Back in Jakarta I am looking back at three weeks in Indonesia. I am tired but satisfied. The first ten days touring with the Boi Akih band are unforgettable. The beauty of the Maluku and South Sulawesi have left a big impression.
Here are a few results from this morning’s work on the Dutch past in Makassar that made me soaking wet.
The governor’s residence
Nice Dutch villa
I am overlooking the bay from the hotel restaurant in the form of a ship on the last morning in Makassar.
It has the best view of ships coming and going, and the wind makes the heat bearable. I can watch these scenes for hours.
This morning I went by taxi to the various Dutch historical sites in Makassar to make pictures. The governor’s residence, the court building, pleasant villas, Fort Rotterdam and societeit De Harmonie. The latter I could not photograph, as my camera’s battery needs to be reloaded. To my surprise the inside of De Harmonie was being renovated by the local government. The old red seats were stored in the open.
My flight back to Jakarta is at 17:10.
Back in Makassar from the high land of Toraja. We left the Marante Hotel at 07:10; first hours wit mountains and Tonkonans. Impressive again for a few hours. We made a nice coffee stop at Mrs HJ Jemma’s place in Enrekang. She had dreamt last night about her Dutch friend Jan, who lives in Canada but now works in Africa. We look a like, a photo showed. So we made another photo.
This is Jan (picutre from a picture)
And this is me with the lady.
Here is a nice profile of Monica that Sara Veal published in today’s Jakarta Post: Singing the past to life.
This was all based on the interview she had before the concert in Jakarta.
Driving around Toraja and doing occasional walks bring me the beauty of this land of mountains.
The Tongkonan’s in the form of a saddle or a ship are beautiful
Toraja lies 1,500 above sea level in the mountains of central Sulawesi. We started at the animal market, where people were buying bulls and pigs for a funeral ceremony we are seeing later today.
Beautiful Tongkonan’s, traditional houses that seem to pop up around every bend in Toraja land.
I am now in South Sulawesi for my individual tour starting from Makassar.
This is the view from my first hotel.
Here are a few pictures from after the last concert in Bandung.
Me selling all the CDs we carried. Monica left 43 behind with
a hotel in Ambon that was interested in selling them locally.
Monica signing her CD for enthusiastic fans.
Jazz-loving Jakartans were treated to a truly magical evening at Erasmus Huis, Kuningan, on Thursday as Boi Akih filled the amphitheatre with vibrant melodies and rhytms. This is how Sara Veal started her story in the entertainment section of the Jakarta Post on 5 September.
Sara also quoted me and mentioned my blog. Unfortunately they used the wrong URL, so my comment with the right URL is now online. We are still trying to have copies of the paper version that must have had a few pictures.
The Boi Akih band did a last concert for an enthusiastic full house in the auditorium of the Technology Institute (ITB) in Bandung. Tcoild here I sold the last 20 CDs, we could have sold at least 15 others.
Before the concert they did a three-hour workshop with 10 students each. This time I filmed the start of the concert and each of the workshops with my flip video camera. If you want to see how this works, see this film on YouTube.
Niels and his students