Bicycle touring in Sulawesi Selatan

Posted on September 16, 2018 by Bryan Keith

Crossing the mountains between Tolala to Malili we crossed the border from Sulawesi Tenggara to Sulawesi Selatan.  Was the bicycle touring any different?

Our love affair with the durian continued:

20180627_094720 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Bicycle touring Sulawesi Tenggara

Posted on September 6, 2018 by Bryan Keith

The search “bicycle touring in sulawesi tenggara” yields only 30 results in Google, not one of which leads to a page where someone actually bicycle toured in Sulawesi Tenggara.  I guess maybe it’s “off-the-beaten-path.”  Given this dearth of information, we didn’t really know what to expect.  On the negative side, I expected heat and mosquitoes.  On the positive side, I was hoping for nice views, friendly people, and good food — pretty standard wishes for touring cyclists.

20180614_105355 by bryandkeith on flickr

We were certainly pleasantly surprised by the lack of excessive heat.  It was hot between about 10am and 3pm if the sun was out, but that’s a big if — we had many, many cloudy days, keeping the temperature quite pleasant.  Mosquitoes were hardly ever a problem either.

As for the friendly people, well, we found lots and lots of them.  Many, many people wanted to take our photo.  An all too common greeting was “selfie, mister?”
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A little more Wakatobi snorkeling and giant clams near Kendari

Posted on August 27, 2018 by Bryan Keith

After such a brilliant time on Pulau Tomia, we knew to have lower expectations for Wanci (aka Wangiwangi, the “Wa” of Wakatobi).  The best snorkeling was supposed to be north of the city at Sombu so we headed there the first day.  Our first impression of the island, however, was lots of traffic and a sprawling city.  We arrived at a jetty a ways south of the center.  Along the way north looking for a place to stay, we passed a Baju Village and a Baju Resort, a resort built over the water like a Baju village.  Unfortunately it was closed for maintenance — like almost everything we’ve seen in Sulawesi, it did indeed look like it was in need of some maintenance.

20180606_090536 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Boat excursions from Palau Tomia: Pulau Sawa and Kolla Soha

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Bryan Keith

I was planning on only writing one blog about Pulau Tomia, but really that island was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever visited.  As I said in another post, my main goal of coming to Southeast Sulawesi was to find good snorkeling.  The nine days on Pulau Tomia made the entire two-month trip to Sulawesi worthwhile (I’m writing this while we still have three weeks left in Sulawesi!).

On our second-to-last full day on the island, we rode our bicycles back to the Waitii Jetty for the third time.  The condition of the boats at Waitii Jetty doesn’t inspire confidence:

20180531_150136 by bryandkeith on flickr
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Pulau Tomia — a snorkeler’s paradise in the Banda Sea

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Bryan Keith

There’s a lot of hype about Wakatobi.  I suppose it started when Jacques Cousteau said that Wakatobi is “probably the finest diving site in the world”.  However, with hype comes high expectations.  My high expectations were slightly tempered by knowing that most of the hard coral at snorkeling depths in Wakatobi is dead.  However, it didn’t seem like that to me because I had done enough research to know where to snorkel.  As far as I know, we snorkeled at only the best spots on Pulau Tomia and chartered a boat one day to take us out to a “world-class reef”.

Palau Tomia is the “to” in Wakatobi.  The other eponymous islands are Wangiwangi, Kaledupa, and Binongko.  Our first island in Wakatobi was Tomia, on a direct boat from Baubau, a 15-hour trip that some people would call an “adventure”.  I was very happy to have Dramamine.

The boat from Baubau to Pulau Tomia, a 15-hour journey by bryandkeith on flickr

Our boat came into Waitii, not Waha, where most of the accommodation is.
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