Sulawesi – New Island

Day 1 – Makassar / Leaving Balikpapan Yeay!!

After another poor breakfast we had to hang around until midday to get a taxi to take us to the airport so we could leave Balikpapan and head for a new Island (Not originally on the plan) of Sulawesi.

We had a bit of a wait at the airport and filled this time with eating some Starbucks cakes before discovering a noodle restaurant around the corner, so we had a bowl of noodles each to kill the time.

We caught our flight and were soon arriving in Sulawesi and had to get a taxi to the town centre of Makassar.  As usual you have to run the gauntlet of the taxi stand, always aware that you are very likely to get ripped off and so we opted for the meter charge instead of the fixed charge (In the end it worked out about the same price).

The journey to our hotel took about an hour due to traffic and we passed the dock area which have quite a number of bars but it was not somewhere we were thinking of going as according to our guide book these are just a front for go-go bars/knocking shops and the road in affectionately known by locals as vagina street!!

Arriving at the hotel we were quite surprised at how swish it was (4 star I think), we checked in and unpacked whilst we waited for the tour guy to come and meet us to pick up the deposit for the trip we had arranged.

 

Once Mr Lili had picked up his cash we headed out to check out the nightlife in the area and after a short while we found ourselves in a bar along the waterfront named Kare Kariba where we had a few beers whilst we listened to the local cabaret act who was singing in the bar (think caravan holiday camp), before returning home for the night.

Day 2 – It ain’t half hot mum!

Enjoying our reasonably plush hotel room we got up slightly later and managed to catch the last knockings of the breakfast serving, which was to be fair quite a decent buffet spread with eggs made to order.

After breakfast we relaxed for the morning in our room before heading out around midday to see what else Makassar had to offer.  We wandered around for a bit taking the odd photo on the waterfront but it was blisteringly hot, after finding a cash machine to draw some more funds from to pay for our upcoming trip we thought we needed to find a bar to cool down.

 

Unfortunately there appeared to be no bars open on the street until the evening and after checking out a plush hotel, who’s bar was also shut we decided to head back to the hotel to cool down.

On the way back and drenched in sweat we picked up some ice-creams from a shop next to the hotel before taking them to our room and eating them whilst watching a movie on TV.

We waited until the evening to venture out again and found ourselves in the bar/restaurant from the night before to have dinner.  It was a bit of a hit and miss tapas affair, the papaya veg dish was very bitter and the less said about the crab cakes in banana leave the better.

Washing some of the taste away we had a couple more beers before going back to the hotel to have and early night as we were going to start our cultural/death tour the next morning.