Toraja, Fancy Bus, Two Governments
Have you ever heard about Toraja Coffee? If you are a caffeine freak, I bet you know about this famous coffee, especially its Arabica variety.
Located 1,500 above sea level make Toraja the best place to grow our little coffee beans. Based on that ground-level no wonder why Buginese people call their neighbor as Toraja comes from to riaja phrase meaning people of the uplands.
Toraja is about 300 km from Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi. You can achieve Toraja by a public bus or by car for about 7 hours. What’s stunned me at first was the public bus price, it’s around IDR150k to IDR400k, quite higher than other destinations. For example, to reach Palopo, plus/minus 380km from Makassar, 9 hours travel, we just need to pay around IDR200k.
Where has the price gap come? It comes from its facilities we got on the bus. It’s common for Toraja’s bus to have wider reclining seats, completing with a blanket, power cord, and cushion. To make it better, there are Sleeper Bus in which we can get a small room to straighten our legs.
I found it pleasurable to use Toraja’s bus for a night trip. With our luxury bus, we can sleep better and longer, solving our main problem when having a night trip with a bus.
We can wait for the bus on Daya Bus Interchange or headed straight to the bus agents. But today most bus operators have their reservation website so you can google for Toraja Bus and make a reservation or call their office to get help making a reservation.
Started from September 2008 there are two local governments, Toraja Utara (North Toraja) and Tana Toraja, the latest is the old one. North Toraja separated to 21 kecamatan (district) with 1,217.98 km square, while Tana Toraja has 19 districts on the 2,054,30 km square.
Before that time point, there was only Tana Toraja Regency. You can imagine how wide is Tana Toraja’s region, even after the separation, each still has up to 20s districts.
North Toraja has Rantepao as it Capital on the other side, Makale is Tana Toraja’s Capital. Makale is more steeply, almost no flatland encountered. Rantepao is further in that aspect, it has a broad enough flat ground so it’s easier for you who love to take a walk around the city.
I found no difference between people, culture or the language in both regencies.
As you can see in the above picture, the curved roof (inspired by a boat form) is Toraja’s characteristics. Anywhere in Toraja, you’ll see the same building structure’s shape called Tongkonan. Tongkonan used as a residential and a barn. It colors, layout, shape and others aspect has its philosophical background. I hope we can elaborate more on Tongkonan in the future.
This is my first post about Toraja, in the other article I’ll talk about its coffee and other stuff.
Cheers.
