Tana Toraja, high in the mountains near the center of Sulawesi, is one of the few places in Indonesia where you can still see a unique culture that keeps its traditions alive, and not just for the benefit of the tourists. In the high mountain valleys, you will see traditional tongkonan houses set in terraced rice fields. The culturally distinctive Torajans are perhaps most well known for their elaborate death rituals, which includes funerals that can last for several days, followed by burials in rock tombs.
A typical Torajan house compound in the rice fields
Thanks to its high altitude, Tana Toraja has a rather temperate climate. While days can be warm or even hot, nights are usually so cool that none of the hotels in the area have air conditioning. The cool dry season runs from March to September or October. If you want to see a funeral, the best months are August or September. This is when the farming people of the area have free time before the rains arrive in October.
While some guide books suggest that Toraja is already over-run with tourists, I practically had the place to myself in early October, and the truth is that there is very little in the way of tourist facilities in the area. You'll find only a small number of locally operated hotels to chose from, and there are few restaurants or other shops catering to travelers. Still, the unique culture and friendly people make a visit to Tana Toraja worth the effort it takes to get there.
One of the biggest challenges to visiting Tana Toraja is getting there. While there is a small airport near Makale, it is as yet only served at most by twice weekly flights from Makassar. Unless you time your visit to coincide with these flights, your only other alternative is to make the trip by road. Makassar is the nearest airport with connections to other parts of Indonesia. By private car, the trip from Makassar to Rantepao takes about seven hours, including a rest break in the seaside town of Pare-Pare.
As with their funerals, Torajan graves are also quite distinctive and sometimes quite elaborate. Where-ever you travel in Toraja, you will see these tombs, which are usually carved out of rock.
A single large boulder with several tombs carved into it The Torajan landscape is littered with huge boulders, evidence of some cataclysmic volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. On close inspection, you'll find that many of these boulders have 'doors'.
The buffalo field at the weekly market Coffee, garlic, and chilies - all of life's necessities!
Every six days in Belo, four kilometers north of central Rantepao, there's a huge market which combines a large livestock sales area with a more traditional market.
Most of the livestock market is devoted to the sale of buffaloes. Lowland traders auction their stock from stalls in one area, while next to it is a large open field where the locals sell their prized po sessions.
The most noticeable thing about Toraja are the many traditional houses, called tongkonan. Toraja is one of the few places in Indonesia where traditional structures continue to be built, other than for the benefit of tourists. The most distinctive feature of the houses is their saddle shaped roofs, with each end shooting high into the sky.
A tongkonan style rice silo, always found next to houses Legend ties the shape of the roofs to the origins of the Torajans.
Hotels in Toraja are spread out all along the valley, from south of Makale through Rantepao and a little beyond. The hotels tend to be somewhat self-contained, since they are located a little away from the towns, and there isn't that much in the way of attractions in the cities anyway. Only the two-star Indra Toraja is located in a town, in Rantepao. Below is a list of all hotels in Tana Toraja available from our booking parters.
Like many regions of Indonesia, Tana Toraja has its own distinctive foods. However, the foods of Toraja are a little more different than most, due mainly to the fact that the vast majority of them are Christian. So, you have such delicacies as braised pork blackened by a special spice found only in Toraja, washed down with some palm wine. Other delicacies include meat (usually chicken) cooked in bamboo, and coffee.
Father and son craftsmen at the woodworkers village Given the elaborate etchings that decorate every traditional tongkonan house, it will come as no surprise that wood carving is one of the main crafts of Tana Toraja. Along side this are weaving and basketry. There are some souvenir shops around the market in Rantepao, but the quality here is not very good. Although the 'woodworkers village' of Kete Kesu exists mostly for the benefit of tourists, the quality here is significantly better than I've seen elsewhere.
Everywhere you go in Tana Toraja, you'll run into coffee. As you travel around the countryside, you'll see coffee, and cocoa, trees planted around the traditional houses in most villages. There was a time, back in the late 1960s, when Toraja was one of the world's leading coffee exporters. While true Torajan coffee is still considered one of the best, many of the farmers haven't kept up with the higher expectations of today's market, so the total output is not what it was.
Among the Torajan, no other celebration is as important as the one celebrating the passage from this world into the next one. Births and birthdays are practically non-events, and weddings pale in comparison. So elaborate and costly are the ceremonies that families must save up and plan for months if not years before the funeral can be held.
This was my first view of the carnage of a Torajan funeral When someone dies, their body is kept in the house with their family.
Near some villages around Tana Toraja, you'll see small fields of stones pointing straight out of the ground. These are called rante, and the stones are in effect memorials to important people of the past. These ceremonial sites are sometimes used for funerals and other important events for the Toraja.
A rante, or memorial stone ceremonial ground The most impressive rante is probably at Bori, north or Rantepao. There are also some interesting boulder graves as well as some trees with infant tombs in them nearby.
6 October 2006
The pool and some of the guest rooms at the Marante Hotel
The Marante Hotel is at the top end of Toraja's meager hotel offerings. Located a short distance north of Rantepao, the hotel is rather basic in design, although there are a few local design touches employed to give it a bit of personality. Like most locally operated hotels throughout Southeast Asia, the hotel suffers a bit from lack of maintenance, but the situation is as yet far from dire.
