitchen was doing. We were also exposed to this bright light right outside our window which had only a thin white, hence useless, blind to block the glare. So we asked the hotel manager to move us to other room. (Although I later found out that the kitchen is not for cooking and they get their breakfast food from nearby stores, so I don't have any idea what all the noises were.)

We were then moved to a much bigger room in third floor, with no additional charge. So it was a really nice thing for them to do. Breakfast was a pack of Nasi Kuning (yellow rice) with its supporting lauk pauk delivered to our rooms.