The Rolls Royce of Water Buffalo

The water buffalo is invaluable throughout Asia as every thing from the milk, meat and dung are used in everyday life.  There are few places where the powerful animal is more prized than in Tana Toraja on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.  The huge animal is treated like a member of the family and their human partner spends each and everyday with the bovine beast washing, feeding and caring for his companion.  The relationship is mutually beneficial as the beast of burden provides labor by plowing fields, providing transportation and many other tasks that the largely agrarian society requires.

The animals come in various colors, hide patterns and sizes with horns up to 2 meters (over 6.5 feet) long. The most prized however are the albino variety with blue eyes and well-shaped horns, much like the guy pictured here.  To own a near perfect specimen like this is akin to having a fleet of the finest automobiles, a private jet or any other show of wealth in our Western world.

These images come from Balifornian Films (http://www.balifornian.com) upcoming documentary on the elaborate Torajan funerary traditions and rituals, which include the slaughter of these loyal animals.  The funeral celebrations can last weeks with hundreds of mourners bringing offerings including cigarettes, pigs and their own coveted water buffalo. The deceased are then entombed in cliff side tombs, deep in caves or even hanging graves. There is much mystery and intrigue woven into this part of the world.

Bali Tour Toraja

Sulawesi is the home of the age old frightening myth of the "boogie man" propagated in the 15th century by the English to promote negative views of their rivals, the Buginese, who battled the marauding English, Dutch and other Europeans who were trying to obtain strategic control of the lucrative spice trade. In colonial times, cloves for example, coveted by dentists for their anesthetic properties, were more expensive than gold. The cloves only grew on the small ‘spice islands' of Sulawesi. This was also home to many other spices that were desirable the world over.

Copyright © 2010 Balifornian Tours and Travel Blog ~ Michael Doliveck

Our Adventure Photo Safaris ~ Are you a photographer or just love to take pictures?  Contact us to find out about our special tours for photographers.  Take a look at the images in the gallery, as they are good examples of the types of images you will be able to create on our tours.  The tours are led by Michael, a professor of art and photography as well as some very special guest teachers and pro photographers.  Contact us atphoto@balifornian.com today for more information.

Do you have some great images from your Indonesian travels you would like to share? Want to submit your fantastic photo for the Balifornian Tour and Travel Blog Photo of the Day?  Please send your JPEG, location and description to photo@balifornian.com  Files must be under 500 kb.

Happy travels! Salamat Jalan!

Michael and Maryam ~

Balifornian Tours and Travel Blog ~ Is The best website for news and information on Bali and Indonesia.

Photo of the Day ~ Arak, Tuak and a Torajan Elder ~ Balifornian Tours and Travel Blog

This happy man is an elder from Tana Toraja.  We had a brief chat with him over a few glasses of tuak. Tuak is similar to arak (Balinese arak made with coconut palm flower, not the Turkish and Iranian national drink).  It can be a powerful alcoholic beverage made of fermented rice, sugar and yeast. Quality or well brewed tuak can be 50% alcohol.  It is commonly shared and drank at Torajan funerals, festivals, weddings, hosting of guests and other special occasions.  Both tuak and arak are more than just recreational or celebratory drinks.  They are also used as a base for medicine.  Balians (Balinese healers) will commonly use the arak base and add roots, herbs, and other organic materials and use it both internally and externally to cure a variety of maladies. It is said to provide more than simple intoxication and can lead to visions, messages in dreams and even hallucinations.  Authentic high quality tuak and arak are hard to find and are sometimes completely fake and can even be poisonous.  Unfortunately, reports of death from fake arak are not uncommon.  Perhaps illogically the real arak and tuak can be found at warungs (small roadside stands where you can see them making it) vs. liquor stores where the product can be very weak or even cut with harmful chemicals and liquids.

Please note: Beware when purchasing any arak, tuak or any 'homemade liquors' while traveling.  Balifornian Tours can help you source real arak and tuak.  We do not make, manufacture or gain profit from this, we just want you to travel safely.

Copyright © 2010 Balifornian Tours and Travel Blog ~ Michael Doliveck

For more on tuak, arak and Toraja, Sulawesi and its incredible funerary practices, keep an eye out for the upcoming Balifornian Films documentary.

Our Adventure Photo Safaris ~ Are you a photographer or just love to take pictures?  Contact us to find out about our special tours for photographers.  Take a look at the images in the gallery, as they are good examples of the types of images you will be able to create on our tours.  The tours are led by Michael, a professor of art and photography as well as some very special guest teachers and pro photographers.  Contact us at photo@balifornian.com today for more information.

Do you have some great images from your Indonesian travels you would like to share? Want to submit your fantastic photo for the Balifornian Tour and Travel Blog Photo of the Day?  Please send your JPEG, location and description to photo@balifornian.com  Files must be under 500 kb.

Happy travels! Salamat Jalan!

Michael and Maryam ~

Balifornian Tours and Travel Blog ~ The best website for news and information on Bali and Indonesia.

Photo of the Day ~ Torajan Marlboro Woman ~ Balifornian Tours and Travel Blog

A woman sells tobacco, betel nut and vegetables at a weekly market in Tana Toraja, Sulawesi, Indonesia.  Betel nut is chewed as part of social occasions or as a part of daily life. Betel nut is a stimulant and traditional local people chew it for recreation, stress reduction, heightened awareness, and suppression of hunger.

Sulawesi and its incredible funerary practices in Tana Toraja is the subject of an upcoming Balifornian documentary.

Copyright © 2010 Balifornian Tours and Travel Blog ~ Michael Doliveck

Our Adventure Photo Safaris ~ Are you a photographer or just love to take pictures?  Contact us to find out about our special tours for photographers.  Take a look at the images in the gallery, as they are good examples of the types of images you will be able to create on our tours.  The tours are led by Michael, a professor of art and photography as well as some very special guest teachers and pro photographers.  Contact us at photo@balifornian.com today for more information.

Do you have some great images from your Indonesian travels you would like to share? Want to submit your fantastic photo for the Balifornian Tour and Travel Blog Photo of the Day?  Please send your JPEG, location and description to photo@balifornian.com  Files must be under 500 kb.

Happy travels! Salamat Jalan!

Michael and Maryam ~

Balifornian Tours and Travel Blog ~ The best website for news and information on Bali and Indonesia.

Balifornian Tours announces amazing new tours

Exciting new tours announced from Balifornian Tours- Go to http://www.balifornian.com/destinations/  for more information. 

The new tours include...

Kalimantan and Borneo- Including the Orangutans!

Discover Central Kalimantan, visit the Orangutan National Park / Tanjung Puting National Park. See the Orang Utan ( Pongo pygmeus ) and other wildlife; agile gibbons, black handed gibbons (hylobates agilis), gray gibbons, proboscis monkeys, crab-eating macagues, larges dragonflies, a several large birds such as hornbilis, eagles & kingfishers

Tana Toraja - Experience increadible culture and mindblowing rituals.  

This unique tour to one of Indonesia most mysterious places can also be combined with any Bali tour. 

Bright green rice terraces, tall limestone outcrops and bamboo graves are set against a backdrop of blue misty mountains. Traditional Tongkonan houses stand proudly in this setting. These intricately decorated houses with upward-sloping roofs are the center of all Aluktodolo ( Torajan religion before the coming of missionaries; the ancestors belief ) rites; from storing the harvest in the carved rice barns, "alang", to slaughtering sacred water buffaloes at a week or more-funeral ceremonies. Tana Toraja's beauty is also reflected in its people. Although they are devoutly Christian ( there are small number of Moslems especially in the southern area), they combine this religious belief with magic and mysticism. Secure in their ethnic identity, they welcome visitors to witness their ceremonies.

The land of the Toraja people, many notionally Christian but most in practice animist, is above all famed for their spectacular (and rather gruesome) burial rites. After a person's death, the body is kept — often for several years — while money is saved to pay for the actual funeral ceremony, known as tomate. During the festival, which may last up to a week, ritual dances and buffalo fights are held, and buffaloes and pigs are slaughtered to ferry the soul of the deceased to the afterlife (puya). The deceased is then finally buried either in a small cave, often with a tau-tau effigy placed in front, inside a hollow tree or even left exposed to the elements in a bamboo frame hanging from a cliff.

Tana Toraja has unique culture set in stunning scenery. Globalisation and tourism may have impact, but if you venture away from the tarmac roads you will find soon a way of life that has not changed much in the last 100 years.(Wiki)

Komodo- This boat tours stops at some remote islands with great opportunities for snorkling and diving and culminates with an up close and personal trek with The Komodo Dragons.  The tour starts from Lombok with a half-day tour to visit traditional Lombok villages and it’s peoples’ daily life.  We will also stop in Lombok’s main pottery making village on the way to the harbor. With a newly designed boat, we will explore the beauty of The amazing Sumbawa coast with its beautiful small islands including the well known Komodo Island.  Then we are off to Labuan Bajo in Flores. On the way back, we will have a chance to visit Rinca, Moyo, and Keramat Island. We will then make our return to Lombok.

Yogyakarta 

Yogyakarta is one of the last intact Javanese Empires in all of Indonesia, with the Sultanate still holds jurisdiction. The Sultan's Palace is the hub of Yogyakarta's traditional life and, despite the advance of modernity, still emanates the spirit of refinement, which has been the hallmark of Yogya's culture for centuries. Yogya is center of Javanese arts and culture, as well as a historically rich and important city.

Yogyakarta is the gateway to reach the world famous "Borobudur" Buddhist temple, which is considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Borobudur was built by Sanmaratungga in the 8th century, and was revealed by Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles in 1814. The temple was found in ruined condition and was buried. After the independent (1945), the Indonesian Government gave the restoration of Borobudur high priority, invited archaeological mission and in 1955 requested UNESCO's assistance.

Papua New Guinea (formely Irian Jaya)

Papua New Guinea or Irian Jaya is one of the world's most remote regions and contains some of the most interesting and protected cultures one can find.  Balifornian Tours unique access to this region will make your trip infinitely easier and more rewarding.

West Papua Package Tours (Formerly Irian Jaya)

The cultures of the Papua tribes are fascinating. The island's terrain is rough, mountainous, and covered by rain forest. Communications between villages are by narrow foot paths.  Nowadays Irian Jaya is divided into 2 Provinces: Papua Barat and Papua Timur. Sorong is the capital city of Papua Barat, while Jayapura, the capital of East Papua province, is five hours by plane from Bali. Daily flights connect these two cities via Ujungpandang or Biak. From Jayapura or Sentani, a tour to the hinterland is possible. A police permit is required in order to visit Irian Jaya. We can arrange this for you in Jayapura.

Other tours include Sulawesi, Lombok, Sumatra and many other exotic locations.