Arus’s friend arrived at
10 am in Bira to drive us to Makassar.
The trip was long but we
broke it up with a tasty lunch and drink. I wasn’t feeling too well so we had
to make a few urgent toilet stops along the way.
We finally arrived at the
Makassar Golden Hotel. We checked in and after looking at our room we moved due
to the lack of sea view.
We called Mina who was
working about being our sponsor for our visa extension. She couldn’t make it
but she arranged for her best friend Kiki to help us.
THE PROMENADE
I liked to have a morning and/or afternoon walk along the promenade.
MAKASSAR GOLDEN HOTEL
Well, this hotel wasn’t up
to expectations.
The good – the room/s were
big, the bed comfortable, the staff very good and there were good views from
restaurant.
The not so good- the room was in need of maintenance, the
pool was dirty as it had no filter, bags of rubbish and pool equipment and
chemicals were lying haphazard over the gardens, the building was falling apart,
outside noise at night was loud and the breakfast was ordinary.
There are much better
hotels in Makassar. Don’t stay!
MUSIC OR NOISE
On our first night, music
started thumping a deep bass at about 11pm and continued to 2 am.
The next night, we were bombarded
by two lots of music till a ridiculous time in the morning.
We moved rooms to one
facing away from the city. Finally, a good night’s sleep!
THE VISA EXTENSION PART 2
We had already started on
the visa extension that we got about a week ago. It was possible to get the
next extension so seeing that we knew what to do we thought all would be okay
...
Kiki (Mina’s friend)
arrived at 10 am to our hotel and then we caught a car to the Immigration
Office. We were fairly confident we knew what to do.
At the desk Lia, the
Immigration Officer informed us that we
needed a signed form from Trully if we wanted to change sponsors. Oh dear. We
couldn’t contact Trully so Lia contacted her for us and she agreed to sponsor
us again and the passports would be ready tomorrow. Lia was annoyed with us
until we all realised that the problem was with Trully’s mobile number as you
needed ‘whats app’ to ring her and I didn’t have Whats app on my mobile.
Anyway, all was sorted
then in the afternoon we got a message from Lia and Trully that the Immigration
online system was down and our visa couldn’t be processed until it was fixed.
Oh dear!
Nothing we could do until
all was good. We put all this aside and carried on with our holiday.
The following day, we
contacted Trully and the system was back on line and the visa extension would
be ready tomorrow.
The next day, we met up
with Trully at our hotel. Trully had our passports and completed visa extension
and we paid her 500 000r for visa fee each and 500 000r for Trully’s effort.
All good now for the next
seven weeks!
FOOD
We had a great fish dinner
at the Noddle House and a free dessert and ice block. The staff were lovely and
the owner friendly and generous.
There was a good coffee
house just down from our hotel. We sat there many times enjoying hot and iced cappuccinos.
The warungs along the
promenade had delicious snacks and small meals. I loved the hot corn on the
cob, the avocado with chocolate syrup juice and the hot rotis smothered in palm
syrup and melted chocolate and sprinkled with Milo. So yum!
THE TRANS STUDIO INDOOR
AMUSEMENT PARK
We caught a grab to the
Trans Studio Mall for the indoor amusement park. The entry was just over 100
000r and it included all the rides. There was no crowd and no queues.
The best rides were the mirror
maze, the tower, the ferris wheel, the water boat ride and the roller coaster.
It was fun and later we
walked around the shops in the mall and had lunch.
DINNER WITH MINA AND REVAN
On our last night in
Makassar, Mina and Revan wanted to us to dinner. They were at a conference and drove 2 hours to
get there. We had such a good night eating, chatting and laughing.
Flight Bali to Makassar – 2
adults - Lion Air – 3 006 000R – this included 20 kg of luggage
THE ARRIVAL
We had no dramas on our
Lion Air flight from Bali to Makassar in South Sulawesi. We checked in, had coffee and croissants and
boarded our flight.
The plane was delayed ½
hour as they had to move a lot of carry-on luggage into the cargo bay. It was
unbelievable the number and size of the bags that they had to move. The reason
was that Lion Air gave no free baggage and so people stacked their bags away
from the check in counter. No one questions at the other boarding procedures
along the way why people had so much carry-on luggage.
The flight was just over
an hour and picking up our bags was quick as there were hardly any bags on the
airport carousel. Ha ha, wonder why!
Outside the airport, we
were greeted by Mina my long time friend and driven to our hotel, Swiss-bel Makassar.
Mina gave us a beautiful welcoming present of a box of small cakes and a
beautiful scrapbook of Jacinta and me. It was very touching. We had a present
for Mina of Bali scents.
THE VISA EXTENSION
PART A
Our main job in Makassar
was to extend our visa by 30 days.
We set off to extend our
visa. We caught a taxi to the immigration office. We entered the small building
and were informed that they do not process foreign visa extensions at this
office and we needed to go to the other immigration office. Okay. We used our
Grab App and with the help of one of the immigration officers and we were off
to the bigger immigration office.
We arrived at the bigger
office with no problems and walked up to the second floor. It was very well
organised and sign posted. At the counter, the lady explained that we needed a
letter from a sponsor. We didn’t have one! Could she be our sponsor? No. Can
someone here be our sponsor? No. Does she know someone who could help us? Yes I
will call... Twenty minutes lady we were introduced to truly. She told us to
get sponsor forms and stamps. She completed the forms and had them and her ID
photocopied. Then it was back to the visa extension office for photo and finger
printing.. All was good. Next, Tully drove us to a Post office or ATM through
her account to pay for the visa. 1 000 000R for two. We decided on the ATM.
Next we drove to Trully’s house where we had a drink and cake while she
photographed the Payment invoices then we gave her the money. At her house we
met her husband. A nice gut but not well. Next, Trully drove us to our hotel
and would get our passports with the extension on Monday and deliver to our
hotel. Of course, there was a charge for her services but it was worth it,
especially, for the cake at her house.
It was a bit more complex
than I thought it would be but now we know what to do for the next extension.
PART B
By Monday, there were no
messages about our passports. There were no messages on my phone and the Immigration
Office and the agent were not answering their phones. We were a bit (a lot
really) concerned so we organised a car to take us to the Immigration Office.
The traffic was horrific and we made it to our destination with five minutes to
spare.
At the visa counter, they
informed us that Trully had picked up the passports this morning. They rang
Trully a couple of times and got her address for us. We then drove to her house
to get our passports. We were not impressed as she said she texted me but there
was no text on my phone. Basically, she didn’t seem too perturb that we had to go
find her to get our passports. More lessons learnt!
Now we had our visa
extension! The plan was to do our next extension in a week’s time or so when
the extension we just got had started to be implemented. Of course there’s more
to this story that will come later.
FORT ROTTERDAM
Jacinta and I had a wander
around the fort one morning. It was very close to our hotel. There was a
donation on entry and a charge to visit the museums that were inside the fort.
The fort was surrounded by
a large and thick stone/brick wall the
top of the wall was wide enough to drive a car.
The inside of the fort was
open grassed areas and many wooden buildings.
It was interesting walking
on thee wall, around the buildings and through the museums.
LOSARI BEACH
We spent a lot of time
wandering along the promenade of Losari Beach.
Losari Beach is not a beach
of either sand or rocks. The edge of the promenade either slopes downward or
drops vertical into the water. That is the beach. Maybe in the past there was
a beach there but it’s not there now. J
Being a western tourist
(bule) is a reasonably unusual sight in Makasssar. The local people will
randomly ask you for a photo of you with them or sneak a photo of themselves with
you in the background. We usually, said yes to photos as we usually take photos
of Indonesians in their daily life.
On Sunday, I met up with
Mina, Antomina and another friend in the morning in the hotel lobby. I showed
them around the hotel and then we had a walk along the promenade. Today was traffic
free day so the road was blocked from traffic and there were stalls set up for
about a kilometre. It was fun walking along – buying some food, drinks and a
t-shirt and dancing to the Zumba exercise music. The locals were dancing
happily away to the music. And yes, I joined in as well.The girls were having a bit of a hard time
walking with me. I don’t know why people were looking at them with ‘questioning
and knowing’ looks, as I was theonly
bule walking around and three pretty girls. I started smiling at people and
saying hello and walking a short distance from the girls every now and then.
The latter seemed to ease the problem.
There is a beautiful
mosque that stood on stilts over the water. It is okay to enter but of course
you must remove your shoes and be appropriately dressed.
The promenade was
especially nice early in the morning and at sunset. We sat a number of times
and watched the sunset over the ocean. It was so beautiful and serene.
THE HOTEL
Makassar is hot,
especially through the middle part of the day. The traffic fumes do not help
either. Having a good hotel is pretty important especially as we were probably
going to be there for a few days to organise our visa extension.
We chose the SwissBel.
Relatively, it was expensive but the benefits were great. A nice pool to rest
around or swim laps, a good breakfast, very clean and cool rooms and very helpful
staff.
We had a long chat with
Nungky in reception about constructive critical thinking in schools in
Indonesia. She thought that she was taught this but that it was not the norm at
schools as in many village areas it rarely gets any attention. Maybe no
needas most people are born, live and
die in the same village.
FOOD
Eating out in Makassar was
a bit tricky. The warungs or the restaurants, which was the best.
We ate a number of
restaurants and the food was okay but not exciting. The best place we thought
was the Noodle House. The owner was friendly and helpful. We chatted with him
and he told us of his holiday in Australia. We had whole fish, vegetables and a
number of side dishes. We picked our fish from the display in the front of the
shop. He gave us dessert for free.
The warungs were great for
juices and snack foods. I especially loved the avocado juice and the hot corn
on the cob. All cooked and prepared in front of you.
A DAY OUT WITH MINA
AND REVAN
One morning, I rang Mina
for some suggestions on something to do. A lot of text was exchanged and by
about 10:30am Mina and Revan arrived to take us on a tour.
We visited a large spiral
monument. The monument was closed but off ran Mina and after a short while she
returned with an attendant and a key. The man opened the entrance to the
monument and turned on the internal lighting. There were two floors of display.
The ground floor showed the recent history of conflict between the Dutch and
the Indonesians which lead to independence. The lower floor depicted scenes
from earlier local conflicts with the Dutch in South Sulawesi. It was all very
interesting.
There was an elevated that
didn’t work that could but couldn.t take you to the top of the tower.
Next, we drove to Benteng
(fort) Sumbo Opu. There was an interesting wooden two storey restored building
which had various displays of the Gowa time period. We also visited a grave
which could bring luck to men who seek it. There is also another grave where
women go for luck as well.
We drove back into town
and stopped at a restaurant for lunch and drinks and chatting.
We were going to Bira
tomorrow and Revan organised a friend of his to drive us there.
LAST THOUGHTS
We were happy despite the
running around that we had extended our visas.
Makassar has the prettiest
sunsets. We enjoyed a few beers watching them from the rooftop bar at the
Swiss-bel and on the downstairs terrace.
On the last breakfast, I pigged
out on baguettes, croissants, fruit and cappuccinos. Yum yum!
We were so lucky to have
friends in Makassar like Mina and Revan to help us and to have fun with.
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