Flying to the south

Leaving Gorontalo

After the bad sleep on the ferry, I woke at 0550 after nearly 9h of sleep.  Not hungry, I spent some time writing before having breakfast around 0800.

With my flight to Makassar in South Sulawesi at 1115 I thought I’d leave at 0900.  With an estimated journey time of 45 mins to the airport, I’d be there 1h30 prior to the flight.  When I checked, later on Google Maps, the journey time was closer to an hour.  Ordering my Grab car, I noticed an option for bike or bentor (tuktuk) for less than the car.  It was IDR127K car vs 86K bike vs 75K bentor; strangely the bike was more than the bentor.  I opted for the bentor as I thought it would be fun and offer a better view.

I wasn’t thinking straight.  The bentor was slower than going by car.  Leaving at 0850 I got to the airport at 1015 exactly 1h prior to departure.  In Indonesian domestic airports this is adequate but I don’t like cutting it so fine.

I checked-in OK and it was a short wait till boarding and the 1h30 flight on Lion Air’s 737-900ER to Makassar.

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In Makassar

Arriving at Makassar, I walked out of the arrivals area expecting to see my name lit up in lights (or at least on a board held up by someone).  I had prebooked a transfer to my hotel through Traveloka with an awesome 50% discount, making it super-cheap.  Their normal price is the same as a Grab car.

However, there was no one waiting for me.  I tried the local operator’s number and the driver’s number.  Neither worked.  Luckily I noticed that the driver’s number was one digit too long and dropping the last digit (a zero) connected me to someone.

I was asked to walk to the basement pick-up area where a driver picked me up shortly after for the ride to Favehotel Losari Beach.  I  learnt that it hadn’t rained for about  8 months in Makassar; the dry season doesn’t normally last that long.  Much of the grass on the roadside was brown already.

I was ready for lunch once checked-in and ate at Pak Tjomot nearby which did an awesome karedok and sirsak juice (amongst other things that looked delicious in the pictures).

Makassar is very hot so I rested in my room till around 1600 before ordering a Grab car to Fort Rotterdam.  It was only fractionally more than a bike; no need to put on someone else’s helmet and safer in an accident.

Fort Rotterdam is an old Dutch fort built over an older local fort.  I had a nice little walkaround and entered the two-storey museum that showed South Sulawesi culture including Toraja.  I continued for a brief walk on the wall of the fort before leaving for the waterfront.

At around 1700, stalls were already set up on the waterfront.  I wasn’t hungry since I had a late lunch.  But it didn’t appear that I was missing out on much from the stalls.  Most of the stalls offered the same drinks, grilled meatballs and grilled green bananas (called Pisang Epe).

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I retreated to my room briefly before having dinner nearby at a place that specialised in Mie Ti Ti (crispy fried noodles with a thickened sauce, similar to Malaysian Yee Mien).  But as I didn’t want deep-fried crispy noodles, I opted for Mie Jakarta which was fried with a little liquid.  The seafood in it was generous but I guess it was expensive for Indonesia (or even Malaysia) for such a simple place.

I had trouble sleeping as I had overdosed on sleep last night.  I normally need only 6h per night plus an occasional catch-up.  At around 2230 I noticed that the AirAsia flight I had been monitoring from Manila to Boracay Caticlan had dropped by around 60% (but still not cheap cheap because that seems to be the nature of the Filipino market).  Their sale was supposed to start at midnight but to my surprised, the price had dropped an hour-plus beforehand.

I grabbed the ticket immediately but it was still a while before I could fall asleep.  Aaarrrggghhh!